Accutane - Week 1

So yes, I have started Accutane for my skin. I know it's not that terrible like most people who go on the medicine, but nothing has seemed to help my skin after 2 years. So I bit the bullet and decided to take it. So hopefully after 5 months, I won't have to worry about acne any more for the rest of my life or super slippery, oily skin! I have decided to document my journey here week by week. Week 1 has been very uneventful. I have been waiting for side effects to start happening. No mood swings, no depression, not even dry skin, yet. So today, I have seen a change. My face is oily yet dry. My lips are slowly becoming drier. My face has hurt today, it's been sore. It feels like a bad zit is forming under the skin essentially, but there were no zits earlier today. I actually seem to have clearer skin. Not just my face, but my back and chest as well. But a very scary thing I noticed earlier this evening was the texture of my skin on my face. It has become bumpy and not smooth whatsoever, when it was before. I assume it's my oil glands? I can feel it when I run my fingers over the surface. I hope that goes away and doesn't mean I'm going to have an unreal acne explosion since my face is essentially clear right now. I'm going to research the skin texture issue. My nose is also starting to dry out. It's cracking in the bottom nostril area and I'm getting more bloody boogers like when I go visit out west since it's so dry. It's going to get painful. I'm going to invest in saline solution! I'm also combating any sort of bodily dry skin with baby oil. I don't have any dry skin yet, but I'm sure it's coming, so I figured I'd get a jump on it, especially since we're having a cold snap this week and lots of wind from Hurricane Sandy! Anyway, the baby oil is fabulous and cheap. I love it. I may continue to use it after my Accutane journey is over. I'll be back in a week with a new report!

Oh yeah, I have a blog.

So I always seem to forget that I have a blog. Oh yeah, here it is, unwritten in/on? since 2010. A year and a half. I didn't even finish writing about my Backstreet Boys cruise, which was like the highlight of my entire life. I'm a slacker. A blob. A ridiculous blogger. Do I even get that title? Anyway, I thought I would bring it back for a while, or until I forget again haha. So I have decided since watching Joe Cross' "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead", that I am going to attempt a 10 day juice fast. If Joe can do 60 days, surely I can do 10. My goodness. If you haven't seen this documentary, I HIGHLY recommend it. It was incredible. He healed himself of his sickness just by eating vegetables and fruits. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it - God made it, it comes from the earth, it's good for you. Once man gets ahold of food, it turns into doo, full of pesticides, hormones, etc. Keep it healthy. Anyway, I'm going to attempt it and hope I can do it. The main reason (other than weight loss) that I want to try this is for my skin! One of the women in the documentary that Joe convinces to try the juice fast, her skin looked unreal at day 10! Her skin wasn't bad before whatsoever, but it just glowed, it looked magnificent. I'm hoping this can help just clear up my skin. I'd love to not take my antibiotic or put any crap on my face but moisturizer and sunscreen. That would be amazing. So we'll see. Anyway, I have decided to blog about my experience, day by day. Hopefully it'll help me stay distracted from not being able to eat whole food. It'll keep me occupied as well! I'm so excited! Most people have lost an obscene amount of weight. Joe Cross lost 80-90 pounds in 2 months! That's unreal! I don't want to lose that much obviously or that quickly, but 15-20 would be great. I'm going to see how the 10 days go and adjust accordingly. You obviously can't eat immediately after the 10 days or you'll gain all of your weight back. Slowly add back some whole veggies and fruits. Then other things too. Hopefully my stomach will be so small, I can barely hold anything haha. I'm excited. When I did my fruit flush a few years ago, it was only 3 days, but I lost 6.5 lbs and kept it off. I just cut out processed food most of the time. That seems to be what most of America needs to do. Any way, I'm gonna document my journey on here just to remember it all!

Backstreet's Back Alright! - Day 2

So our day began in sunny Key West. What a nice change from semi-cold, rainy Miami. Ew. Key West was beautiful and warm. So nice. So Megan and I got off the ship and went to explore Key West. It's pretty small so we could walk everywhere. We found Duval Street, the original Margaritaville, and the sign where the interstate system began. No lie. Mile 0 starts there. Kinda crazy. The southernmost point of the United States is there too but it was a little too far to walk to. Anyway, we went to an internet cafe for a good hour haha. I had some key lime pie. It was good. That's about it. We met some BSB fans from California that took our picture for us. They were super nice. Back to the ship we went.


We went to the Question and Answer session once we got back. It was about an hour and a half long. Fun stuff. Not much to say about it honestly. It was formal night on the ship that day too, plus the BSB Masquerade party. So we got to wear our fancy dresses. Vanity night as Megan called it haha. I was excited. My dress was new with pockets! So we got all dressed up and went to dinner. P.S. Carnival has this warm melting chocolate cake that is unreal. No lie, I got it 3 nights for dessert. It's like brownie soup. Amazing. I want it now. Anyway, after dinner, we went to the Masquerade which was a lot of fun. Everyone was dressed up with fun masks. Megan made both of ours and they looked amazing. So awesome. I can't believe they turned out so well. So, let me just tell you, these deck parties that were every night, didn't start til midnight or later. So we were dying by that time and weren't super pumped to party. But we stayed til about 2am I think and decided to call it a night. We weren't sure when the boys would start door knocking anyway.






That's another thing! A staff guy told us in the hall that Nick would be coming around to knock on fan's decorated doors to meet them after the Masquerade. Well Nick even told us this during the Q&A session earlier. So we were super excited. Well, we didn't wanna stay up all night and no one show, but we also didn't wanna take off our makeup and be in our pajamas if they did come. Solution? Sleep in our dresses. That's just what we did haha. It was so funny. Here we are in our formal dresses with hair and makeup done laying in bed with the covers over us. So the hallways and walls weren't sound proof, so we heard people all weekend long up and down the hallways. About 3:30am I hear someone next door somehow. I jumped out of bed and yelled at Megan to get up! I went and opened the door to look and there was security guard standing next door. He said, "Shhhhh....Shut your door." So I did and ran back in the room and got Megan to zip my dress up, fixed my hair, and for some reason realized my breath probably stunk, so we both stuffed some mints in our mouth. By that time, someone knocked at the door. We both opened it and it was AJ! Simultaneously we both gave a high spirited "HI!" It was so surreal let me tell you. So he came in and Megan went to shake his hand, and he took it and kissed it, along with mine :D Then, he looked around and told us our room was messy. I wanted to say, well, I'm sorry, we don't have a suite like you, but I bit my tongue haha. he asked if we wanted a photo and for some reason we didn't bother getting individuals, we got a group shot, but it was SO good! I was very pleased. After that, I said, "Hey, do you have a second?" and he said sure. (side note) All cruise long they were rushing them here and there to do stuff so we never thought we'd get actual time with any of them, thats why I asked beforehand. Anyway, I had my BSB pages out. I almost didn't give them to him, but I thought, Cortney, you've been working on these for your entire adolescence almost, give him the f-ing pages. You said you were going to all of those years, now grow some kahunas and DO IT. So I did. I prepped him by saying, "Now, you're gonna think I'm insane, but...." And he stopped me and said, "No, trust me, I won't" haha. So I started flipping through the papers and told him in a round about way that I had written I Love BSB 100,000 times and had counted them all. Megan, God bless her soul, she thought to take a picture as I was talking to him, now I have actual proof. Love her. Anyway, about this time, I started to shake. When he first got there I was just really excited, but not nervous. Well, I could feel my hands shaking and see it in the papers. I was anticipating his reaction and thought, what if he hates it? Well I didn't have to worry about that because he responded with a "This is pretty fucking cool." I could not of asked for a better response :) So after that I somehow found the page that has like 3,500 on one side and showed him. I don't know why, but I did. He blinked a few times and said, "That hurts my eyes." Haha! I said, "I know mine too, I don't know how I wrote that small back then." I think that was all. I wish someone could of filmed the entire thing. So then he signed some autographs for us. He signed Megan's cd and I didn't have anything, so I got a piece of paper out of my purse and he wrote, I Love You 1,000,000,000,000 times. SO GREAT! After that he left and handed the pages to the security guard. I kind of handed him him the manila envelope I had them in so they wouldn't get messed up and he took it graciously and said that would probably be a good, safe place for them. He was quite nice about it, I was surprised.





After he left and the door shut, Megan and I both screamed! Ohhhh we sat and reveled for a good 20 minutes about it. We replayed the entire thing over about 5 times. She took a picture of me with my autograph too. I look so giddy haha. We were so glad we heard it, woke up, and had slept in our dresses. Such an amazing experience. And of all of the members to come knocking, AJ came, and I got to give my pages to him. I don't know if Nick's reaction would of been as good as AJ's. Who knows. I was thrilled with the entire thing. So, we put on our pajamas and went back to bed about 4am. I think I laid there a good hour, not sleeping, running on adrenaline.

Backstreet's Back Alright! - Day 1

So I definitely forget I even have this blog until I go on a trip somewhere and want to remember every detail. The Backstreet Boys cruise is one of those trips. AMAZING. Such an unreal experience I tell you. Jesus was on our side the entire trip. Everything was in our favor somehow. Praise God for it!

So our trip begin Wednesday night. Megan came to the house and we got stuff ready for the cruise. I was quite nervous about this because we're only acquaintances, not even really friends, minus facebook. She went on my trip to Italy and Greece with me, but we didn't really talk. She was with Interior Design. But we became facebook friends regardless and I saw that she loved BSB as much as I did! So other than facebooking each other, I saw her last April when she came and gave me a check for her airline ticket. Then she came Wednesday night. Haha. I prayed we got along alright and we did :) So anyway she came and we got stuff together for our door decorating contest and talked for a while then went to bed early since we had to get up at 2:15am. Ugh. It was more of a long nap than a night of sleep. We went to bed around 10pm I think. So then dad took us to the Groome Shuttle place for our shuttle to Atlanta. Our ride was good, only us and another guy so we had plenty of room. We made it to Atlanta fine, no issues checking in, finding our gate, etc. Our flight went well and we made it to Miami in one piece WITH luggage intact. I was so afraid we'd lose it and have nothing for the cruise.

We got a taxi to the ship then and checked in. We were early so we had to wait about an hour and while we were, we heard screams! We jump up and see Backstreet walking by! Ah!!!! We about crapped our pants with excitement. We were taking pictures along with other fans and some people next to us asked who that was and we told them and they said, Oh crap. Let's go home now. Haha. So we checked in and went to eat lunch. About an hour later, we see Howie waltz in the door, no big deal right? We were like WTF!??!!?!?! ITS HOWIE! He was with his wife and child obviously but there he was eating like anyone else. We just kind of assumed beforehand that they'd be under lock and key the entire cruise and we wouldn't see them unless it was at a scheduled event so it was crazy to see them out and about. Well then not 20 minutes later Brian walks in too! We were sitting next to some Latin American fans and they FREAKED OUT. Woah. Like me and Megan were excited and were giddy, but these girls about had a heart attack. One went over to Howie to show him something and came back weeping. That would of been me 8 years ago haha.

So Brian starts signing some autographs and taking pictures so me and Megan run over there to wait. Well then he stops and says he will a little later. Well we wait about an hour and he starts again. We had been there the longest and somewhat expected to be first, but people kept crowding in from all sides. No lie, I was kinda scared. I couldn't move and people kept pushing. So finally Megan gets to the front and pulls me up there for a picture. I apologized since I almost stepped on Brian (he's short) and I said, I'm so sorry, thank you so much, we've been waiting a while. And he said Oh I'm sorry and I didn't want him to think I was complaining cause I wasn't, but I said oh no no no you're fine! So our picture is UBER close to our faces since the security guard was right there and there was no room either. But it's good and I love it!


So after all of the excitement, we had to go check in and get our wrist bands and stuff. That was an incredibly long line that we got to the front of luckily. Afterward, we go to our room and wait for our luggage. While we waiting we see the cruise has put on a BSB channel full of interviews, concerts and music videos. We watched like little girls for a while haha. Then it was time for some BSB events. It was Backstreet Boy Family Feud and the Dating Game. We went to the theater that all of the events would be at and we had the last row, last 2 seats. No lie. Plus the seats weren't real, they were folding chairs and hurt like crap. But any seat was pretty good since the place was so small. But they had picked girls out of the crowd to play these games and stuff beforehand apparently. We thought it was random but it wasn't.

We went back and decorated our door for the door decorating contest. SO much fun! Our door looked awful compared to other doors we saw. People put so much effort into them and we just didn't plan like they did. We'll know better next time.


After that we got ready for the cocktail party that was on the deck outside and for dinner. It was fun, but not a lot going on. We sang to songs and took lots of pictures. We got lucky and Nick, Howie and AJ all walked right by us and shook Megan's hand! We went to dinner afterward and were greeted by 6 other people at our table. Weird people. I joked with Megan that if she had turned out weird, I'd been stuck with weird people the entire trip haha. We had a mother and daughter from Florida, two girls from Virginia who were yankee transplants, another mother and daughter from Pennsylvania, plus a weird creeper dude who was middle aged from New York, on this trip ALONE, AND had been on the New Kids cruise before. Woah. We got him moved the next night lol. So during dinner, we were about to fall over from exhaustion. No lie my face almost landed in my food. So, the deck party didn't start til 11pm and we opted out because we figured if we didn't sleep again, the next day would be shot too. So we went to bed.

Slacker

What a slacker I am! I haven't updated since Thailand, which was, unbelievably, a month ago already. Wow. Time has flown. Nothing important has happened really either haha.

I've just been working, midterms, working out, finishing my bedroom, halloween costume. I finally moved into my new room! Yay! It looks great! SO much room. I can't get over it. I could have a disco in here. We just ordered my chair this week too, and it was on sale! Success! We got my dresser mirror too. It's all coming together. Then, I'm gonna have to figure out how to decorate. Eh. Not real sure.

I'm gonna be a garden fairy for halloween. So exciting! I made my tutu, pink, ivory and blue. It's quite poofy. Much more than I thought. Almost too much. Kinda makes me look fat. I'll just have to flatten it some. The tights I ordered don't match. The color chart was wrong, so I'm irritated. I'm gonna dye some I think. I need some pink flats. I got the fabric for my top, blue, shiny and sparkly. It was on sale too :) So pretty. I'm gonna make it one-shouldered. Kinda toga-like. I got lots of flowers, butterflies and bees to put on the top too. Hence, garden fairy. Yay! I've been practicing my makeup too. That's the hardest part actually. There's so much to choose from and so many ideas. I've been trying to wittle them all down. We'll see. Something pink and blue. Of course :) I'm excited. I got pink wings at Walmart for 5$ too. That was great. Not much else to say. I'm quite boring I know.

Christin is in town! Yay! She'll be leaving soon though. Quick trip.

Going to Gatlinburg this weekend with the girls! Becca, Allison, Sam, Sarah and Julie. Hope it all goes well with no drama. And I hope it's chilly weather :) I'll update about that when I come back. Pics to come!

Thailand Day 7: La Korn

So, the Thailand trip has ended. Yes, folks, that's right. I'm heading home. I'll add some more on here when I officially get back into the States, but I figured now is as good a time as any to update on my last full day here. I sure do hope I can make it through the plane rides and that they're magically shorter going home. That happens sometimes right?

So I met Christin at Healthland today for an oil massage. I was hoping to get Jed? as my motorbike driver for the last time and tip him well and say thank you for driving me all week, but I got some other guy instead. He was nice, but smaller than me and much older. He seemed to have a hard time balancing me on the bike haha. Anyway, we got to Healthland in one piece considering he went a new way than I was accustomed to and I'd only been there once before. But Christin and I got 90 minute oil massages. I had no idea what to expect. All I knew is that I didn't wanna be naked in front of anyone, regardless of if it was a woman. Well I went and had to shower first for some reason and then laid down on my stomach on the table. And I guess I also didn't realize for a while that it was a total body massage, not just a back massage. That's what I'm used to seeing everywhere.

Anyway, all was well until she started digging into my back! What is with these people and trying to dig your bones out of your body? I mean honestly! The rubbing and partial kneading was great, but not in certain areas. I would cringe and almost yelp when she dug into my lower back. Apparently it's MUCH more sensitive than I realized. So are other parts of my body. I know this now after having them rubbed and kneaded to death twice. I had to tell her to be soft on my back. She wasn't as soft as I would have liked. So then, I kept my underwear on, like I thought I was suppose to. Well apparently not. She pulled them half way down my butt. That wasn't embarrassing at all. I didn't necessarily mind her massaging my butt over the sheet, but not sans-sheet. Then I had to flip over and I covered myself fine and all. Well, then she lifted up the towel covering my boobs to massage my waist. I wasn't okay with that. At all. I haven't ever felt that violated actually. It's not like the gynocologist. I prepare myself for that and know what's gonna happen. I didn't here. Ugh. Anyway, it was pretty good overall I guess. Not sure how it'll compare to a massage at home. I don't know if I'll ever dish out the money at home though compared to buying one here for so cheap haha.

Christin and I decided to go hang out afterward and pack up. We ate dinner at a little street cart thing next to her apartment. The guy who owned it spoke great english. I had spaghetti haha. It was okay. Pretty good for Thai standards. Christin hated her food. It wasn't that great. So we went to the 7/11 and got sandwiches haha. Off to the airport to sit and wait soon. Not looking forward to that. I sure do hope I sleep most, if not all of the flight to Japan. Say a prayer. Update more later on the 2nd half of the trip.

Thailand Day 6: Yin Dee Tee Dai Ruu Jak

So today was much more eventful than the past couple have been. I got to hang out with Christin at school for the majority of the day. I got over there to eat pizza with them at their party, but it was all gone by the time I got there :( Anyway, Christin and Andy told me to eat the pizza sitting at Chris' desk. Haha. I thought he wasn't there at all for the day, but apparently not. I found out later from Camille and Stacie that he was asking around who ate it! He was asking when Christin and I went on a lunch break to get a foot massage. So funny. Christin just died laughing. That made the day great.

So the foot massage was much better than the thai massage. Much less painful. We're gonna go get an actual oil massage tomorrow I think. The masseuse better close her eyes is all I have to say. Anyway, I went with the student teachers to their apartment after school while Christin tutored. They all live in tiny rooms with a bathroom. Kinda sucks. But it was cute.



So we went to MBK and met Christin at McDonalds for dinner. They had a tuna pie on the menu. Yummy. Anyway, we went and shopped for a while. I'm so excited! I got one of those awesome Thai dresses that are beautiful and it fits great! I also got a mint green silk robe, a thai shirt, and 2 vases with those pretty flower arrangements for my new room. I hope it all fits in my luggage! Ah! Gotta pack tomorrow and get ready to say adios to Thailand. Back to the States and to the real world. Ugh. I'm not looking forward to work. Blahhhhh.