Featuring Sophia Abella on the cover page, a transgender and a model, ’60s mod look, find perfect sunglasses for you, celebs swimsuit trends, tangy foods, bikini ready fitness tips, Saurabh Kushwaha as a hottie, designs of Alex Vinash a German fashion designer and all about Skoda superb.

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Every little girl has a dream. Mine was to be a beautiful sultry and devilish Maggie Q in a black weather peering out magic weapon. Either than that, I longed to be Angelina Jolie – pouting sexily at the camera, candidly and flawlessly. Before I commit myself into something, I give it some real serious thoughts. I have to feel secure about it first before moving forward. I realized that ‘true happiness’ lies within you. If you can’t love yourself, you can’t be free. I sought therapy to help me cope up with all my past emotional baggage and frustration. I’ve always been provocative and I strive to win in every argument I engage in without consciously knowing that I have hurt many people of my bluntness.

I must admit that although I am stern-minded, above others to ask for help, and a self-proclaimed omniscient, I realized that this life is not all there is.  It is tough being a transgender woman let alone living a lifestyle that is unconventional.  I may seem happy but reality reveals that I am not. I concede that.

I was a bloke! I knew it ever since I started feeling differently towards other boys in our class. They liked dribbling balls in the basket ball court while I just sat and watched them from the side court, desperate to go home to play Barbie dolls with my sister. Unfortunately, I was not born perfect and this imperfection has worried and disturbed me. Yet I was (and still am) kind to my family and friends, worked hard, gained many friends and eventually accepted that my physical imperfection is inconsequential. Naturally, I was endowed with physical attractiveness and although I have an advantage over other transgender because of this, I felt I needed to “change”. I felt the need to change to find what I really yearned for – True Happiness.  What I did not realize, was that every change comes with a cost.

The need to change became so eminent to me, it was so strong that I became very impatient, and made a decision to stop to work and try to do something completely different.  I had heard that there were certain paths through the City of Life, which I looked incredibly interesting and absolutely wonderful. I had heard that some of these paths were full of mystery and danger, but also held the chance of great opportunity.  For the next six years, I myself journeying down this so called Central Path.

Being in this journey I have come to realize that happiness is the lone purpose of living. This is the only way I could cope with the lies, the cheating and the deception I was witnessing over the course of time. The then unsure lady boy has become a Woman – no longer the naïve and young one but wise and level-headed.

Because of what I am now, I feel less prone to bullies and discrimination but it saddens me to hear stories of our sisters facing inevitable experiences of prejudice. To show my sympathy and love, I started blogging and use my beauty for a cause. I bait my ass in a sense of giving a reality check, gender and sexuality education to people I encounter. It just feels so empowering and fulfilling. You don’t need to be in an organization or rally to show your sincere advocacy. There are myriad ways to help and continues to fight equality. I promote it on a regular basis.

An incident happened at Intercontinental hotel as I recall. They were five of them from STRAP, and they were blocked from entering the Icon bar and were told that Transgender were not allowed.  Some women complained that Transgender use the female restroom. I was shunned and this has really called my attention. I wrote a complaint to the management and demanded an explanation. Knowing that one of the victims was my friend, I felt the need to save her and rescue her from disrespectful banters and haters. To me, dealing with insensitiveness is unacceptable. I simply dislike seeing someone being bullied.

My advocacy has paid off with faithful readers.  At one point, someone has said to me, “Sophia,  I totally understand how you feel. I’ve gone through it many times and sometimes feel the same way. Sometimes this hopelessness just haunts us and the shadows try to catch us”.  And I replied by telling her that “faith is about believing beyond the reason to believe”. It may seem funny that despite the unjust circumstances, there are others who are in the same kind of situation yet they succeeded in finding happiness.

And to those Transgender who still feel the stigma in the society, start to reckon the time that there are people in your life whom you accepted as a whole yet you did not have the same feelings to equate theirs. You didn’t happen to fall in love with them. That alone should give you empirical evidence that life is not that bad after all, that there are also other people out there who suffer.

And because my past was out in the open and I have touched many lives of transgender people, they have become my inspiration to strive harder and to deliver more! At the moment, I am single and focusing on my modeling and soon to venture acting career. But one day, I’d love to settle down with someone special, adopt some children and have a happy family.

On a positive note, ‘Let go of that ego and insecurity. Realizing it and trying to articulate it stops it in its tracks. A daily battle for everyone I think.

Until then, I’m happy being me.

Grab a copy this coming November. On-line version, pls  join the mailing list at no cost by going to http://bit.ly/gsfrock Smize and be fierce!

All images is photographed by Dale Bacar www.dalebacar.com

I was one of the early users of the website-turned-obsession, Pinterest.com. For anyone unfamiliar with this website, it’s essentially another social media site, where one creates virtual pin boards with different themes to amass pictures of things they like. For example, I have a board where I pin pictures of food (if I click the picture, it takes me to the source link with the recipe). I also have boards for inspirational quotations, crafts, fashion, hair and makeup, and photography, to name a few.

I think part of Pinterest’s allure is that it can be a beautiful mixture of fantasy and real life. My fashion board has 300+ items pinned that I would only own in my dreams. It’s how I would dress if I had a bottomless wallet and endless time to shop. It’s lovely fantasy. It’s also helpful in real life because I can get a better idea of styles I should be buying for myself based on what I pin. I have found over time that I pin a ton of different looks that involve blazers. So now I know that next time I go shopping, that could be a key piece for me to pick up! Again, it’s that melding of fantasy and reality that works so well.

One very real and fun part of Pinterest is that I have created so many of the recipes and craft projects that I’ve pinned. It’s been great for trying new foods, expanding my knitting abilities (I made the scarf in this post’s photo based on a pattern I found on Pinterest), and creating jewelry, which is something I had never done before, but learned that I quite enjoy. As I’m writing, the only thing that sounds dangerous so far about Pinterest could be said for any social media site: it’s an addictive time suck!

But here’s my concern with Pinterest: it can be downright dangerous, especially for young women, striving for an unattainable ideal. Because it’s a social website, your pins are visible to your friends and anyone who cares to visit the site. Its basis is sharing pins and ideas, which is a great concept, but can lead down a dangerous road of “group-think.” When I see my friends, especially young women, posting photos of emaciated models and quotes, such as “Nothing ever tastes as good as skinny feels” to their boards, entitled “Motivation” or “Inspiration,” I cringe.  I see unhealthy “cleanses” being pinned alongside workout plans and quick ways to lose weight that are dangerous and often downright disordered.

It’s frightening because I know how easy it is to get sucked into that mindset. First you pin a “perfect” airbrushed model because you love her bikini (and wish you had her body). Then you see a recipe for chocolate cake and you pin that too, because it looks delicious. But the next thing you see is a pin with a model or a picture of scale on it, saying, “Whatever you eat in private, you wear in public.” You quickly pin that to your “motivation” board and search for some quick ways to lose weight.  You find no shortage of pins to “help” you: ones that tell you to cut out entire food groups all together, ones that tell you to chew a certain number of times before swallowing, ones that push you to exercise harder, saying “If it’s not hurting, it’s not working.” And these are just the beginning. Some of the most disordered pins, I refuse to even write about.

Pinterest has recently e-mailed users that it will be updating its policies to ban pins that encourage self-harm. I hope with everything in my heart that they consider unhealthy diets, over-exercise, and the pinning of unhealthy, emaciated women as “inspiration” to be self-harm. I don’t want to get into an entire debate about censorship versus free speech: that’s for the Pinterest legal team to deal with! But I do know one thing: we can’t just blame mainstream media anymore for their portrayal of the ideal body, face, hair, skin tone, or anything else. We are officially perpetuating the problem ourselves each time we re-pin an unhealthy photo on Pinterest. Sure, even if Pinterest cracks down on disordered links, there will be plenty of other websites for people to get their “thinspiration” fixes. There will always be people promoting crash diets and programs that are clinically untested. But maybe those don’t need to pop up as pictures next to the cute dress I want to buy or the next necklace I want to make.

With all that said, I do want to say that I definitely encourage healthy living. I’m all for exercise and eating well in a way that’s appropriate for each person’s individual body. But Pinterest can’t tell you what that means for you. Your physician needs to tell you that. And if you think you may be out of control (or way too in control) over what you eat or how you exercise, maybe it’s a physician or dietician at an eating disorder center that needs to help you come up with a plan. There are tons of ways to get your body healthy, but I guarantee they don’t include the extremes that some people will promote.

So here’s to Pinterest, as it evolves: may the harmful pins diminish, while the creative pins flourish; may we see more women uploading pictures of their own styles, so that the clothes we like are not just on models; may we guiltlessly try new foods, discover new hobbies and projects, and may our “motivation” pin boards be harmlessly and helpfully filled with truly motivational quotes, such as “Be curious, not judgmental” by Walt Whitman.

We, the users of Pinterest, have the power to decide what gets re-pinned over and over. So let’s make it a place that’s safe, healthy, fun, stylish, humorous, and beautiful. After all, that’s the escape so many of us look for in websites that involve fantasy wardrobes, houses, or vacations. If we keep the fantasy healthy, the reality will be happy. And while you’re drooling over the latest couture or most extravagant interior designs, don’t forget to take a moment to be grateful for what you do already have.