(thanks to myleene for the photo. i grabbed it from her friendster account.)

you wouldn't believe how horrified i was seeing my high school photo (top) with my hair looking so singed! and i was so dark!!! hahaha (that's me on the extreme left!) i bet most friends would be surprised by the transformation and wondering if i underwent hair treatments and skin whitening. hahaha yes for the hair treatments. i tried hair straightening and rebonding. back in high school, i was only shampooing my thick and frizzy hair. i didn't know the existence of conditioners then! to make things worse, i regularly used aquanet to pump up the volume of my bangs, for goodness sakes! as for my then dark skin, well, i guess my skin started to lighten up when i discovered the wonders of sunblock. i also avoided the sun as much as possible. nope i did not even try any of those whitening products popularly advertised by the filipino actresses. but i did try using pond's detox cream for sometime.

i still cringe everytime i stare at the top photo with riva, myleene, and leah from high school. i mean our hair is one thing and our attire needs a separate blog entry altogether! but looking at the "now" photo (lower photo also features myleene's daughter, bella. leah was in mindanao at this time and wasn't able to join us) i can't help but smile that after all these years, bad hair days included, we're still friends. we've had our ups and downs in our friendship,too, but i guess it was just a test on far we would go.

hooray for friendship! thank God we looked way so much better now!!! hahahaha