Burn your boats.

There's an old Irish tale of the traveling folk, who when they felt the desire for a fresh start, would set out on a voyage for a new island. Once they found their new destination they would settle in, turn around the burn their boats.

No going back. 

No safety net. 

Forced onward to their new lives.

I decided while in China that I really didn't want to go back to Canada only to sit around and waste my days, when traveling and modeling is where my passion is. So I let my agent know and she agreed that to continue traveling would be a wonderful idea.

So without hesitation I got rid of my apartment in Vancouver. Why pay rent of a place I may not even end up seeing in over 8 months? So thankfully with the help of my amazing mother and sister, they graciously moved my things back home while I'm still over here in China.

It was a strange feeling not getting a chance to say good-bye to my first place. Not even being around to see then end of another chapter in my life. 

But that's only because a new, and even better one had already started.

I just cut the cords. No looking back. Without even a guarantee of a contract yet. 

 Walking out blind.

I just kept telling myself "I'll figure it out, when the time comes, I'll just figure it out." 

A new mantra of mine I have adopted. No "what if" no "I don't know."

Just "I'll figure it out."

And with that I later found out I got a contract to Singapore for 2 months. Somewhere I have been wanting to go for a very long time. I couldn't have been more excited.

And then it was proposed to possibly go to Tokyo after that and then head home for the holidays. 

I was ecstatic. 

I had waited so long for this, it finally felt like all my hard work was paying off. And all I needed to do was burn my boat, get rid of my backup plan, for the cards to be able to fall directly into place. 

Burn baby burn.

After all this wonderful news I for some reason wasn't feeling so well. My head felt a little funny for 2 days or so. Then I woke up around 4AM one morning with the most excruciating headache I have ever had. I burst into tears as my head throbbed so hard it caused me to get sick. I was nauseous, dizzy and could hardly see.

That morning my agency took me to the hospital for a blood test and a CT scan.

I was terrified.

"I need my mom." 

I had never felt something like this before. 

Later that day my booker came back with a butt load of medication for me and said I had "Inflammation in my blood." Which I think was an improper translation, cause that really makes no sense?

So what exactly happened is still undetermined.

But the medication helped and it seems to have gone away, for now. 

The highs and lows of a week China. 

But thankfully I'm all better now and I'm able to look forward to what's to come.

Two weeks to go!

No point looking back at the flames now, instead I'll just let them push me onward.

Ky.xo

Draw your swords

Failure- That moment of hitting an all time low. Having your feet scrape the rough edges of rock bottom. 

What would have been one of my most enjoyable jobs since being in Shanghai quickly turned into one of the most heart-wrenching moments I have endured since being here.

I showed up at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel located right on the Bund. It was one of the most exquisite hotels I had ever stepped foot in. And I was going to be shooting here all day! I was basking in the beauty that surrounded me feeling truly inspired. Only to find out that I was shooting there for Elle!

Okay not the magazine but for their clothing line. Now in most cases when it's China that would be a knockoff name, but this was actually affiliated with the Magazine for I remembered doing the casting for it in the actual Elle China office. 

Not to mention this was no low budget job. Seeing as the hotel we were shooting in had Hermes soap.

Soap!

I was over joyed. Filled with bliss. It was drawing out to be the perfect day.

That was until the creative director showed up. He was your average 28 year old (I'm guessing) Chinese man. 

I smiled, introduced myself along side Luisa the other model from Romania. And he looks at me and says

"You got fat."

Right out. Blunt. To my face. In front of everyone. 

No hesitation.

"Excuse me?!" I blurted out.

I felt the skin break on the heels of my feet and they scrapped the rocks.

Bottom.

"This always happens to girls when they come to China, they come all skinny and then they eat Chinese food. It's a shame really."

"I don't eat Chinese food." I threw back at him.

And walked over to set to begin shooting. As you can imagine I was feeling really confident now.

Honestly. If I'm so "fat" then why the hell did you book me? Then why the hell am I'm easily fitting into your size 2 sample clothes? 

Later we were to shoot some underwear. 

Lovely.

I text my booker letting her know, for underwear catalogs pay more than regular. She replied saying I am not to do it for they weren't paying for that. So I let him know. After many phone calls and confusion my booker said go ahead and do it. So I did no questions asked. 

He comes up to me and says, "Are you sure you will do this? I don't want any problems, I want everyone happy and if you're not you don't have to."

"No", I smiled "I'm happy to."

At first I couldn't figure out why he was being so nice to me. It later hit me that he most likely thought I called my booker telling her I wouldn't do it because the asshole on set called me fat. 

Then he comes up to me and says "At Elle, a French company, we promote a healthy body image. So this is great" pointing to the photos.

Bull fucking shit.

If you want to promote a healthy body image maybe you shouldn't go around telling girls who are a size 2 they are fat. Thank god I am not one of the many 15 year old girls I have met over here who would immediately go to the toilet and throw up their breakfast. Because I'll admit when lunch came, I sure didn't want to eat. But luckily I had packed my own salad and while everyone else at chinese food,

 I proudly sat and ate my salad in front of him.

I love my body. I love who I am. I don't care if saying it comes across as conceded. I have a right to love myself, we all do. Because at the end of the day, this is all I've got. No materialistic items or people. Just my body and my soul. 

And if this guy thinks he will stop me by one bad comment he's got a whole other thing coming.

Just watch me.

In fact, thank-you. For you just added fuel to my fire. 

I hope you sleep well, because I know I am.

So what could have been my favorite job since being here quickly turned into the lowest point. And now instead of letting his words weigh me down, I will simply stand on his back as I climb to the next step on my journey.

Thanks for the lift pal.

Ky.xo

Mantra II

Bom Dia

I realized I hadn't posted in a while, and I have honestly sat here for 10 minutes trying to remember what I did this week.

I feel like without this blog and the photos that document it, my entire trip would be this way,

Just a blur.

But it finally dawned on me that this week I got to shoot for a magazine which was exciting because,

A) Shanghai produces few magazines

B) My agency doesn't even work with magazines for they don't pay much

But it's not about pay for me, and being published it just as good as gold in my eyes.

So I was rather excited. It was a wonderful shoot in an adorable studio. It was a very nice change from the rapid "catalog" pace I'm now so used to.

Sunday of course was Canada day.

 I began the day doing a shoot with fellow Canadian model and amazing photographer, Colin Gaudet. Here's a preview of the shoot, I'm seriously dying to see the rest, this boy is damn talented!

But right as we were nearing the end of the shoot and I was getting ready to get my celebration on I got called in to do a catalog for there were too many clothes for just 1 model.

I was not impressed. 

Don't they know it's CanadaDay?!

Regardless I sucked it up and went. Which they ended up liking me better than the model they had and let her go and left the rest of the clothes for me to shoot.

Wasn't the point of me coming because there were too many clothes?!

Anyways it ended up working out because I made sure it moved quickly so that after 5.5 hours I could get the heck out of there and get me a beer.

or 10.

Let's just say us Canadians here at PT made sure Shanghai did Canada proud

Boy did we ever...

Ky.xo

Xiamen

One of the most amazing parts of this job is all the incredible destinations you get to see. Last week I got the chance to fly an hour and fifteen minutes to Xiamen. The whole time I was hoping I would get to see the beach (seeing as Shanghai only has a fake one that's literally just a sandbox). 

This ended up kicking me in the ass. In the morning we woke up and headed out to beautiful Gulangyu Island. But let me tell you it was hot... like 37-39 degrees Celsius hot. No exaggeration. We took a quick boat ride over and the second we arrived thunder roared and the clouds parted creating one of the craziest rain storms I have ever witnessed. 

This doesn't work so well for an outdoor shoot. So they decided to wait for the rain to cease. 

This gave Fernando, Breno and I (the other models) ample time to wander the markets around the island until it stopped.  After about 2 hours it finally held off a bit and we began. Of course the insane heat returned just in time for us to put on our ski pants and coats, gloves, toques and scarves for the shoot....

Luckily we only shot for 3 hours until they decided the light just wasn't right and we would do more the next day.

The rest of the crew returned to Xiamen and the guys and I decided to continue getting cultured on the beautiful island we were lucky to be on. Who knows if I would ever be there again, might as well experience it!

Along with every kind of ice cream one can imagine...

Frozen yogurt

Ice cream crepes

Shaved Mango

DQ

Turkish Ice cream

You name it, we had it.

Good thing I sweat so much....

And no worries the next day was going to bring even more.

We drove about 2 hours to a beach only to once again be shooting a winter catalog.

The chinese seriously baffle me.

If I thought the day before was hot I sure was in for it. 

I can't even begin to explain the amount of sweat that probably left my body. Not to mention they fed us hot soup around 11 and that was basically it for the day... As much as it was only 5 hours of shooting, you needed something to keep your energy up when you're in that much clothes, in that much heat, having salt poured around you to make it look like snow... 

(remind me again why we came to the beach?)

Regardless we somehow made it through the day in one piece.

Xiamen was beautiful and I was so happy to have had the opportunity to see it, just next time I'd like to be in a little less clothes...

Ky.xo