Miss Euro Blogger - Bursting the Bubble

The 'hot' avocado in my neck "You have a lump on your right thyroid" the doctor said as he opened the door to leave. "What does that mean?" I lifted my head from the horizontal position trying not to get the goo from the ultrasound all over my t-shirt. "Come back Wednesday and get your test results to discuss them with your PCP. Most of the time lumps are fine." The radiologist took his cigarette-smell covered coat and himself out the door. I had the impression that he was counting the days to retirement in his head as he exited the room. By the looks of it, he didn't have too many left. Wait! What? I have a lump? Just the day earlier my biggest worry was how to generate more followers on Instagram. The doctor told me the news on Monday and I had to pick up the results on Wednesday. This gave me 48 hours to research the 10,000 different things a lump could mean on the internet. Going to work the next day was though but I was thankful...

--> Life by the beach and in the movie capital of the world brought one additional factor into my life that would eventually take up more time of my daily life than I could ever have anticipated: body image – and the issues and maintenance that came with it. When I first moved to L.A., I couldn’t grasp why people cared so much about how they looked and all the effort they put into healthy eating habits. It seemed like a lot of unnecessary work. I was not going to let myself get influenced by the constant media propaganda of what women were supposed to look like. Perfect hair. Perfect teeth. Perfect nails. Perfect body. To me, the women all looked the same – an exaggerated version of themselves somewhere between a Barbie and a blow-up doll. Big boobs, big lips, tight butt, tiny waist. I thought they were crazy, unoriginal and unauthentic. I soon learned that authenticity was not a concern for Angelinos. Fake was accepted and often even expected. However, over time, I starte...