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Friday’s 10 Happy Things, v1

Published by Justine

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I feel like the only way I can quickly express my feelings through blogging is by making lists. It’s been a recurring theme ever since the year started. I think I prefer to do it otherwise I start to ramble and so many words start spewing out of my mind and I become incoherent.

Decided to participate in Helga‘s Friday’s 10 Happy Things because well, life has been pretty awesome lately. Even if it isn’t, it’s always good practice looking back on things that make you happy even though life shits bricks at times. Here goes my list!

1. Last weekend’s Singapore trip. This can stem into a lot of sub-happiness plots.. and will be a recurring theme in this list. It was short, but all worth it.

2. #JKTinvadesSG. After last year’s memorable Cebu trip (#JKTinvadesCebu), we made sure we would try our best to see each other at last once a year. Thank goodness we live around Southeast Asia so traveling to reunite makes it a little easier than most friendships that are spread around the world.

3. My boyfriend. We make each other happy, and I think that’s a pretty good feat in itself, no?

4. Best friend is in Cebu!! After our Singapore trip, my best friend decided against buying a return ticket back to Jakarta and took a detour to Cebu to be with me instead. She’s staying here indefinitely (being a freelance artist, she has that perk to work anywhere and anytime in the world) and I couldn’t be more happier!

5. May = birthday month. I always get the freakies when I’m about to turn a year older. Then I realize not much has changed and age will always be a number. I’m still me, just with more experiences and more lessons learned along the way. Cheers to that!

6. Communication Technology. Whether it’s social media, chat apps, Skype, I am so grateful for all of these. Many things in my life wouldn’t be possible without the existence of communication because of technology. It’s how I catch up with friends and family around the world.. especially now that my boyfriend and I are long distance, it’s even more precious and significant.

7. Chocolate. I have been having a lot of throat and respiratory problems all throughout April and I ate my first chocolate yesterday after so long. Aaahhhh. HAPPINESS.

8. Sephora SEA Black Card VIP. Sucks that there’s no Sephora in the Philippines (yet), but when I go to Singapore I always splurge on makeup, and I finally got upgraded to being a black card holder during my last visit. Hah.

9. Excitement. My boyfriend is apparently planning a “suprise” visit and although I HATE IT that I don’t know when (my friends know, ugh, how is that possible), I can’t help but feel excited at the same time. I’m super torn between my dislike for surprises and the whole excitement coming from anticipation.

10. My birth control pills. I’m on my second pack (out of the prescribed 6 for my PCOS) and I don’t wanna jinx this but I am just soooooo happy it hasn’t given me any shitty side effects. Can I get a fuck yes? FUCK YES.

Ditz Revolution

Things I Love Thursday, #6

Published by Justine

I really want to do this post regularly but I seem to be drawn to Sunday Currently posts more. Anyhoo, I got such a perfect opportunity because it’s a nice Thursday to think about what I’ve been enjoying recently.

1. The Way Way Back

I watched this movie last Sunday night and really enjoyed it. It somewhat made me realize that I am mostly drawn to coming-of-age themes in movies. Not necessarily YA, but topics like finding yourself and realizing who you are and what you want to be, regardless of someone young or someone old.

2. Clue app

Clue is what I use for tracking my period. Even better, it reminds me to take my pills on time. It’s so efficient because it’s quite accurate and allows me to enter different moods as well. A 16yo girl’s post on Tumblr pretty much summarizes the points of why Clue is so awesome. This app has really helped me not miss taking my pills, which in turn, is helping me finally regulating my period even after just a month of of medication. Goodbye PCOS? Surprisingly, I’m doing really well. I hope this continues even when I’m off them!

3. Belly-dancing

I have been quite poor in attending my yoga sessions lately but I have been “upping” my zumba for about 4-5 months now, 3 times a week. Our instructor also happens to be a belly-dancing instructor so she likes to incorporate that into our sessions. I never realized how complex and hard it was. Three songs in and it is HARD work! Now I kind of want to get more into it because it really helps with your core. There are times that it even contributes more to my body sore percentage after a good workout.

4. Benefit Bad Gal Lash

I got this in a sample size from the March Birchbox UK box. In related news, I actually just bought the Benefit Roller Lash last month and while I quite like that one (I am only becoming a mascara person now), I realized how much I love Bad Gal Lash so much more. It keeps the natural look of my lashes without clumping it, or being too wet, or being too dry and flaky and it’s really easy to remove! This goes without saying that even with the Roller Lash I actually still have to curl my lashes because they are just. that. stubborn. There’s no other way. Sigh.

5. A certain someone..

We’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck!

The Beauty Scenario Tag

Published by Justine

I got this post from Carina and I was kind of curious at how I would answer them myself. I’m filling the answers as I go along with pasting the questions so this should be interesting..

1. You have to get rid of all of your foundations and only keep one high-end and one drugstore; which do you keep?

First of all, I don’t really use foundation (gasp). I feel like I don’t really need it because of the weather in this country so I’m more of a tinted moisturizer, moisturizer, bb cream, powder kinda girl. Although if I switched this to base, I’d say I would definitely keep my Ben Nye Buff and theBalm Tinted Moisturizer. I love those two.

2. You go for an interview, and the lady interviewing you has lipstick on her teeth. Do you approach the subject or ignore it completely?

IGNORE IT COMPLETELY! I will stick to whatever she’s talking about and only drive the conversation from there. I don’t have to go out of my way to tell her there’s lipstick on her teeth. That would be too big of a risk given the situation. I hope she didn’t do it on purpose though, and made it sort of like a test that if I didn’t call her out it wouldn’t be favorable for me.

3. You’re not feeling yourself and need a pick-me-up lipstick. Which do you go for?

This is tricky because it always varies. I would say either of these 3: Colourpop in Lumiere, Too Faced La Creme in Pink Chocolate, and my trusty Revlon Matte Balm in 225 Sultry (I don’t talk about this one much, but it’s one of my favorites).

4. You go back in time for a day to your teenage years; how would you do your hair or makeup differently

I would focus on filling in my brows. They were totally nonexistent!

5. You ask your hairdresser for a shoulder length Pixie Lott haircut but they hear wrong and give you a pixie cut – what would you do?

A) Smile, say thank you, call your mum and cry hysterically
B) Cry in the chair and things get awkward
C) Complain to the manager and demand a refund

This is funny because it has actually happened to me. A salon cut my hair WAAAAY to short and I did B). I cried so much in the chair and things definitely got awkward. Let’s just say I’ve been there, done that and it would probably happen again given the same scenario.

6. Your friend surprises you with a 4-day city break and you have one hour to pack. Which ‘Do it all’ palette do you pack in your makeup bag?


Image from makeupandbeautyblog.

LORAC Pro Palette 2! When it comes to eyeshadows I always gravitate towards LORAC because I really love their formula.

7. Your house has been robbed. Don’t worry, everyone is safe, but your beauty stash has been raided. What’s the product you really hope is safe?

Sure hope this doesn’t come true (my house getting robbed that is, I mean fuck all the makeup). For the sake of answering this question.. I hope all my MAC and NARS lipsticks are safe. I feel like lip products are more of a sentimental value for me than anything because it represents a certain feeling when I purchased them.

8. Your friend borrows makeup and returns it in awful condition. Do you:

A) Pretend you haven’t noticed
B) Ask them to re-purchase it
C) Secretly do it back to their makeup

This would be between A) or C) because I’m evil like that.

The Sunday Currently, v7

Published by Justine

I feel like I only ever get to properly blog on Sundays because I’m such a busy mess on weekdays. I might as well start calling this blog Otherworldly Sundays or something, lol. But anyway.. here it is!

FEELING
A bit better than last Sunday, that’s for sure. I was hospitalized last Monday morning because of my tonsillitis and it turned out I had this thing called Acute Tonsillopharyngitis which is apparently worse because it’s a combination of the two. Right now I’m still experiencing dry cough so it’s a constant battle with my throat still, although it wasn’t as much of a struggle as last week. What a crazy week it was.

LISTENING
I’ve totally fallen out of love and touch with K-pop now, but I still try my best to keep up with the legends and my favorites (aka the ones that got me into it a good 5 years ago). Girls’ Generation always manages to come out with something that shakes up the K-pop world and despite the mixed reviews of enthusiasts and haters alike, I always end up loving it at first listen, like this one.

THINKING
About a certain someone who is at work right now and I will be seeing very soon. Definitely looking forward to that. It’s a nice feeling when someone fills your days (and nights) with smiles and looks out for you.

LOVING
The fact that I had a relaxing weekend at home with my sister and spent the whole weekend with just my mom and sister with our usual Saturday night dinners, Sunday lunches and my mom’s amazing homecooked dinner on Sunday evenings. I get so busy during the week that I hardly see them even though we live in the same house so this is a nice back-to-routine weekend activity. Definitely needed it! I feel recharged and ready for the week to come.

HOPING
I get over this sickness as soon as possible! I can’t be sick like this anymore, especially going towards the end of the month. Nooooooooooo!

WANTING
I don’t really know what is it with my schedule that everything in my mind has been a crazy mess of interests and activities, or maybe my priorities have simply shifted because I used to have time for these things. Or maybe I am being fed with just so much information every single day that I simply need a time-out? What I’m saying is, I’d like to be able to go back to the old me who was such a TV show enthusiast, catching up on the latest episodes of such great shows and keeping up with the TV world. I also used to be able to try and watch a new movie or two at least every week but now, I hardly have the attention span to finish a 20 minute sitcom and it kind of frustrates me. I guess it’s age as well. Hm.

NEEDING
Need to go back to yoga, stat. I remember one of my first yoga classes almost 2 years ago, I was coughing like hell and it was a bad Savasana because I probably disturbed half of the class. It’s good now because I do it in the office so they’ll probably understand!

What’s Been Up

Published by Justine

1. Days Off

Thanks to the Holy Week and unexpired vacation leave credits, I was rewarded with a few days off work the past week. I got to do a couple of things, like finally watching Cinderella in the cinema, catching up on crazy sleep, going home to the province and beaching it up, and giving worthy people my quality time. The best part is, I have another 2 days off the upcoming week because I am determined that April is going to be an awesome month. Having said that..

2. Throat Business

I am having the worst throat inflammation right now, it’s not even funny. It’s been a while since I’ve had this and I hate remembering how much it feels like shit. Of course, I make the mistake of drinking things I’m not supposed to like that sparkling wine I had at a dinner party earlier tonight and screaming my head off because we had such a fun game night of category BINGO. Our team won, if you were interested in knowing.

3. Medication Update

I am officially on medical therapy for my PCOS, and will be for the next 6-8 months. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I want to get better so I went ahead and met with a new OBGYN to help with my PCOS.. and after running some more tests, it turns out I have Polyp as well. Pretty much a fucking double whammy in my uterus. Leaving the doctors’ and discovering my diagnosis had me feeling like shit for a good few days that I cried to anyone I knew. My best friends, my mom, my sister then I sucked it all in and proceeded with all the medication handed to me. The first few weeks were crazy in terms of settling into all the prescriptions but I’m getting used to it now. I am also happy to report that I have no bad side effects to the BCP I was prescribed. I just hope I won’t go as fat as a panda. I am trying hard to watch my diet.

4. Summer Trips

Earlier this month I went to Camiguin with two of my girl friends! That was a fun and relaxing one. I told myself I’d try to go more local this year when it comes to travel and I hope that was a good step. I also have a few more fun plans for this month that’s happening and I can’t wait. April’s gonna be a great one, I can feel it (except for this stupid throat inflammation).