Latest Posts

Day 7 – Memories: What’s your earliest one?

Published by Justine

My earliest memories would have to involve traveling, airports and my dad’s place in Makassar, Indonesia (then called Ujung Pandang). From when I was born up to when I was 3 years old I traveled to and fro Indonesia a lot, which lead me to finally moving there semi-permanently when I was 8.

The most vivid memory I had from my early childhood would involve tripping into a huge rock outside our ancestral home that resulted into a very noticeable mark on my right hand, so much that it looks like a semi-keloid/birth mark. It’s one of the scars that will probably stay with me until forever.

Day 6 – Something for your kids to know

Published by Justine

I don’t even know where to start with this because the thought of having kids doesn’t really cross my mind often. For the sake of answering this, however, I will have to say, “I’m not a regular mom. I’m a cool mom.” Get it? Thumbs up for Mean Girls reference.

In all seriousness, what I’d like for kids to know is that I value my relationship with my parents so much that I hope they would feel the same way with me. I have the utmost respect for my parents but at the same time we’re such good friends that I’m so comfortable with them when it comes to a lot of things. So I hope I get to instill that kind of relationship with my future children.

Day 5 – Share: Best advice you ever got

Published by Justine

This is easy (I’m glad this challenge hasn’t been difficult for me so far!), straightforward and true. Best advice I ever received from my dad is: be honest. Not in a way where you have to tell the truth all the time, because I do agree that sometimes white lies need to be said, in an appropriate situation.

My dad has always told me that as long as I live my life honestly, that I don’t owe anyone anything, that I’m being real with myself, not living a lie.. these are fundamentals to a good life. I always try and apply this to my daily life.

Day 4 – Your favorite: 5 blogs

Published by Justine

I’ve been reading a lot of beauty blogs lately because I am so into makeup, that’s why I’m trying hard not to turn this list into a “Your favorite 5 beauty blogs” you know? Here goes:

Softly Sometimes – is my favorite local beauty blogger! It’s not the things Carina buys and the pretty pictures and beautiful looks that come with it (it is, though. haha!) but it’s the way she really goes into a product and blogs about her experience with it. It’s not just your cookie cutter beauty blog review site or a blog full of looks but it’s the way she describes each and every product like it matters. I skip a lot of posts of my makeup blog corner in Feedly but I always take time to read Softly.

Minimally Minimal – Andrew Kim is probably one of my favorite design gurus online. His blog Minimally Minimal is literally a breath of fresh air, with minimal design and superb photos with descriptive writing. When I found out about this blog I spent a day just backtracking posts and reading most of them. I couldn’t believe I haven’t been reading this blog since it started and how influential Andrew is to the industry right now.

Robbie Off Duty – Saying he’s my crush is kind of an understatement. I’ve always been more fascinated with men’s fashion blog more than women’s. Not just because I’m a girl (which I bet probably contributes to most of it as well) but Robbie is really good and I love the way he writes-simple, and straight from the heart. When he makes it even bigger than now I’ll be proud to say I’ve been reading his blog since day one, when he was just getting to know the business. I love his posts and fashion photos because despite being simple it’s classy, it’s clean, it’s straightfoward. It’s weird how he got into blogging because it’s totally for him.

evacuatewithstyle – I value Amy’s opinion a lot when it comes to K-drama and K-pop (basically Korean pop culture in general). It’s very honest (sometimes too honest) which is quite rare in the K-industry. I also like her fashion posts, and Korean fashion posts but sadly she does not post as often as before. It’s a little frustrating because she keeps a level head with most of her reviews and interests and won’t think twice when she needs to point out the truth.

Spell Saab – I’ve been a reader of Saab’s blog ever since I started blogging myself, I think about 10 years ago or so. I feel like I’ve grown up with her. It’s weird because like you’ve been following this person’s life for quite a while that it’s one-sided? I’ve been through her different domain changes, different boyfriends, life ups and downs, it’s pretty crazy. I just haven’t stopped reading.

There you go, my favorite 5 blogs! I wish I would include the others but the hardest part was narrowing it to five because I still have quite a few blogs I wanted to talk about. Rules are rules, so there it was.

Day 3 – Why do you blog?

Published by Justine

This is a good question. My answer would probably vary year to year and I’d have quite a difficult time answering it, but I now have one that it was easy to think about what to say (or write).

I blog now because I want to exercise my brain. For me, writing (blogging including) has always been a way to fuel my mind.. for it to keep the writing area of my brains oiled and not let it rot into whatever shallow thing I’m currently obsessed with. As a child of social media I’ve definitely resulted to micro-blogging/micro-updating my life online. Gone are the days when I’d cook up descriptive blog posts, write a lot, have 5 blogs and have the time, the energy and the mental capacity to update them all regularly. This is the reason why I’m doing this blog challenge as well. I felt like writing (not including emails, proposals, and/or presentations that I do for work, because that’s different)—and I think I even said this in a blog post—was starting to take a backseat and I’d hate for it to be shelved away.

I don’t consider myself a good writer but I like to think that it’s one of the main avenues where I can freely express myself because I have so many thoughts in my head, and writing is sometimes one of the only ways for me to organize my thoughts. I guess this is why I still have a blog even though I don’t blog as often anymore. I like having something to go to.