It's the start of the work week and I'm feeling fine! Maybe mostly because I've stocked a week's worth of my, er, hyper juice. You know that Nescafe iced coffee in cans? It keeps me charged without making me dizzy like the usual coffee. Amazing. Anyway here are some videos I started my day with - two of my favorite songs from college. 

I love Sarah Bettens because she's a great song writer and her voice is just incredibly raw. She always writes about things that are almost in your hands - almost there but not quite. I think discontent is a human body part. We're all always discontented, it's lodged right up there near our appendix. The key to being happy is accepting that it will always be there and appreciating that other things in our life are working just fine.

I love looking at DIY tutorials but I never get around to actually doing them. I'm all fired up today though! Must be the caffeine! I'm hyper inside! Wil be stepping out in a while to buy materials and turn myself into the next DIY Queen. Kidding. Maybe. Don't listen to me!

You need to know this though: there is an awesome craft store that sells stamps, punchers, and other specialty products somewhere in the Greenhills area. Must visit. Read the Quaint Desk for the guide!

Photo via Quaint Desk

Anyway, here are some cool DIY ideas that I am bookmarking for you (and myself). Tell me, which one is your favorite? :D

Sunglasses with plaster rosettes ala Dolce & Gabbana

You can get a pretty good idea of what a person is really like when you check his or her Instagram feed. Pictures do speak a thousand words, and I so enjoy listening! In a sense.

Here's what peppered my week.

Cooked grilled rosemary and lemon chicken for dinner.

Tried using this sea sponge with warm water to remove my makeup last night. Think I need more practice!

Dreaming of salmon.

Last Friday I received another pink box from Etude House. I was just about to vamoose out of the door for work, so I HAD to patiently wait all day before I can come home and open it! Well, the suspense was worth it I think. Here's what's inside!

I have so much fun Instagramming, I decided to do this every week. Think of it as my diary of sorts! Here are some of the things I am loving right now.

Trying out the @DaphneOP Homescent in mint jasmine. Smells fab but not obnoxious.

Oh gosh! I've been looking for these two for over half a year now. Just found them in an old bag. 0_0

I've been using Instagram a lot lately. It's a fun way to capture moments, a state of mind if you will, and share them visually. I like it because I get to remember the little details of my life without having to write down 300 words to do it.

Here are the photos I took this week! 

I want to have a pink bike someday.

Snaps the ridiculously photogenic pomeranian looking out the car window. Like a monsieur. 

Kris Aquino is on Preview magazine's cover this May! Saw it on Twitter the other day and I was instantly transfixed. We've seen Kris in ball gowns, elaborate cocktail dresses, even smart casual wear, but never in a menswear-inspired look. I think it's a fresh and interesting take on her, even though "gorgeous" is not the first word that comes to mind.

Try "whoa".

More behind the scenes photos from Stylebible!

Found an interesting fashion blog over on Twitter called Aaron Did Fashion. People were initially laughing at him, but from what the hashtag #TeamAaron is showing, people are admiring his guts. And why not?

There is something about this boy. His enthusiasm in showing off his outfits and doing the du jour fashion blogger poses is...poignant. Honest. The top fashion blogs are all run by beautiful shining people in trendy, mass-produced clothes. I don't hate them for it, but they are sometimes tiring to look at, perhaps because the whole thing looks contrived and semi-professional.

I admit that I don't read magazines regularly. Why? Because everyday I am bombarded with beauty and fashion information from innumerable sources that when I finally get hold of a magazine, I find that the content there isn't new to me anymore (however well-executed or well-written). It's definitely different for other people - those who confine their online activity to Facebook, chat, maybe a bit of Twitter.

That is not to say that print is dead. Magazines like Preview and Cosmo have very active online counterparts with communities that are engaged and ready to rumble. These two magazines, I think, have successfully combined print and digital to deliver up-to-the-minute, high-quality content. The thing is at the end of the day, print will always mean considerable prestige and exclusivity to anyone who's in it, so as long as there is that factor magazines will not die (among other factors of course).

So! While I don't read magazines much, I do see magazine covers on my Facebook timeline. That's why you see me posting about covers once in a while. Recently, two covers caught my eye, and here's what I think of them! Share yours too, I'm interested. ;)

First up, we have KC Concepcion for Cosmopolitan's March issue.

The cool thing about my job is that I can work anywhere most of the time. It means that I can multi-task and shoot down errands whenever I need to! I just have to be connected to my email accounts (five of them) at all times, which my Blackberry takes care of. For heavier work like Facebooking, blogging, editing photos, or anything involving documents, I turn to my ever reliable Macbook Air.

A few weeks back, we had our condo fumigated, so I had to bring Snaps to the day care for a few hours. Try Pup Culture btw, if you're looking for a great day care center for your dog. Anyhoo! That day I decided to kill three birds with one stone: take my dog to Pup Culture, do my bank errands, and work. For the latter I decided to park myself at Bubble Tea. I love their tea and the Japanese food!

It's in the tiny bubbles!

It's an old, old war. White skin versus dark skin. In popular media, white is thought of as pure and expensive, while black/dark skin is considered dirty and plebeian. When will it end? When will Filipinas, specifically, finally be free from the all-consuming idea that only white is beautiful?

Well, FHM is not helping for sure. Their cover shows a shining white Bela Padilla in the midst of grasping black-skinned women. She is "stepping out of the shadows", that is, stepping out from the undersirable status of being obscure.

I spend serious time taking product photos that I even have it down to a science. So understandably I'm not happy whenever an online store filches my photos to earn money. I mean, how hard is it to take your own product photos or even just ask permission from the owners? 

Those are my Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter photos. Do not approve  ಠ_ಠ

Not meaning to be a bitch here, actually. I'm not mad, just baffled. All my photos are under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-SA 3.0) license. It means that:

I think that the Internet should be a free place to share our ideas and output, and to police it by banning people from using your photos is just pointless.

Can someone please explain business card etiquette to me? Some of the people I've met extend their business card carefully, with two hands and a little bow. I'm wondering if that's how it's really done. Then they leave your card on the table respectfully, as if they're considering it. As for me I simply give my card, then slip theirs in my bag after checking it out.

Whatever the accepted practice is though, I think it's important to have a stylish card case. It makes one look more professional and keeps the cards from getting all frayed swirling around a bag. Practical, in other words.

I got this case from Avon. It's actually a set that comes with a compact mirror.

Yesterday I was at a lunch meeting with an editor from Working Mom, along with my boss from Pinkbox.

We were happily chatting when Liz Uy and Raymond Gutierrez (who btw truly lost a lot of weight, as advertised!) walked into the restaurant. My boss is interested in working with Liz Uy, so I got up, chatted with her a bit, and asked for her number. I was SO SHY about the whole thing!

I was surfing through the interwebs yesterday when I saw a young personal blogger wearing a questionable outfit. I won't go into details but the look is so wrong on so many levels! I'm not being mean or trying to position myself as a fashion expert, but I will think of myself as sensible when it comes to clothes. And the things that I am seeing some young women wear these days do not make a lot of sense.

I wore this when I met Daniel Matsunaga last year. I wish. I didn't.

I know I've worn some questionable outfits in the past myself (above), but I have learned not to repeat my mistakes thanks to some people's catty comments. Criticism is painful - often unbearably so - but they need to be said and heard if anyone is to move forward. And this is what I think about the fashion blogger culture and their truckloads of followers.

Do not aspire to (e.g. copy) everything that fashion bloggers show you. That sounds harsh, but again, I am not trying to be mean. Famous fashion bloggers are famous for a bunch of reasons - they are pretty, with (usually) svelte and willowy figures, and they are one step ahead of local trends.

If you are not any of those things, then restrain yourself from copping all their looks.

I was going through my traffic stats when I noticed that a lot of people were coming in from a US website/forum called Makeupalley. In case you don't know - I love Makeupalley! It's a sort of bible for me, my ultimate reference when it comes to information about products I want to buy or review. So, it's a big deal for me that one of my links is over there. 

Of course I clicked to the page where the link is. Apparently, it's a forum thread about guesses on how old I am. The general consensus is that I am in my thirties, although a couple of people threw in some forties guesses. The guesses were based on this post. 

I was mortified! At first. I know I look quite mature for my age, but I always thought the general perception is that I am in my mid to late twenties.

Last Christmas, my boss from Pinkbox gave me this lovely jewelry box as a gift. You know how I'm such a sucker for boxes so I shall say no more!

Many of my relatives wonder why I choose to stay in the Philippines when I could have looked for other opportunities abroad. Call it the University of the Philippines brainwashing (lol) but I would like to live and die here! Ask me again in ten years - I might change my mind - but right now I'm happy where I am and I can't see any reason for me to leave the country indefinitely.

The new Department of Tourism slogan courtesy of BBDO-Guerrero

I would LOVE to travel more, sure, but I want to stay here. I love the Philippines. For serious. It's beautiful, but more importantly, it's a free country.