December in pictures

The last month of 2011

This post is a failure because I hate taking photos and I hate being in them but that's why one of my 2012 resolutions is take more pics!

Halloweekend

This took a while to post because I always have to wait for my friends to upload photos on Facebook so I can steal them to put them on here. I really should buy a camera, but I don't know squat about photography and I'd be too lazy to lug it around. So, I posted about my Halloween costume ideas and I thought I would show you the fruit of my labors. I spent a whole day with Yua and Ana walking from SM to Glorietta to Landmark and back multiple times to find the perfect costume add-ons. I went home with socks and false lashes. Here's a photo of what I ended up wearing:

Can't figure it out? Yeah not a lot of people did. I'm not as clever as I thought, I guess. The big reveal plus more photos and stories of our shenanigans after the jump!

Forever Young

Let's take a breather from the fashion month craziness. My internet is being uncooperative and the PFW photos are taking forever to load. I'm on my bed in my underwear lazy as hell so I decided why not just update this thing? Here's a more personal post.

Last Friday, one of my closest friends, Therese, celebrated her 19th birthday at Distillery, Fort. Before that, though, we had dinner at her place with her family. The food was so great, as per usual, because Therese's mom cooked it! As usual, all the girls were extremely late (They have the term like Filipino time which means not on time, give or take 10 to 20 minutes. Barbie time is an hour or two).

Taking photos outside the Arenas residence (Fonzy, I, Ana, Gab, Tina, Czar & Ron)

After dinner, we headed to Distillery where we did not find anywhere within a mile to park! We ended up having to walk, me in 5 inch heels. A few meters in and the rain starts pouring like mad and we end up needing to make a run for in.

I, Tina, Karlos outside Distillery

Faith & I. Do we really look like twins?

With Therese's blockmates + Czarron

It looks like I've twisted Raph's body into an unnatural shape

My mom's reaction upon seeing this photo on Facebook: "Ah!!!! Czar!!!!!"

The pictures don't really say much aside from "HELLO BOOBS" and "I DO NOT OWN A COMB" but this really was one hell of a fun night. Granted, I fell to the floor twice and I grabbed a long haired man and called him Ana, it was still pretty kick ass. Also, my one fear turned out to not come true: my boobs stayed in place even without the help of a bra. Yay!

Happy birthday to the extremely pretty Therese Arenas! ♥

Outfit: Channeling D&G with the leopard print corset (bought online); Studded black shorts (Chatuchak, Bangkok); Miu Miu knowck-off heels (Forever 21)

Tina's 18th

Last May 6 was, one of my closest friends, Tina's debut. The youngest of all the Barbies was finally turning into a legal adult and we were all so excited for her.

We spent months guessing what the theme of her debut was. It was only during the day itself that we figured it out--well, I haven't actually figured it out yet, but it's got something to do with the galaxy and stars and stuff. Whatever, the theme being vague does not detract from the awesomeness that was this party!


How it looked like outside

The first surprise was Madam Auring being there to tell people their future. There were only a few guests who had their fortunes told. I'm all for good fun, but man everyone was like really weirdly ecstatic about what they were told. Because you know, wholeheartedly believing in a stranger who claims she sees your future is totes sensible.

We were finally called inside, because Tina was about to make her grand entrance. We knew she was going to dance, but we didn't expect the kind of dancing she did! She was lifted up and twirled around. It was so cute and surprising!


The grand entrance. This is unedited, btw.

After the entrance was the 18 Candles of which I was a part of. They just played our pre-recorded message on the huge ass screen (how humiliating) while we catwalked to get to Tina's throne. Then came the usual debut traditions. The funniest part was the video of the celebrity greetings. She had TV hosts, senators, actresses, councilors, groups of traffic enforcers, and the crowd favorite, Dirik Niramsi (a Derek Ramsy impersonator who looks nothing like him)!

An important part of every event, of course, is the food. For Tina's debut, it was great. I remember wishing my friends would eat some more so I didn't look like a hog. Then the drinks. Out of all parties I have attended, Tina's drinks were the best. Strong, but still tasted great. My favorite was the Mojito and Black Orchid. I think my condition of being in a drunken stupor by the end of that night attests to how much I enjoyed the drinks served.



I had one too many.

This debut was by far one of, if not, the best debuts I have attended. I hope you had a great time during your celebration, MM. I know I did!

Last Saturday was the scheduled DLM photoshoot. My friend, Aia, had asked me to style the shoot along with my friend, Tina. Tina and I arrived at the house of Matt, where we were supposed to prep up, but since we were early birds and were too shy to enter, we decided to grab some lunch at McDonalds. When we finished and headed back, we found the whole team already there.

Tina and I got on to making outfits with the shirts while Yella and Jo did hair and make-up on the models. Karlos cut up the shirts. It was hours and hours of working + chatting up and laughing! We started shooting at around 5 pm. Jack, the photographer, did wonders! He made the models lie on the grass and climb trees. He would ask models to turn their heads a couple centimeters and it would make such a huge difference.



Jack would yell "shirt!" and, as the stylist, I would have to run and make sure the print is clear and visible.



Me with Alex (model) and Tina (co-stylist). The top Alex is wearing was actually a t-shirt, but we had Karlos alter it since we thought a tank top would look better with a maxi skirt. Doesn't the alteration look so professional?



This is the "dream team".
L-R: Anna (hair), Jo (hair), Jack (photographer), Yella (make-up), Alex & Karlos (creative directors), Me (stylist) & Tina (Missing in action) with Aia, the girl behind all this!

And here's a teaser of how this will turn out



Make sure to follow AIA and like Dream a Little More on Facebook for updates! Shirts go on sale June 1! Designs are already posted on the FB page. They ship worldwide!

A few weeks ago I visited my friends at De La Saale University. DLSU is the university a huge percent of people from my high school go to. People sometimes jokingly refer to it as CSA 2.0. Whenever I visit, I always see a bunch of my old classmates. It's really fun visiting every once in a while.

When I did so with Therese, we had such a great time. All of my friends who study in another school went to DLSU too so we got to be complete once and for all!

Pictured:L-R Top- Jara, Ana, Yua Bottom- Karlos, Raph, Tina, Me, Therese, Nicole, Czar


It was so lovely to be with them after such a long time. Jara, who I never ever see unless I visit her in school, was finally there and I was finally able to reconnect with her. We all bonded at Cerealicious and Papa John's. We decided to head out just before it got dark. We didn't know where to go yet, but thankfully, Therese offered up her house for a drinking session.


Therese & I

So we went to Central to takeout alcohol. The car ride was so fun! We kept laughing all the way to Therese's house. We stayed at her patio as usual and ordered in McDo! It was a great night too! I had to leave early though because the next morning I had an important thing to go to.

The next day was my (not so) little brother's grade school graduation. The ceremony was in the school's newly renovated gymnasium.


Walking to the gym with my mother


Outfit of the day:
Top - Divi
Pants- Divi
Shoes - F21
Bag - Hong Kong Ladies' Market



The graduates

It was so hilarious watching them because I am all too familiar with how you're instructed to be robotic and spot on with everything you do during the ceremony. They tell you at what word to clap, the exact moment you will sit, which hand to shake the rector's hand with, etc. I lol'd when one kid sat in the wrong aisle whcih resulted in a domino effect that lead to the last few students lacking seats. I could see the teachers getting angry.


My brother who stands out due to his abnormal height


Getting his diploma

After the ceremony we took photos and decided to have lunch in Burgos Cirlce in The Fort. We ate in Unle Cheffy. The food was decent, but I didn't like what I ordered so much.



After that I went to Tina's house to film for her debut. It turns out the filming won't be in her house in Ayala but in Marikina. We all took a car there and as usual the car ride was so noisy with out voices trying to compete the party songs playing. The shoot was so funny because we all had to re-do it after seeing that we all looked haggard in the video.

After the shoot, we ate in Gravy Fix Katipunan. What was hilarious was a friend rang me and was freaking out. She kept asking if I was alright because news was going around that I had been in a car accident. I just laughed it off. Apparently my brother was playing a very unfunny April Fools trick! He got in trouble for it after because my parent did not think it was funny. Heehee

It was a really fun couple of days! I had fun spending the days with my girls.

Coachella

So as I promised I would update this blog more with more personal things. It is my birthday today! I am an adult! 18 years! Wow! I remember years ago, I had this list of things to do before I turn 18. It had things like: get a boyfriend, go skinny dipping, drink until I pass out and loads of other things I still have yet to do! I know 18 is pretty young, but I feel sort of like I don't have enough to show for it. Ah, well, I am just waiting for my big break. Hello, Ms. Wintour?

Anyway, last Friday my friends and I went to a Coachella themed bazaar in Rockwell. Rockwell bazaars are usually frequented by fashion bloggers and personalities. It's also where you can buy from online stores so we all really wanted to go. Also, the theme was Coachella. There was good music promised so we got really excited.

Before going to Rockwell, we checked out the new Forever 21 branch in Makati. It was packed at merely 10am! I didn't get to explore it much, but I can say that I like the Megamall branch more.

We finally went to Rockwell and checked out the items. There were tons of really pretty things like quirky rings with the faces of Frida Kahlo, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn (duh, of course!). There was a stall that had a long rack of cropped tops. There was one that had a cartoon print of Alex DeLarge (A Clockwork Orange) that I told myself I would buy, but I totally forgot to! :( Even worse is that I forgot what the name of the store was. I did manage to buy POSH shoes which saved my aching feet by the end of the night.

Aside from that shirt, there wasn't anything that I wanted to buy. I don't know, everything looked like everything else. Anyway, the bazaar was pretty disappointing. There wasn't anything different about this bazaar. It wasn't unlike any other bazaar they have in Rockwell. I mean, it was a great tactic to theme it Coachella because of all these damn *hipsters in Manila.

We just took a lot of photos. These are a bunch of me with Karlos posing against the photo wall.





Our shopping trip turned into a food trip. We ended up eating at Gram's and vandalizing the wall. There happened to be a raging Klaine shipper who wrote before us. That wall was filled with Kurt ♥ Blaine and Klaine 4ever!


After eating at Gram's, we walked around a bit and ended up in this closed off bridge. No one was passing (I don't even think people were allowed to because there were post blocking the way that we had to jump over) so we took advantage and took photos!





We had to go home after that. I bought home a load of red velvet cake which was delicious!

Outfit:
Top: Mango
Shorts: Divi
Shoes: Hong Kong
Necklace: Divi
Bag: Hong Kong

Note: I thought I could try the color blocking trend little by little. The entirety of my closet is black so this trend would take a lot of adjusting to. My bag is a bright color and so were my nails. It looks stupid because no one can even tell what color my nails are so it just looks like my bag is so out of place. Ugh, next shopping trip: the brighter the better!


*does it count when they actually like being labeled hipsters?

It has been a year and a couple of days since I graduated High School. As messed up as people say high school made them, I was fortunate enough to have had to make up a reason for my crazy. You see, I went to the most boring High School ever. Now that I look back, that place didn't give me shit to help me with my life now. Ah, well, that's that. High school was a blast though. I never had to think of studying, because my teachers were so used to nobody giving a fuck that even just .1% effort put into an essay got me an A. It sounds like I went to some really jank High School, but actually people even call it prestigious. I may hate that I didn't learn shit, because I'm paying for it now that I'm in college, but I can't say I didn't have fun. I mean, isn't that what high school is for?

I'm just feeling a bit nostalgic, because in less than 2 weeks, I'm going to be a sophomore in college. Wow. I was looking at old pictures and reminiscing (lol hate that word). I thought I'd show you through photos.


After our class play in my sophomore year. I don't even remember what my role was.


With Nicole & Yua. This was during our school fair. Look at how straight my hair used to be.


At a friend's themed sweet sixteen


Getting (obviously) drunk for the first time ever in my junior year. Ended up crying on my mother's lap when I got home.


Prom night! Yes, I had a date. I can't locate a photo of us, but here's one with me and the people who made that night great, my friends. :)


Last night of junior year, when we threw a party. This is when we started our party planning thing.


My class for senior year. We were always fooling around.


My forever friends. These are my busmates (missing Trishy). We spent practically our whole lives knowing each other.


This are my friends & I right after we received our diplomas!


This was us celebrating in our Graduation Ball.

That's my high school life in photos. Of course it had more crazy nights and boring routine days than you can see here, but this is how I'll remember it. :)
*sorry I couldn't find any pics from freshman year*

Holiday Spirit

So that last post was kind of a bummer and I don't want this blog to reflect the downer that is my life. Positivity! Happiness! All that shit! In keeping up with all the good thoughts (I don't know how sarcasm will translate into the internet so I hope this is working) I'll blog about something that makes me happy.

Last December my friends and I decided we would have our own Christmas celebration. We have been separated by being in different universities at it was really nice to catch up over a great meal (which was equivalent to five).








We ate at the buffet in Manila Peninsula. The food was good and the company was even better. We all caught up with each other and everything we have been doing in college. It's great to have friends who are always going to be there no matter how long since you've seen each other. It was great to be around that sense of familiarity.

Of course, we had the obligatory photo shoot. We don't care if we're in a Church or a busy street or whatever, we will take photos of ourselves and everything.








I usually skip out whenever someone asks me to go out because, well, I am a social sloth, but I just missed my friends a lot so I decided I would go. After dinner, we wen to to Tina's house to just hang out and talk. As always, the night ended with a lot of laughs!



CHEERS TO GOOD FRIENDS!

*This is probably the lamest and cheesiest post I have ever made. So now you people understand why I rarely ever post anything solely about my personal life- it's because it sucks and I suck at talking about it.