Blue Christmas

It's December 1 -- the holiday season has officially started and I am feeling a bit gloomy today. The past couple of weeks has been a roller coaster ride for me and went through a series of ups and downs. I try not to be all negative since everyone is feeling festive nowadays but what can I do, my life can be a bit messy sometimes and the timing couldn't be more perfect.

Anyway, I just want to share with you my all-time favorite Christmas song by Mariah Carey: All I Want For Christmas Is You. I am not really a big Justin Bieber fan but I actually enjoyed this refreshing new version with Mariah. It suddenly made me feel festive for the first time this year.

And because I am feeling lonely once again, I would love it if you would share to me anything that you think can make me smile even for a little while.

Happy Holidays everyone. :)

My Top 10 Holiday Wishlist 2011

Time to go materialistic! Sure, I wish for peace, love and happiness too, but c'mon -- nothing wrong to want the things money CAN buy, right? :) Admittedly, I cannot afford some of the items listed here (kaya nga it's a wish eh, hehe) so I am sharing it to my loved ones (and strangers alike) for them to know what I've been really dying to have this Christmas. :)

So without further ado, I present to you my Top 10 Semi-Official Wish List:

1.) Blackberry Bold 9900

2.) My own .com domain

3.) Forever 21 gift card

4.) Samsung Galaxy S II

5.) Chanel Jumbo Flap White

6.) Hed Kandi Headphones

7.) Canon Powershot G12

8.) Technomarine Cruise Pink

9.) iMac

10.) Portable RF Machine

I am pretty sure my friends would laugh at my last wish! Hahaha!

So, will you be my fairy godmother or Santa Claus this year? Hit the comments below and tell me what you think! ;)

What's In My Bag? v.2

Because of extreme boredom, I decided to do another "What's In My Bag" post similar to what I've posted a year ago. Basically I just poured the contents of my current bag and share with you all my daily essentials. So sorry about the bad quality pics, I just used my phone to take them, hahaha. Anyway, here goes.

Presenting:
MY-I-WILL-DIE-WITHOUT-THEM-STUFF

Current bag: Tory Burch Nylon Tote Bag

My current favorite because it's very roomy. :) My netbook + all my basic essentials can fit in here. Oh and it's water-proof too! :)

Current scent: Jacque's M. Aurora perfume

Was persuaded by a salesman at ATC to buy this. My usual scent is the forever D&G Light Blue (since college!), and this one smells sooooo close to that! I don't like fruity/flowery scents, and this one is perfect bec it has a sporty/cool kind of scent. Not to mention it costs P1,000 less than Light Blue!

Absolute must-haves.

Don't ask me why I have three scrunchies, I don't know as well -- haha! I always always forget to bring one most of the time and I hate it when I can't tie my hair into a ponytail during bad hair days. So maybe for the past week I kept getting every scrunchie I found around my room and stuffed it in my bag. :) Alcohol -- for sanitation purposes, and comb obviously.

Basics.

Yep, I don't use a wallet. I used to have one but I am THAT lazy to put money in it that I always end up putting lose change in my bag pocket, my jeans or wherever. Took me a while to realize that my wallet just takes up space in my bag w/o any purpose in my daily rituals. So as you can see, my money is just stuffed inside my mirror pouch, lol. That gold little mirror is from my bestfriend, I think it's a freebie from a perfume she bought in France. And mints, because  I work graveyard and I NEED it.

Work ID.

I am so lucky to be part of this company because I work in a very laidback environment. My colleagues are superb too! Have you ever worked in a company where you instantly felt that you fit right in? :) Anyway, I changed the lanyard to a Blackberry one my ex-boyfriend gave me. Go Team Blackberry! :)

Make-up.

As you can see, I am not really into cosmetics. Just the basics: foundation and lipstick are all I need when I go to work. My gimik bag is way different though. :) Anyway, for foundation I have Chanel Luminous Creme Foundation in Wheat. I love that it evens out my tan and it's practically an all-day wear! Same goes with my MAC Lipstick in Captive, the color deposit is so generous that it lasts for a good 4-6 hours! So these two are a perfect combo for someone like me who isn't a fan of constant retouching. :) I also have Maybelline Lip Balm in Cherry which I rarely use (bec the MAC doesn't make my lips dry even though it's close to matte). I like Carmex lip balm better actually but I went on a night out recently and I left it in my other bag. Little trivia: I am allergic to lipsticks except for MAC, Maybelline and Avon.

Not-so must-haves.

I keep a second pair of glasses in my bag because in the event  that I left/lost the one I have on, I am at least assured that I wouldn't go partial blind when I am out somewhere. I started wearing glasses when I was 13, and my eye grade is now at 200/200. I have never gotten used to wearing contacts because they are so difficult to remove (or at least for me)! Haha. I only wear contacts when I go out on gimiks, bec who wants to look like some geek in a bar, right? I also have with me random cards (debit cards, school ID, SSS ID etc.), house keys and a phone bill (which reminds me, I've got to settle my bills asap! lol).

Mobile phone: Blackberry Bold 9700

Solid Blackberry user since early 2009. I started from Pearl Flip 8220, then Bold 9000 and now this. I already blogged about my love for Blackberry phones so I won't go into detail again, but I think the best thing about this phone is its amazing keypad and of course, BBM. :)

For my entertainment needs.

And finally, my ever reliable iPod Touch and Beats Solo HD headphones. I need to stay entertained all the time especially at work so I have to have these. There aren't much games on my iPod anymore (unlike before) because it's filled with educational apps for Baby Kiann (alphabet song, shapes, flash cards, etc). He is so addicted to using iPod that his old one broke already that's why whenever I am home this is technically his all-in-one toy.

So there you go! What about you, what's in your bag? :)

X.O.,
Kat :)

Come One, Come All!

I was invited by a new-found blogger friend Tom to join this year's Second Annual Community Network Meme 2011 and I am inviting you all to join too! I have heard of memes in the past but I always thought that they are for "professional bloggers" only. Anyway, I am so excited to join this year because it is the perfect chance for me to meet and get to know other bloggers!

The idea of a meme is to post a set of questions that many bloggers will answer and post it on their blog on the same day and time. After which, everyone will visit other bloggers, read their answers and comment on their responses. Here's how it works: (repost from Tom's site)

1. If you want to participate, send a message to Tom using his contact page and in turn he will email you a copy of the meme questions.

2. You will compose your answers in a post along with the Meme graphic (grab from above) and schedule the post for December 11th at 12.01 am based on your time zone. Last year everyone posted at 12.01 but with 24 time zones we spent a lot of time waiting for some blogs to get posted. This year all posts will be simultaneous (data to be posted at a later date) based on time zones and not clocks.

3. A master list of everyone participating will be generated and posted along with your answers in December so you will be able to pick whose blogs you would like to visit.

Community Network Rules of Participation:

- You must agree not to post your answers until everyone else does.
- You must agree that you will visit at least five blog links that you have never visited before and leave a comment on their responses.
- You must answer each of the twenty questions and do so with more than a simple yes or no response.
- You must post the entire Master Meme Blog List of blogs participating, regardless of how long the list may grow to be, below your answered questions.
- You must title your post the same as everyone else, “Community Network Meme 2011″.
- You must direct all interested parties to Morning Erection’s Contact Page to get the questions. You may not give them a copy of yours. Remember, we are trying to avoid Sunday Stealing from stealing and posting before December 11th.
- You must promote the Community Network Meme at least once on Facebook or some other form of social media, even if it is just your own blog to get more bloggers to participate. Provide the link back to your original post so they can post this in its entirety on their blogs, just like we did.
- If you would like to participate and write the post in your language and not English, feel free to translate it or you could post both translations.
- Make sure to either vote for or like the post appropriately if on the WordPress platform.

This is gonna be fun! See you! :)

The Pursuit of Internet Fame

Nowadays, there are only two reasons as to why people are into blogging business: FAME or MONEY. For money, it is kind of a long shot because to be able to attract sponsors for your blog, you have to have a decent number of unique hits. And if your content pretty much sucks and doesn't interest a majority of netizens, then you can kiss Internet fortune goodbye.

You can agree or disagree with me, but I really think that most bloggers blog in hopes of getting noticed. And at some point I think that that is okay. I mean why else are we on the Internet, seriously? What I don't like though are those who blog not because they have something to say or something to share, but because they want to be famous or because they want free shit.

I have to admit that I have attention-seeking tendencies. I think most bloggers do. Hell, I think most people do. But I can say with all honesty that I didn't start blogging to be famous, like so many people seem to be doing now. I have been blogging (privately) since 2005 and my love for writing led me to this. I started to blog back in college because I wanted to practice my writing skills and learn how to express my thoughts through written words (I used to not be very good at that). Later on, I continued to write because I realized that it is very fulfilling for me to see a documented journey of my life. It's fun to look back at older posts and see how much I've grown over time. Minsan natatawa nalang ako at how shallow my topics were way back 5 years ago!

Anyway, recently I have seen a spike in my blog hits with the post "On Loneliness" being the most viewed. I received personal emails from random people full of words of encouragement, telling me to not feel bad, that they feel the same way, or that things will get better. To be honest, it feels so good to know that these strangers take the extra time to write me a letter (effort!) w/o really expecting anything in return. I know that this might be very common for famous bloggers out there, but this is a first for me -- so I feel pressured because I felt like my blog has suddenly went public. I mean yeah, technically it is an open blog, but I always assume that only a handful of people read it. I never, never imagined that time will come that lots of people would actually be interested in it!

I think this level of pressure is harder for people who blog the way I blog, because I don’t have a skill or talent. I don’t post travel experiences, artwork, or photography; I don’t really do book and film reviews too. I just dump myself out there in word form, so I have nothing to hide behind. Anything goes. The hard part of this is when people start to notice you, they are not judging your work, they’re judging you. Thankfully I haven't encountered negative comments yet (considering my controversial RH Bill post), but I could only imagine myself when that time comes. Will I be affected? Will I just shrug it off? Depende siguro, hehe.

I guess for now I might have to be extra cautious about what I write. It is still gonna be me, but prolly less rants about how much my life sucks, lol (gotta save that for Twitter, eh?). And to those who just landed on my blog and don't know me personally, please be informed that my blog doesn't define who I am. I am much much more than this. :)