Being Stuck in a Rut Can Actually Be A Godsend

Sun ready to set on Bled

Hi there. How have you all been? I know, I know... I didn't keep my word on doing a monthly appreciation post like I said at the start of the year. 
You may be wondering what's my excuse this time. Well... To be brutally honest, I was just not feeling it. It is shocking, I know and even the present me cannot believe how I left behind what gave me such good energy (and this includes editing video clips I took during my travels). But yeah... I was SO unmotivated.

February 2018 | Finding Happiness and Fighting For It

Hello beautiful earthlings!
Have you been well? I hope you guys are happy and healthy and that your February was awesome.

January 2018 Appreciation Post

Hello beautiful earthlings!
How are you all? I'm here today to share my favourites and highlights of my January 2018. January was such a happy month and I am still as happy and excited and I really pray that you feel just as happy and excited as I am.

ESthetics: Things I Learned in 2017

Hello beautiful earthlings!
Happiest new year to you and to your loved ones. I hope 2017 treated you well just like how it treated me well. May your 2018 be filled with peace, happiness, love and more blessings.

Es finally #graduatES

Hello beautiful earthlings!

Character Development Unlocked 

Experience Level Up: +1 and additional faith
Weapon: Degree (increase in strength) and Cap (increase in initiative)
Accessories: Robe (HP +5)
Outfit: White Dress (well this makes me look like a superhero/white mage/ Final Fantasy character 😆😂) 

EsTrails: European Singles Congress 2017 in Hallingdal, Norway | #SFLBestLifeEver

Back in July, my friends and I headed to Norway for the yearly European Singles Congress. We were originally to host the event but due to the Ireland's high costs it was decided to move it to Norway. I saw this as an opportunity to travel to another country.
At the beginning of the year, I was planning to save my annual leave because I had planned to go to Korea this year as a graduation treat to myself but it never happened and I don't think it is going to happen for the rest of the year.
I am not sour about it that I didn't go to Korea this year. This year's ESC was something.

With this year's theme of United Together in Christ, I've learnt to work with people. I really wanted to reflect on this year's theme and apply it to my life. We all learnt how to work with each other especially in difficult times.
During that weekend I've received my assignment from God. At first it was tough to take in but all I could do was surrender everything and follow His plans because His plans are always greater than the plans I have for me.

Somewhere in Norway - in between Hallingdal and Oslo 😂ㅋ

Watch my vlog for the weekend?


I hope your week is going well so far! I'm all good and happy~ I'll see you guys in my next post.
Peace and Love,

Personal: Birthday Ramblings

Great are You Lord over all
We will declare Lord You are faithful
Great are You Lord over all
Great are You Lord
You are the strength of my life Lord
It doesn't matter what may come my way
You are the strength of my life Lord
I'm holding on to You

I am thankful to my God for blessing me another year on this earth. Thankful for my blessings: my family, my friends, my workmates and my job. During my early 20s, I struggled with self-doubt and dealing with failure. Who knew that during in my mid-20s that I would experience my own success through self belief, perseverance, fervent prayers and encouragement of family and friends? I still have my doubts and I feel that I should already be accomplished but yesterday I was reminded and received affirmation and said

"Wow, you've already achieved a lot. You have been to places and you'll graduate."

To receive such affirmation made me realise that my life's timeline is different to others. Whoever reads this and stuck this far into my ramblings, if you feel like you are in a rut, I pray that you will get to feel the way I feel now. I am happy with the timeline that I am blessed with and would not have it any other way.

For the past few years, I've been scared turning another year older but now I'm happy to be 26. Not all children are blessed to live that longer. And I have realised this week that another year means another year of blessings and to be a blessing.

Peace and Love,

My First Wedding Fair with Cupcakes and Counting

Hello beautiful earthlings!
I had the great opportunity to attend the Grand Hotel Malahide wedding fair to support and help our friends of Cupcakes and Counting yesterday.  This was the first wedding fair that I have attended and it was a good experience. It also gave my best friend Rich and I a little insight of what were involved in wedding fairs.

Other: Be a kind human

Hello beautiful earthlings! I am so happy to say that my exams for my third year in college is finally over! And good news, I am now employed for my internship! I am so happy and excited!

Anyway, I just wanted to post something that happened recently.

I was at a cafe the other day and had a very strange conversation with a stranger. She asked me what I was studying and if I could speak English and I said yes. She was so curious as to what I am. It is quite difficult to explain what I am to people without going through my history.

My nationality is Irish, my ethnicity is Asian (Filipino) but I was born and grew up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and my accent, well is American. This stranger lady told me that I should learn how to speak proper English. I was confused. She did not think about my proficiency in English and that I am multilingual. When I got talking, she was probably taken aback since I was conversing with her fluently. She then told me to change my accent and that no employer here in Ireland would hire me. I told her that changing my accent would be a very hard thing to do. She was being a little aggressive and told me to use the word "difficult" instead of "hard". In my head, it is the exact same thing and "hard" is easier to say since it has less syllables. The conversation continued and I read in between the line. She basically was saying that I am incompetent because of my accent and that she was superior.

It got me thinking how sad of a person she must be to actually take her own time and mine to get this point across that one makes one better because of their accent. It shocks me how people think like this. I experienced being judge because of my race, and I don't need someone to judge my capability just because my accent is different. Life is already hard as it is and we don't need this kind of mentality at all. At the end of the conversation, I politely said bye since I had to go to my exam. And little did she know that I am employed (and by next week, I am employed by two employers! :D) not because of my accent and race but because of my personality and capabilities.

TLDR post I know but yeah. The moral of this story is be kind a human. And a person's capability to do things is not based on their race or accent.

Goodbye 2015, hello 2016!

Hello beautiful earthlings!
It's been a while since I last posted something, I know.Life got so hectic lately with me having to find an employer for my 6 month internship as part of college, trying to pass my modules and still do good at work.  I still am looking for an employer to hire me for my internship that can allow me to keep my other job to keep me financially stable and to help me save up for my tuition fee next year.
A lot of friends on Facebook had put up statuses saying how good 2015 was for them.  It made me realize that my 2015 was awesome too.  More good things happened compared to the bad things.  I have travelled quite a bit, met new people, made new friends, laughed a lot, cried because of joy and God made me my own kind of supergirl with His help.
Praying that 2016 will be as good.  Praying that 2016 will keep us happy and healthy.  I also pray that 2016 will be more peaceful than 2015.  Wishing you all a very happy new year!
Peace & Love!

Other: Fan Account on meeting Vanness Wu

Hello beautiful earthlings!
This is probably the only blog post that I will have with no photos whatsoever.  I know it has been a while since my last post and I am here with a post that is nor related to my normal posts.
Like the title suggest, I met Vanness Wu!
I just saw him shopping at H&M in Dublin shopping the Balmain X H&M collection.  We exchanged a glance and it took me half a second to realize, oh my gosh it was Vanness Wu.  I walked back and excused myself then asked if he was Vanness Wu.  He nodded and I said I was a fan of his, he extended his hand and he shook my hand!  I was so starstruck that I did not have the guts to ask for a photo with him.  I became so shy because I did not want to bother him anymore and I just said to enjoy shopping and have a nice night.  I went into the elevator, shaking and texted my seastars and one of my closest friend, Merrusa!
Gosh, I was completely starstruck.  He is so handsome and so tall!  He was with friend and he was nice enough to smile to me too!
Today is just a great day! 
That's it for now and I promise I will be good with my future posts that is way long overdue! Have an amazing weekend!
Peace & Love!

Other: Cousin's Wedding

Hello beautiful earthlings!
How have you all been?
A couple months ago, my cousin got married when we were in Philippines and I was her maid-of-honour.  My sisteres were bridesmaids and my brother was the best man.

This is my goddaughter who was one of the flower girls!

The happy couple finally wed.

Ate Norlyn and I photobombing the photo session of the bride and groom.

My sister Steffi and her boyfriend Mark did the whole garter thing but instead of a garter, it was a yellow ribbon.
The wedding's colour theme was rainbow.

This little lady had the same dress colour as me! Isn't she adorable?

Archie (of BigShots Styles and Events) is the wedding planner who also is my cousin's best friend.  It is so cute how they all helped out for my cousin's wedding.

My second degree cousin Athena with my aunt wearing green!

Aunt Jinky (we call her Mommy Jinky) is like another mom to me. So glad to be reunited with her because of the wedding.
Everyone got emotional as we saw our cousin walking down the aisle. I am wishing the couple happiness in their married life and healthy and happy pregnancy for my cousin!
I'll see you guys in the next post!
Peace & Love!

Birthday Post

Hello beautiful earthlings!
So yesterday was the day I hit my mid-20s.  I am thankful that God has blessed me another year to live my life to the fullest. I am blessed for everything that has happened during the previous year.  It was definitely a memorable one.

Froyo and Grown-Up Conversations

Hello beautiful earthlings!

So, my best friend since 5th Year secondary/high school and I met on this beautiful Saturday.  The weather was fantastic and today was and still is a good day to be happy.

I walked as usual to town and I just had to take this beauty.  Dublin is beautiful.

I have not seen this lady in about 4 months! She moved to a different county for work.  We had so many things to catch up starting from her new career!

We had froyo at Yogism while we talked about our jobs, our goals for the future and our future holidays together.  We have been friends for almost 8 years!  Even though a lot of things have changed, I believe we still are the same girls back in school laughing so hard during our lunch time shenanigans with the rest of our friends!

I am so proud of the independent life that she is living now.  She kept telling me that it is not glamorous to be living independently since there is this thing called bills to pay.  But I admire her courage for living away from Dublin for the first time and away from her family.  It takes guts to go somewhere else, live on your own and start a whole new career.

I am happy for her and I cannot wait for me to do the same thing in the future.  I cannot wait to live on my own and be my own independent, strong woman (this is my ego trying to be another superwoman wannabe).  But for now, I'll enjoy the things that I have.  I'll enjoy my next few years in college because it will soon be all gone.  One day, I'll graduate and I'll be working for the rest of my life.  It is scary I know but it will be worth it.

To bestie, if you are reading this, I admire and love you so much! And I will visit you in the "countryside" soon enough! :D

Peace & Love!

Being Superwoman

Hello beautiful earthlings~

This  post is not travel or beauty or food related.  This post is something personal that I want to share with you beautiful earthlings.  You have the choice to close the tab you're in right now or continue reading.  I pray constantly that God will use me as His instrument to bring happiness and inspiration to others and to let me show people the love God has for us.  I hope that you find happiness, inspiration in this post and most importantly I pray that you may feel God's unconditional love for you.

As the photo and title suggest, this post is being or trying to be Superwoman by another superwoman wannabe A.K.A. ME!

You see, I want to become a superwoman.  I wanted (and still do) to do everything and do well in every aspect of what I do from being a student, an employee, future career woman, daughter, sister and friend.  I was never really the "I-MUST-BE-BETTER-IN-EVERYTHING" (Let's abbreviate this as IMBBIE) type of girl.  I did not care but being one of the top students last year in my class brought so much happiness and pride to my parents.  That feeling stuck with me.  Nothing beats the feeling of making your parents so proud of you.  I let that feeling drive me into becoming this IMBBIE person.  I wanted to make my parents happy and proud of me.  I wanted to compensate the years of doing so bad in college for three years to being one of the top now.

There is nothing wrong in wanting to become a superwoman in every aspect of what you do in life (well, that is what I would like to think).  I wanted to fulfil the roles I mentioned above in a superwoman level 99 way that I forgot to be a superwoman in the number 1 role I have in this life: a  daughter of God.  How come I forgot? You see I thought that by trying to become like Superwoman or any awesome heroine in a Final Fantasy game, I would become invincible.  I thought I would not tire at all.  But boy I was wrong,  Unlike any strong female video game character (I wish I was though cause they're so pretty), I am human.

"To err is human."  - Alexander Pope

Unlike Superwoman who has no known weakness, I have a couple of my own and I make so many mistakes.  First, I am very temperamental.  Another is that I have this bad habit of not saying no to people.  I want to please the people around me and because of my superwoman mentality, I thought I'd have all the energy in the world to do all the favours people ask of me, to do well in college and do well at work and be a filial daughter to my parents to be an awesome sister and friend. This then put so much pressure on me.  And one of my biggest weakness is NEVER telling people what I really feel especially when I feel something negative.

This overwhelmed me so much that I felt like I was about to break.  Our sistar Bianca saw my tweets and said that it is IMPOSSIBLE becoming superwoman or any other fictional heroine.  We are human, we tire all the time.  I was so tired at the end of the day that I did not have the energy to even pray.  How bad was that?!  How can I not have a conversation with the One who created me?  How can I not pray to the One who died on the Cross for me to be saved?!  But it did happen.   I became unhappy that my sisters Nikki and Steffi and even my mom noticed it and asked if I was going through depression.

I realized why becoming a superwoman two/three weeks ago did not work for me and made me unhappy.  It was because I did not pray for it.  Nowadays, no matter how exhausted I am, I try to force myself to walk to and from college/work everyday because it is the only quiet time I'd get to have a one-on-one with God.  For the past week, I have been praying to become a superwoman in terms of being a filial daughter of God, a filial daughter to my parents, a loving sister to my siblings, a hard working student, a hard working staff at work and career woman.  For the past week, the weight of the world on my shoulder has lighten a bit.  It is still a challenge at times but it became better.

I don't know if you are still with me in this post but basically what I'm trying to say to all my fellow superwoman wannabes is that it is okay to take off your sexy, superwoman heels and take a breather and just do things that relaxes you or do nothing but rest.  Also, know that prayers make things better.  It might not get better instantly but it will happen in God's perfect timing.

"I can do all this through Him who gives me strength." - Philippians 4:13

I hope your head is not hurting from all the words I have written but I have this feeling that God wants me to share my story.   To my fellow superwoman wannabes, may you find the strength to continue being awesome. God loves you so much so don't forget to thank Him today.

Peace & Love!

Scared, Terrified and All The Things in Between

So... As the title suggests, I am scared of this thing that has bugging me lately. I already have posted an entry in my journal about this topic but writing to a journal is more of a reflection and I think I need advice in this topic or a perspective that I fail to see.

So here it goes...

I am scared that maybe my friends talk about me behind my back. And we all know talk behind my back as in backstabbing. I don't know if my friends do or do not do that to me but if they do, I'm scared to find out.  Also, I don't know how I'd be able to handle it.  You see, my friends are family to me and when I trust people, I do give it my all.  I give them my whole trust and my whole heart because I love them.  So how do you handle it when such things happen? I am not the confrontational kind and I just tend to ignore and move away from people who are like that.  I wonder if maybe I should talk to them if it does happen? I don't know.  The thought just breaks my heart to be honest.

I figured that in my friends and I's age range (or once a person hits their 20s), the "bitching" stops. I figured that we reach that maturity to just ignore the things we truly dislike about a person. Don't these people get tired too? For once, I hope these people would be extremely allergic to backstabbing.

So if you are reading this and do have an experience, please do share and comment your thoughts. Thank you.

Peace & Love.

Bianca's 19th Tea Birthday Party

On 21 August, we celebrated the 19th birthday of our good friend and sistar Bianca! We actually wanted to have a tea party with us in our somewhat looked like 50s fashion (But we had to make do with what was in our closet so it was not exactly 50s).

Bianca's birthday cake - Mango and strawberry spongecake decorated in whipped cream! Yum!

Chocolate chip cookies made by the celebrant

Cinnamon egg tarts and choco pie!

Red velvet crinkles! It was divine!

Muffins from BB's

Tuna sandwiches

Someone is excited to get her glass of champagne!

Strawberry and champagne (I do not like champagne! It tasted so bitter >_<)

My sisters

Forgot to take a photo of our OOTD but I didn't forget to take a photo of my footwear.
I probably looked weird but I felt really cute and girly so that was what mattered!

Happy birthday Birthday Girl!

Time flies so fast. I cannot believe that the girl I met when she was 9 with hoop earrings is now 19!  I pray that God will bless you with happiness, success and that may you be a successful lawyer in the future!

100 Happy Day Challenge: Accomplished

As what the title suggested, I have completed my 100 Happy Day challenge.  

This post might a little greasy (to those who don't know what this means, it's overly cheesy).

I really want to thank everyone who has been part of this journey. And yes it is a journey.  It was definitely a challenge to find happiness throughout your day or if your day was not working out as planned, you had to make something that makes you happy.  

As the clock stroke midnight last night (or should I say this morning?), I really felt God's love for me through my sistars and my friends.  I have been praying for peace and comfort and I finally got it.  They kept asking how I was and to be honest, I could not stop laughing due to their silliness. They're too cute! I am truly blessed. I love them so much for always having my back and for supporting and loving me.  I really cannot ask for me. I truly am a happy girl.

I hope that I will be able to see the happy things more than the sad things.

Personal Love and Respect

My sistars (bioligical sisters and our sister from another blood - yes weird I know) and I were talking about random things that lead to Instagram and hashtags.  My sister then said that there are these girls that post photos of themselves and hashtagging it "whores" or "bitches".  I personally felt that it was wrong of them to do so.  I know that it is their post and their life but I hate how girls call themselves such low labels be it a joke or not.  It's because they are worth more than that!

My mother always told me that we should learn to love ourselves first and respect ourselves first (after God of course) before we can love another person.  The way we love ourselves reflect on the outside and that others will be able to see it.  And from that, they will know that we are worth so much.  I know there are plenty of times that I hate myself and feel so insecure but I would never call myself a whore or a bitch because I know I am worth more than that, I respect myself enough to label myself that and that I am none of those terms.

Many girls complain how guys treat them like trash and often times these are the girls that label themselves these.  If you or in this case those girls to be treated like a queen that they deserve, then they should love and respect yourselves and think of yourself highly yet a humble way.  If you treat yourself with respect, people will follow.

I know there would be times that it is hard not to call someone those but let's be the bigger person here and leave the name calling out of our systems.  I am still in the process of bettering myself and I pray that God will fill my heart with happiness and love (for both others and myself). I also pray that He may show me my self worth and that I will learn to love me and cut myself some slack (I am my worst enemy and biggest critic).  And I pray that He will do the same to you.

I don't know if this post makes sense any more and this is just a post regarding my thoughts and feelings.  This is also personal and I hope that no one gets offended by it.

Peace & Love!

Summer Solstice Weekend 2014

The 21 and 22 of June was the summer solstice weekend.  My family had planned that we would go out of town or out of the country around those dates but there were no availability for any affordable city breaks.  I figured out that God wants me to be at this Christian Life Seminar. So I told my friend that I'd be going.   He had invited me to go for as long as we have known each other.

I was really not expecting that much and I was not expecting anything to happen to me since I already am I person of faith. We had talks all day Saturday and also had reflections, confessions and worship. During reflection we were asked to just pray.  Instrumental music was being played by the music ministry and the worship leader was preaching and praying with us.  Then after the instrumental, the first song was "From The Inside Out" by Hillsong.

"A thousand times I've failed

Still your mercy remains

Should I stumble again

Still I'm caught in your grace

Everlasting, your light will shine when all else fades

Never ending, your glory goes beyond all fame"

When that song started playing, I started crying. I felt God's love for me. That song was and is still the song that I always listen to when I am hopeless and almost to become faithless. Whenever I listen to that song, I happen to always find myself back on track again. During the pray over, two girls whom I have not met before said their prayers for me. I felt touched. Their prayers for me was so heart felt and genuine and it made me realize that even strangers can pray for you genuinely and that there are genuine people in this world.

During the worship service, the last song we sang was "Set On Fire" and I felt the Holy Spirit in me. I felt God's love and mercy. Words could not explain how great of a feeling it was. I am truly blessed for that to happen. I also made new friends and I'm so happy that I did since I am somewhat a socially awkward person at times.

Thank You God for everything. May you bless everyone with your love and grace.