it remains cold and gloomy most days of January

top, mixed berry in dumaguete city. jeans, zara (old, from 2-3 seasons ago). bag, giani bernini via macy's. boots, something borrowed via zalora.

Cropped and fitting is quickly becoming a favorite silhouette right up there with skintight skinnies when it comes to jeans. ....and you might be seeing me with jeans more often in this space for this year since I started the daily-ish personal style posts with one. Yeah...this won't be lasting for longer. I'll be back to wearing cutoffs/jean or denim shorts in a few days or so. It's tough to get out of wearing them and going for the ones that offer longer coverage of the legs when it's indian summer hot here 365 days a year. It's just...we've been having colder days still this month with another low pressure area on its way to our region.

To be quite honest, I'm not all too fond of the rubbery faux leather material this pair of boots are made of and have been thinking whether to return and get it exchanged for another rather more presentable pair that's not faux leather of this kind. Rubber-like faux leather or not, however, this seemed a good deal and would work for the rainy days so there's merit to keeping it rather than getting said pair exchanged. I'm pretty sure this pair will be worn out and all by the end of this year or so.

Music for the day (or night since it's night time here):

I have this on repeat for a long...while now. It's definitely addicting. A true ear candy. I'm becoming a Cube Entertainment (for Beast back in the day, some BtoB and some Pentagon), Around Us Entertainment (yay, Highlight!), and Woollim Entertainment (Infinite most of the time, Golden Child on some days but mostly for Sea) fan where South Korean pop, kpop is concerned. Speaking of kpop, I just watched a few of the documentary of Bigbang's latest world tour on E! News Asia and it failed to move me although I acknowledge generally how huge Bigbang is everywhere. It's just that...I'll stick with my Highlight and Infinite boys where kpop is concerned.

For the Jpop side of things, which is admittedly my first love since Globe's Feel Like Dance happened to me when I was little (think, really early 90s era electro-dance music), Da-iCE has just released Tokyo Merry Go Round single. So, yay! Clap. Clap. Unfortunately, the a-side had me feeling short as it reminds me of retro-AAA sound (think AAA's Kuchibiru Kara Romantica, Dangerous Gamble from the Way of Glory album of last year). I'm impartial to retro-sounding tracks. They're not really my favorite but they're alright to me so this was just a so-so a-side for me along with Watch Out and Everybody to name a few from Da-iCE's growing discography. I guess the longer you stay with a certain boy group with a fast growing discography, the more you realize there are just certain singles, full and mini albums that you think they'd be better off without or those you just least like. But you stick with them anyway because they continue to serve you good bops and some superb ballads here and there anyway. That's how I felt and continue to feel with AAA and now, it's how I felt (since three to four years after their debut as a boy group) and am feeling with Da-iCE. They are from the same entertainment company in Japan, Avex. The upside of TMGR single is...the b-side. When I don't like the a-side or main track of a single from this group, this follows with both AAA and lol as well, I default to the b-side or the coupling. The b-side or coupling is usually better when the a-side or main track of the single doesn't go down so well on a couple of listens. For TMGR, the couplings are: わるぐち(Waraguchi), a theme to a jdrama whose title escapes me, and the acoustic version of せつなくて(Setsunakute) from the I'll Be Back single of so long ago that is now sung by all 5 of the Da-iCE boys. I love わるぐち the most but others will refute this and say せつなくて here is better. I say both are alright, though. My personal bias just leans on わるぐち more where sound quality is concerned pitting all the contents of this single with each other with. I know, redundant and confusing, that last statement is.

Hmn...I'm beginning to think I picked the wrong date to make a Zalora purchase since the End of the Season Sale is still ongoing where the prices have gone even lower from before... From this time until the 28th of this month of January, one only has to spend 1,500 Php to get 15% off (using the code: END15) or spend a minimum of 2,000 Php to get 25% off (using the code: END25).  No matter. I'll take advantage of the next sales some other time. They have items on sale that's worth looking into from time to time anyway so it's okay to not be looking into sales like these (though they, too are worth it...) at this time. This is what I find fun when stalking stuff at Zalora from time to time...

for the colder days ahead...

top, h&m. hoodie, secondhand from aunt/s. jeans, zara. boots, rubi by cotton on via zalora (similar). tote, from bff. 

It's time to bring out the boots and cold weather wear because it's been raining intermittently today and there's a tropical storm that's coming in tonight. Local name by PAG-ASA: Vinta. As for the ankle boots/boots part, I have two or three pairs at the moment, I'm still looking to grow the arsenal...pretty soon. 

The stormy cold days is also when this pair of jeans from Zara from late last, last year, circa 2016? come out. I don't really wear jeans when it isn't too cold. Skirts is the norm here. And lastly, totes/tote bags. I can never get enough of them. I'm considering adding more from Savemore (I found one with cat print for 190-ish Php) and a good few from Miniso in SM Premiere. I could put the newly purchased SM Advantage Card (SMAC) to good use since my last one couldn't be renewed for being really limited to Watson's Dumaguete City system...hmn...

Such a full, full week this week, I hardly had time to breathe until today and, well, tonight. I hope to rest more thereafter. It is the holidays and the holidays should be for hermiting and resting, at home, in the quiet. Monday was house cleaning, arranging and decorating in time for the Christmas Party the next day, Tuesday. Tuesday---and I had been mentioning or alluding to, one too many times, how this year's holidays seem so gloomy/glum---I'd just had my twitter timeline got bombarded/filled by tweets on Shinee's (an SM Entertainment boy group) Kim Jonghyun's death by suicide, due to depression. He apparently suffered from SAD (seasonal affective disorder/seasonal depression) prior to killing himself. Something I easily connect with as I have it to, or used to suffer from it as it has now evolved to or progressed to Dysthymia, now called Persistent Depressive Disorder (PDD). Anyway, it's something I'm trying to keep at bay and manage by Psychotherapy at the moment. The depression is mild but it's there along with crippling general/social anxiety so...that's life for me. Now, I'm not a Shawol (what they call Shinee's fandom) as I'm not a huge fan of big entertainment companies like SM Entertainment (though they have linked up with Avex in Japan...) but this death affects me because I, too, suffer from depression that I find difficult to shake off. I may have to live with this for a loooong...while. I'm not suicidal though I have had thoughts of death. I'm too chicken to end my life on my own so there's that making me just your average gloomy person exhibiting signs and symptoms of PDD.

I say this again, and again, and again: depression is real, it exists. It's an illness/disorder although of the psychological kind. It's important to seek help before it gets worse, for the sake of preventing the worst outcome that could happen: death by suicide. Also, people need to be aware of the fact that depression is real and there are those who suffer from it. Living just for the sake of living; a soulless, hallow way of just existing is exhausting enough for depression sufferers (like me). So those who are aware need to toe the line around those who suffer from depression and take care enough not to add to said people's worries, etc lest they want to trigger the suicides/self-harming that's usually the end-all, be-all for depressives. 

....and...what is done, is done. I think tropical storm Vinta is just a step away from making it's full landfall in Hinatuan, Surigao del Sur. The rain is definitely getting stronger now and it won't be long before we'll be under storm signal number 2 here in the province of Misamis Oriental. I did get a bit of cheer from those live tweeting Highlight's (formerly known as Beast) first day of three concerts in Seoul's Jamsil Arena. So on wards, we keep on living, I suppose.

fairylike

dress, zara. boots, rubi by cotton on. bangles, from souvenir shop in dumaguete city and vintage. bag, kohl's (? I'm not sure...)

This Zara dress hasn't seen the light of day since I acquired it from the year end/season end sale around late 2015 to early 2016. This was basically two or three seasons ago. I've only taken it out of its hanger, from the rack with the most pieces I get most wear from on a daily basis, today. And I've just removed it's tag today as well. I know, really weird, right? I have the habit of keeping some pieces I get that I find I really like still tagged and left hanging on a rack in the bedroom until the mood and the occasion calls for me to get them out and finally wear them out with. I'm pretty sure I was able to get something else from that particular sale apart from this one but I forget what that was...hmn...

And in fandom news: there's only 5 days left until Highlight (the only male quintet kpop group I really stan where that part of pop is concerned...) releases Celebrate. Needless to say, I am pumped! I can't wait to listen to what this is going to be like. Highlight, since their period as Beast, has been delivering really well on the music front since time immemorial. Also, for the Jpop side of things, I've been obsessing with Da-iCE's 君色 (romaji: Kimi Iro) single/EP since last night. I love, love, loooove the b-side that is Fly Higher as much as I do the title track, 君色 (Kimi Iro). One is as good as the other. Yudai and Sota's solos are really, really good too. I rarely do get disappointed by any Da-iCE release. I'm finding lately that I rarely get disappointed by lol's releases as well. I suppose this is me getting used to anything Avex Japan, which is the main Japanese entertainment management agency I'm really into.

And so, until the next post, I leave you with this pretty, pretty (I'm not at all sure if I've attached this one to a previous post last month...it's taking me long nowadays to update this space with things for personal life/issues reasons...):

shortalls and about a couple of swede ladies in pop music

 shortalls, cotton on. t, zara. boots, forever21. bag, vintage/old ninewest.

From last Saturday. The shortalls are proving to be an all-rounder...cozy something lately.

Tuesday. And it's really early in the morning. So I woke up today to checking out 19-year-old Swede, Zara Larsson's music which, surprisingly, I ended up liking. This is all thanks to my aimless wandering towards lol_avex's twitter timeline where I found a tweet saying they attended Zara's live in collaboration with H&M around Tokyo. What I found out about Zara is that So Good is a solid pop/dance pop album so far. When it comes to the Swede musicians and the ladies at that, I'm really more of a Tove Lo fan (hint: we're the same age, she's just really more brilliant music making-wise...not that I ever tried or attempted putting out some music covers, not really originals, outside of the youtube thing I did way, way back...) where pop music making---songwriting, beats creating and all---is concerned but Zara is definitely getting there and just at 19, she's quite a promising all-around pop music talent. She comes off as someone with a lot of potential at such a young age for me. She's not Tove Lo solid yet as a songwriter (Tove Lo is god-tier for me thanks to Queen of the Clouds which was utterly brilliant pop in my book although Lady Wood is just as good however...) but I can't wait to see how this girl, Zara grows up as an all-around pop musician like her predecessor, Tove Lo. I think she'll be a force to reckon with in the near future. Anyway, three of what I currently like from So Good:

Zara's So Good record is definitely bop-able. *insert heart-eyes emojis here...*

americana

 photos by Candice Calonia  

plaid top & necklace, forever21. pants, zara. boots, zalora (rubi - cotton on).

What I wore out to lunch with the bff today and the subsequent random shoot at home after a failed attempt to reach the bff's place for a shoot at a better location (the near-empty really pretty basketball court in their subdivision close to the clubhouse we swam at last time). The reason for the latter being that I was called to house sit as one of our 8 dogs that had a recent accident had to be fetched from the vet after some time of rest post-surgery. It was cold and wet out so this get-up seemed appropriate. I do like plaid. But...I only seem to have a couple of pieces of the pattern in the wardrobe. I'll probably need to add more...well, next time.

another sailor-like piece

t, h&m. skirt, secondhand zara. wedges, CLN, sunglasses, dad's.

with BDG flats

Focal point of this post is the skirt. The skirt actually has a couple of pockets at the back like those of jeans and faux pockets in front with button flaps. In pretty navy that makes it easy to be integrated with any plain navy, black or even olive or army-ish green tops, it reminds me of a rather sailor-themed piece. The skirt works best high-waisted but rather than have the top/s tucked in to emphasize the whole skirt, I like the way it looks with the shirt un-tucked.

The BDG flats are a blessing should I need to go out quickly and still remain sartorially put together with easy basics like this top and skirt. They're also practical to use when doing long walks and a lot of standing but with me being me, it's one of the least used stuff among my footwear. I still like using impractical high heeled like sky-high heeled shoes more than the flats on most days. I'm...weird like that...I think.

This is how the skirt looks like with the top tucked in. Umn...I'd avoid this way of wearing the skirt on most days for some reason as it's not so me? Plus, I don't seem to like the way it looks this way.

i'm from l.a. part two

 vintage dress, zara shirt, zalora boots, ninewest bag, forever21 necklace, aizilim rings, vintage and souvenir shop bangles

It's been raining the whole day today...since, well, about midnight last night so surely downtown is flooded at this time. I should probably be bundled with some coat to ward off the cold but this cold temp is coming off pretty tolerable.

Random anecdote from yesterday's late afternoon twitter direct messages conversation with a good friend:

me: You'd think the rich people would know how to dress themselves on television and out but they don't. It's the effing horrendous opposite -.- (pertaining to the wardrobe characters of a local drama that airs around 3 in the afternoon that I've taken a liking to thanks to the good plot and pacing and another that airs sometime around 5:30 in the afternoon here.)

good friend: Lmao that's true. They (the staff of the production responsible for wardrobe) should know how rich people dress.

This is basically the scenario often seen in Filipino/Pinoy/Philippine drama outside of anything Jadaone makes (because, and I keep saying this often, Antoinette Jadaone is pretty brilliant, I am a stan. haha!). On the Wings of Love and Til I Met You are the two Philippine dramas that, to me, have their characters' fashion on point (hallelujah!) while for the rest...they have, like, female characters likely in their late 20s to 30s dressed like...I don't know...err...they're in their 50s to 60s, I guess?  The worst wardrobes are probably from those telenovelas that give off the feel that they're a south american production or something to that effect...people there are dressed like they live way, way back in the 20s or 30s or so...Philippines tacky, really old...ancient fashioned style (no offense to the Filipiniana costume as I have nothing against it but there should be a time and place for these things...). Well, for the latter, in their defense these dramas are often very south american-spanish in feel so I suppose I can't blame them. Plus their plots are also quite well...not so current so there's that, too. But yeah...I still just can't get things like these on local tv. To me, they often set things way, way back decades and decades ago when we should probably be more focused on the now. This might be the reason why I hardly watch anything local outside of one or two whose plots and such I like. Generally-speaking, this is pretty much how fashion is so off the radar here. Or it may be that the Philippines is off the radar of fashion...either works, I think.

saturday nights are for chilling and getting down to deep house/tropical house music

 secondhand hot topic t, zalora sporty skirt (phs 1, 2), zara super skinny jeans, vintage belt (not pictured but used in ph 3), forever21 ankle boots (phs 1, 2), CLN wedges (ph3), bag is a gift from an aunt (random, unknown brand), mix of forever21 vintage and souvenir shop shell (from Dumaguete City) bangles/bracelets, aizilim rings

Chilling to and getting down to deep house/tropical house tonight. It's Saturday here, so... Back on topic: CREAM's Summer Mix 2014 is the record to put on loop with a ton of gems from STAY to Wonderland to Whatever feat. WISE & Tarantula (Spontania) [Unedited Version] to Forever Young to #nofilter. There are a few other tracks I deliberately avoided mentioning back there but these are what make this record for me. I love a sampler or especially full record that you can actually dance the night away in, in your room or in a deserted beach strip. This is something difficult to find along with records that makes the listener (me) feel. Ah yes, more chill dance music to make me miss the summer even more and wish it to come on here and hurry up quick. 

....and something totally random: to give you an idea of what a playlist for most nights and some days to me looks like, I was looking around youtube earlier tonight to new music from the Chainsmokers (is it just me or are they seriously transitioning to a more Filous-y, Kygo-y style of music with Paris from the edgy, dark-ish drops-heavy debut track, Roses? I'd like it if they stayed experimental house/edm, though. The Chainsmokers are pretty good at experimenting with everything edm. If you can't follow my train of thought here, try their older EP, Bouquet and then get back at me to convince me otherwise...), old stuff from Shura, Tove Lo, Da-iCE, FEMM, FAMM'IN and a few others more. And now I'm listening to the 'deep, tropical house' playlist---comprising of about 30 to 40 highly varied house tracks (stuff from Filous, Alex Schulz, Ben Phipps, Instant Karma, Lost Frequencies and more) found from all over youtube---I have on windows media player. This playlist grows by the by as I go to my favorite youtube channel source for feel good music like the playlist's contents at least once every 2 weeks or so. I listen to a healthy mix of indie and mainstream pop stuff, actually. I like variety in the different kinds of music I listen to since mood dictates what music I listen to as much as it does how I dress/clothe myself. But, as of late, I've been more on deep house/tropical house than regular pop and my usual dose of alternative (pop-)rock (usually the euro/brit kind). This is the kind of music I can even sleep to...who says EDM has to be all techno, heavy, loud music that's highly distracting? Chill ambient deep house and/or tropical house is where it's at, yo. It's so mind-numbingly good it's great for trying to shake away the stresses and strains that life brings on a daily basis. It's highly effective in blanking my mind to the state of near-meditation. If you get what I mean as I am rambling more here now... Anyway, since I went this way middle of last year in music preference direction...I haven't the heart to come back to real world pop music except maybe to check if my other favorite pop and pop-rock musicians have released new stuff from time to time. And to conclude this pretty long, somewhat incoherent? rambling, let me just reveal that: to this day, I'm still dreaming of owning a CD/record collection so varied but mostly pop, mainstream and indie that transcends language barriers, culture divides and more...that and possibly dj-ing (and possibly music producing) since I'm so into house music nowadays. I'm currently trying to scheme ways to actually learn how to dj, remix tracks (edm/house remixing/mixing is becoming an obsession for me somehow) and fix a good, pretty original pop tune...and practice it. That's the dream anyway.

At some point in their lives, I think that people who have been classically trained (from late grade school to college, I've been dabbling in guitar - self-taught and classical singing and piano [via known, local reputable music school with an amazing teacher to boot...RIP since she's passed away eons ago, I miss her /sad]) in music who also dabble a bit on pop music would end up getting drawn hopelessly to the magic that is house music or edm (techno-altered music). I went there and am here, a house music obsessed someone... I mean, we do have people like Zedd and Kygo among a few others and to my knowledge, Zedd did classical piano before moving to and staying put indefinitely with techno edm/house stuff...so...yeah. Well...I could go on and on discussing house music/edm and pop music and then bore y'readers...if you find pop and house music/edm talk boring (as I don't...really...so...it's pretty interesting a subject to let go of...sort of---confusing, I know, I usually am a bumbling overthinking mess...usually...) so I'll end this one here and save the rest for later. Much, much later. I just felt like laying a lot of this on here so much tonight somehow...and yeah...I don't really know much why I'm like this tonight either...

***

Music talk came first before outfit talk...hmn... This is a first. Life came down to photos 1-2 today on my way to the local Humanheartnature branch only to find that they've postponed the magalogue turnover and moved it to the 28th. Swapped the skirt for these zara jeans I'd bought two seasons or so ago with a few others still tagged, for a quick trip out later in the early evening. I think I mentioned this eons ago before but I have the habit of waiting for the right occasion to wear things from certain purchases. Well, it's pretty old news from my end.  

Life is coming down to sleeping to the deep house, tropical house wmp playlist in 3...2...

I'm From LA...sort of...

text t, Zara (gift from a cousin <3); pink shorts and white blazer, thrifted/second hand; heels, primadonna ph; sunglasses, from a stall in dumaguete somewhere; bangles, vintage/second hand and forever21; not pictured: rings from a local store here :)

Sort of late valentines' day in the right colors post though I didn't really go out on the day nor the night. Should I have, it would have been a dreamy, fairy-ish dress I wore out and about everywhere.

I'm turning out into quite the t-shirt and shorts girl once again although that's old news. And quite literally, I did come from L.A. though that was more near L.A., around the So Cal region and also, that was pretty late last year (December 2015-early January 2016) so...ha.

Normally, I don't wear anything with prints because I'm blah like that but I guess I just had to take this out some time and actually wear it around. Printed shirts actually work pretty well with blazers, or at least I like the look of printed ts with them.

Anyone watched the 58th Grammy's today? How good were Carrie Underwood + Sam Hunt and Andra Day + Ellie Goulding's performances? Right? I didn't stay tuned in for long enough even to try and catch Lady Gaga's tribute to David Bowie in it. Short attention span, I guess. Also, there was the lack of Rihanna I wasn't so fond of. Bieber sort of made up for it considering I do like his recent album, Purpose. It is pretty well-made. Still not really a fan of both Diplo and Skrillex but they'll do at times, I suppose.

As to TV...Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo (The File of Young Kindaichi) at 1:30 p.m. eventually won out. Haha. Yes, Animax. Typical asian in the continent's south east region thing, I guess. It is the only anime I watch at this time.