It’s officially less than a month before I finally set foot in the famous and multi-awarded Boracay Island! For those who don’t know, Boracay Island is located in the Philippines. The island itself and its beaches have received highly coveted awards; the most recent is being declared as the second best beach (out of 25) in the world in the “Travelers’ Choice 2011″ by TripAdvisor.

Yep. That place is THAT dreamy. ^_^
Frankly, since my friend Jehan and I booked our 5-day trip to Boracay for March last November, I’ve been busy preparing for it. Let’s see… diet mode for sexy abs – ongoing; flawless skin – almost there; attractive swimwear – still looking; day and beach dresses – check; sunblock – check. That’s the essential ones for now.

Contrary to most people, I actually don’t like being sun-burnt, simply because I don’t like the peeling sensation afterwards. Still, I like looking like I came from the beach. Yep. Tan lines. They’re simply sexy. Especially the ones that can be seen when you wear a backless or off shoulder dresses. Then again, with today’s wonderful technology I can always have that much desired tan in a can. No need to peel!

So, to solve my dilemma, I decided to just get that tan the professional and safe way – buy one of those airbrush tanning kits or maybe book a tanning appointment. I’m still deciding though… What do you recommend?

For some people, whenever they go to the mall, their instincts pull them into the department store. They end up buying something they never planned to buy. For me, my instincts pull me to a different part of the mall – the home depot area. It feels like I’m in a toy store when I am in that area. Everything I love is in there: gardening materials, paints, clamp tools, hammers, air compressors, etc.

Some friends of mine think it is weird, but come to think of it, I got it from my Mom. You see when I was young, she was the one doing all the home improvements. So most of the time, I went with  her to the home depot. I know it is not usual and all but hey that’s me.

Oh almost forgot to mention, sometimes the coolest gifts I give come from the hardware store. Like last time I got my friend a Swiss utility knife for his birthday. He said that it was the best gift he received yet. See?

My mom likes to keep her mug collection on display. She teaches a lot of seminars and gets mugs and certificates as a form of thanks on her amazing lectures. She has three shelves of these mugs, just for display, and she has a mini section on these shelves where she keeps our family’s trophies.

Well I haven’t really achieved a lot of trophies. Our main contributor would be my third sister. She’s quite gifted in the artistic department and has represented her school on a lot of competitions. She’s amazing and I’m proud of her.

Even though she hasn’t gotten any of those prestigious college degrees, and everyone else tried to bring her down by belittling her, she was still able to prove her worth and her talent, and my parents couldn’t be more proud of her.

See, believing in yourself and what you are capable of can get you far in life. Don’t give up on your dreams, and you might be lucky like my sister!

While watching TV, I saw this shampoo commercial wherein one of the line of the actress there is this, “You know what my mom always told me… look your best always, you’ll never know who you’ll run into….”

Well guess what? You should want to look your best not only because you might run into someone you know (e.g. the apple of your eye), but also because your appearance affects the way you think and how others reacts to you. You see, based from one of the best books I have recently been re-reading (The Magic of Thinking Big)…

”Your appearance talks to you and it talks to others. Whenever someone looks at you, make certain it says, ‘Here is a person who has self respect. He’s important. Treat him that way.’”

Especially in this era wherein you pretty much have everything and anything customized, you do not have any excuse for not being able to look your best. Even the “I’m vertically challenged. I can’t find any clothes that fit me.” is no longer an excuse. With all the stores out there, it’s guaranteed you will be able to find a gorgeous plus size party dress that is flattering to your built.

Moreover, when you LOOK your best, you will THINK and ACT your best. This helps you start your day right. So before you go out of your house tomorrow, check yourself in the mirror and ask yourself this, “Am I looking at my best today?”

You know at one point I kind of considered hosting a costume party that would have a Daft Punk theme.. I figured everyone would get Scorpion EXO-1000 helmets and just paint them with whatever, and that would be cool, ’cause I’d get them to redesign their helmets according to whatever they want it to be.

And then we’d end up on a guessing game trying to figure out which is which. Hahaha.

I don’t know, I haven’t really held a party in so long so I’m hesitating like this. I have so many costume ideas, like a zombie party or a mental hospital party, but yeah, I’ve been to wrapped up in work to even worry about parties.

I kind of miss just having fun with my friends, you know? When have you last been in a party? Did it rock or did it suck? Share your party stories with us!

My friend Rei recently got married, and no, it’s not a gunshot wedding – she’s not pregnant. It was a happy-romantic wedding. ^_^

With the couple being very career oriented, Rei told me, they have no plans on having kids for the next two years. Given that she’s only 25, it does seem practical. However, even with thorough planning and a combination of safe sex methods, pregnancy is still a possibility – especially for a newlywed couple. So, just to be on the safe side, I told her to start taking a daily prenatal vitamin.

For those who don’t know, prenatal vitamins are specially formulated multivitamins that is designed with pregnancy and breastfeeding in mind. While the supplements contain numerous vitamins and minerals, their folic acid, iron, and calcium content are especially important. These vitamins and minerals help reduce your risk of having a baby with a serious birth defect since a lot of defects develop in the first 28 days after conception – the time before many women realize they are pregnant.

So for the newlyweds, do consider prenatal vitamins at the onset of marriage. 0;) After all, you want to reproduce healthy, adorable babies, don’t you?

Last night was a very interesting one. I got the chance to hang out with one of my friends to catch up with the newest happenings. We haven’t seen each other for a while so we had a lot to talk about.

Our conversation circled around concepts of prosperity. Recently, she told me that she was able to attend one of Randy Gage’s seminar on how to become rich. For those who do not know, Randy Gage is one of the best speakers on prosperity consciousness. He wrote a lot of books about it too.

She asked me how I see a prosperous life. Of course, I pictured a prosperous life from what I saw in the movies. Ya know, me riding a horse, playing Polo with my elite friends wearing equestrian helmets and expensive jewelry. That kind of boring stuff.

An interesting point that my friend shared to me is that our prosperity consciousness has been programmed in our minds back when we were still young. All those movies about the rich people doing bad things to poor people somehow affects us subconsciously. This makes us decline opportunities that could possibly make us rich because we do not want to end up being like those rich people we watched in the movies.

There are a lot of things I discovered yesterday and I will definitely share them to you on my future posts.