Transformers 2 has such mixed reviews. I thought it would be good because I LOVED the first one, but I’ve read reviews calling it a load of cr*p, and my big sister said it was really bad too. I don’t even know if it shows here in English, so I suppose I won’t know until the DVD comes out!

Yesterday was a public holiday i.e. DAY OFF WORK! Unfortunately for me, it was also the day I felt a little sick, so I stayed in all day and watched Lost on my laptop and played Fruit Juice Tycoon on my iPhone. I love that game, I finished it and restarted it all over again because it’s that good.

Today I actually have work, and I am ready so early. Makeup, hair and all.

This is the makeup I brought with me from St. Andrew’s, it’s only a little part of my actual stash… but flight weight limits

And these are my new toys!

- Mat Lumiere by Chanel, because I read really good reviews on it at MUA

- Highlighter by Sephora, which I do not love so much because it’s so glittery

I went to the MAC store to buy new sponges and he gave me a bunch for free, because I was in a couple of weeks ago to get gel eyeliner. Pretty neat!

I wear basically the same face to work everyday, the only thing I change up a little is the color of my eyeshadow. I have about six colors to choose from so even that doesn’t change much. So on weekends I try to do different things, like insanely bright lip color.

And sometimes I cut the makeup down by half and look like a kid again.

I love makeup. Watching makeup how-to’s on Youtube makes me SO GLAD that I’m a girl!

I think the best makeup tutorials I’ve seen online are by Kandee. Maybe it’s just me but I can’t take makeup tutorials seriously unless the person looks good – why would I take makeup advice from someone who I think even after all the makeup still looks pretty average?

Off to work, and then language class straight after. It’s almost July, so I think this is the last week that I have to work Friday’s. Which is good because after Thursday night class, I feel dead.

This is what I look like in the morning before I put my makeup on.

(But I got my eyebrows threaded by the best threader in town last night, PLUS in the comfort of my own room! So worth it)

In general, I have well-behaved skin (apart from when I PMS), but it’s sensitive, and kinda dull and not glowy. I’ve spent the last few days looking up new skincare products; it may replace hair products as my new obsessive spending category. I have tried every single haircare product and have now settled for a very select few that I am 99.9% sure I’ll keep repurchasing! I’m on my 2nd bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and this has never happened before, so I know this brand is a keeper!

Anyway, so this is my face pre-makeup;

And here it is post-makeup;

I LOVE makeup! Even on days when I have nowhere to go, and I plan on studying downstairs in the living room (like today), putting on makeup is the highlight of every morning and a step in getting ready that CANNOT be skipped.

In fact, I think it’s more fun putting on makeup when you have nowhere to go because you can play around with color combinations you wouldn’t usually wear.

On days that I am super adventurous and I mix the green, pink and pearl shimmer eyeshadows, I come down the stairs and Muthu points out that it’s TOO MUCH!!! Brutal honesty. I like bright colors, I think I should have been old enough to wear makeup in the ’80s. Electric blue eyeshadow and side ponytails… LOVE!!!!

If you know me in real life, you will have noticed that I very rarely walk out of my room with my hair in a ponytail. Ponytail + high forehead = the illusion of a receding hairline.

I need a haircut

- It is NOT a good idea to skimp out on the gym and hire your boyfriend for free as a personal trainer. Especially when he is twice your size and has in the past gone to the gym on a daily basis.

I decided yesterday that even though I am skinny, and I lose weight more often than I gain, that it would be nice to tone up and get into the habit of working out before I hit the middle-aged mark and look down and wonder where my skinny body has gone?!

So I picked out this to do on alternate days, yoga when I feel like it (because one of my housemates apparently can coach me in that area) and possibly either running or swimming for cardio. I can’t decide whether buying trainers is a good investment? Or if I should opt for the long walk to the leisure center pool a couple of times a week instead?

So I get up this morning feeling good to go! How unfit could I possibly be? I’m skinny!

WRONG!!!!

The first move had my legs aching slightly. By the standing bird dog my legs could barely support my weight. All the while, NYBoy was standing beside me with a big stick (rolled up wrapping paper) prodding me to keep moving, and if I messed up and fell over then it wouldn’t count and I’d have to do it over.

My arms gave way mid push-up later on and now I have nasty carpet burn on my FOREHEAD!!! Thank god tomorrow is yoga day, so I have a day off until my next work out hell session. I only did one cycle but the max. reps for each move. I am so much less fit than I thought.

- My eyes do not need to be made to look any bigger.

= I don’t need to put mascara on my bottom lashes because it makes my eyes look freakishly large. And I think mascara on my top lashes looks fine on its own.

Case in point:

On a side note: I’m less achy now then I was half an hour ago… does that mean I should have pushed myself a little harder with the work out? Out for lunch and getting stuff for dinner, home made chili. Mmmm.

THIS IS MY CLOSET.

I painted those in Brunei, after I finished up my internship at BEDB and had nothing to do all day. I’m no artist but they’re colorful!

THIS IS MY MAKEUP!

I used to keep my makeup in a box, and then a large makeup bag, and then when that got full, I ordered an over-the-door hanging organizer

RED is for face stuff; bronzers, blushers, multiple sticks, concealers, illuminators etc.
ORANGE is for lip stuff; lipsticks, glosses, balms and pencils.
YELLOW is for eye colors; shadows, creams and shade sticks.
GREEN is for eye pencils & mascaras!
BLUE is for random stuff I can’t fit anywhere haha.
PURPLE is for tools; brushes, tweezers & fake lashes.

And on top of all that, I have my MAC bottles and makeup box sets in the closet. My friends love coming over to do makeup because there’s so much of it!

I always start to feel a little down towards the middle of the week; I think it’s because I save all my Arabic work for Monday, so I spend Monday and Tuesday obsessively working on it, and by Wednesday I am T-I-R-E-D.

So when I woke up this morning, I figured I deserve to spend a little extra time on clothes and makeup, and I dug out my favorite skirt of all time (from a sale at Bershka!) and yellow + bronze eyeshadow from the Too Faced makeup music box I got from NYBoy back in January.

… and then I went out to do my ticket selling duty for the Management society talk coming up, and the wind messed up my hair.

Nice.

By the time I got home after ticket selling and an Arabic class, NYBoy was hopping around my room with excitement, playing music on my guitar (which he can’t play) to psych me up for my … BRAND NEW LAPTOP!!!!!

I have a 2.4Ghz Macbook with 4GB of ram, I don’t know what I need that for except to play Sims 2 (and possibly in the near future Sims 3!!!!), but it sounds impressive, doesn’t it?!!

I am so obsessed with Mac dashboard widgets. I have pink fairylights, a virtual pet, a hawaiian dashboard doll, an epicurious recipe search thing, the weather forecast, twitter updates blah blah blah…. I LOVE IT. My laptop is so pimped out.

I would take screenshots to show it off, but I haven’t got Photoshop installed on this machine yet and I don’t know whether mac’s come with standard photo editing software? Still a newbie.

And when I’m not pimping out my laptop, I’m on my iPhone playing Hell’s Kitchen.

I feel like such a geek today.

Christmas is coming up and I know NYBoy has got me presents, so the past few days have been spent trying to figure out what they could possibly be!! Slowly ruling out possibilities based on what he’s already gotten me over the past 8 months and what else there could possibly be TO get me?!

Which led me to thinking of what presents I’ve gotten over the past few years that I still love today as much as I did when I first got them. And I’ve been trying to rank them in my head, which is hard when you have the memory of a goldfish. So my love of ordered lists and presents, leads me to….

MY LIST OF TOP 10 BEST GIFTS EVER!!!!

10. Tall black UGG boots

I like them, they keep my toesies warm. Not waterproof and snowproof though. Buying the special sprays and cleaning tools helped, but they still get a little soggy when it starts drizzling outside.

9. Disney Monopoly

I am a MONOPOLY FREAK. I love it. I love pretending I’m rich and going insane and throwing money around when somebody cheats me out of MY RENT on MY PROPERTY. I always win, because if I don’t there will be hell to pay.

Disney Monopoly is even more fun than normal monopoly because I can be insanely rich AND a princess. Cooool.

8. Sleepless in Seattle DVD

My favooorrriiiteee movie in the whole world. I watch it all the time.

7. MAC Mineralize Satinfinish Foundation

[LINK]

Good for faking a healthy glow when you’re actually really pasty and haven’t seen the sun for more than an hour a day for about 4 months. I can’t live without this stuff now that I’ve started using it.

6. Flight to New York

No explanation needed. NEW YORK HERE I COME!!!!!

5. Necklace from Tiffany’s (Heart link lariat)

[LINK]

Since I first got this, I haven’t taken it off. I love it, and that says a lot because I don’t usually wear necklaces.

4. Fish (Puppy & Kitten) and their baby biorb tank

I love animals. I never thought I’d love fish as much as I love puppy and kitten, they brighten up my day I don’t even mind the loud buzzing their filter system makes in the middle of the night anymore.

3. Pink iPod

Apple products move so quickly that my iPod is now quite the vintage model, but it still works, and it’s still pink. I never leave the house without it.

2. Louis Vuitton bag

I remember coming out of my last exam sooo worn out and being brought to Edinburgh on a completely spontaneous trip (I didn’t even have my purse on me!), we walked around looking at bags and I fell in LOVE with this one. Perfect size and so so so so cute. And I got it. Right there. Probably one of the most expensive things I own, it didn’t actually settle in that I had an LV dangling off my arm until like a week later.

SUCH GOOD QUALITY! I once forgot to screw the cap on a bottle of water tight enough (because I do things like that) and I put it in my bag and didn’t realize it had leaked everywhere until I reached in for my wallet because LV bags don’t leak?!?! There was a few inches of water swirling around at the bottom but none on the outside of the bag. Ridiculous. I LOVE IT!!!!

1. T3 Evolution Hairdryer

I LOVE THIS!!!! I got it for my birthday this year because NYBoy knows how much of a struggle living with curly hair is. It’s super pricey for a hairdryer but it makes so much difference, definitely definitely worth it. I only pull my straightener out when I feel like going super sleek now, whereas I used to use it everyday on my bangs at least. The T3 on its own fixes my bangs, and I got it with the diffuser and 3 brushes.

The diffuser is great for drying my hair and maintaining the natural wave, although less tangled and more defined, and the brushes are good for blowing out my bangs and sorting out the tangles at the tips of my hair when I’ve just woken up.

****************************************************************

There are so many other things I could add to the list but those are the things I love most!

Christmas shopping is soooo much hassle. I’ve picked out the most amazing present for NYBoy, the only problem now is putting together enough money to be able to buy it in time for it to be delivered before Christmas eve!!

It’s now just over a week until we leave for New York, and the excitement and nervousness is starting to make me REALLY antsy. I hope everything goes well!!! After the disaster that was last Christmas I’m a little less than optimistic. But it’s a different country and different people – so it may turn out really well.

I hope everyone else’s Christmas shopping is going well!!!

We get a whole week off, and we’re supposed to be mature enough to spend all of it productively. HAHA.

On Monday, me, NYBoy and a couple of the people I live with went to Edinburgh for some all you can eat Chinese food! I also got a new checked button down shirt from H&M which I have decided is my “curly hair day” shirt, Hello Kitty wet wipes for my purse (the entire section was Hello Kitty, I knew I had to buy something, but there was nothing I really needed!) and new makeup.

I LOVE my new makeup.

I’ve never really been big on foundation – I’ve never had problematic skin, so I never felt the need to put an extra layer of makeup over it? It’s one of the things I’ve been lucky with, but all the goodness that comes from having good skin is canceled out by the badness of having naturally curly hair. Anyway… I walked right up to the MAC counter and confidently announced I wanted to try foundation.

“Liquid or not?” Uhhhh…

“Mineral or otherwise?” What???

I had to explain to the very nice makeup lady that I have never tried foundation before! I have some very sheer NARS pressed powder, but it doesn’t show up much and I only use it because it makes my skin soft.

So she sat me in a chair and tested different kinds of makeup on my jawline and I fell in lovveee with this. She tried to convince me to buy a £25 brush too, but I’m not made of money so I figure my fingers will do the job until I save up a little to buy a brush!

It makes me look so tanned and my skin practically glows! Both of which are pretty noteworthy achievements seeing as I live in a country where the sun begins to set at 3 in the afternoon and I get hardly any sun through the clouds. I LOVE IT.

I might just be a girl, but the right makeup brightens up even the worst days

* I also got this and this from SpaceNK, and I think I may just have found a brand to replace (or be alternated with) my beloved Redken. I love getting super girly treats