Fitness: #InflexibleYogis July Photo Challenge

Instead of keeping this as something that should just stay in the first half of July 2015, I decided to blog about this photo challenge I took on Instagram by @inflexibleyogis Yoga For The Non Flexible (managed by @deandreyoga). Other hosts aside from the two were Instagram yogis like @lolathlete, @shadesofjoy.co, @kestyoga, and @kellymarie_yoga. The challenge were sponsored by @dharmayogawheel, @prana and @spiritualgangster. Check them all out and be inspired to start or continue yoga!

I used to be a regular in my gym's yoga classes few years back which made me think 'why the hell should I not do this challenge.' As a very uninspiring lazy person I will still continue and write about this. You won't even believe how many things I have done in terms of exercising just to stay "fit." but enough about the past let's talk about what happened this July! This is actually my first successful photo challenge since it became a thing! (On my first photo challenge my phone got stolen so never did one again until this year.)

Featured: Olay Regenerist Review @ Cosmopolitan ME July 2015 Issue

After 3 years I am once again in a magazine! (Click here for the one 3 years ago). This time I was asked to review the new Olay Regenerist. It is Olay's new product with the electric face brush. Try it yourself and tell me I'm lying but then again we all have different skin types. 

Food: Jollibee's Burger Steak with Gravy

As filipinos living in different countries we always bring our food from home wherever we are because they're the best especially when cooked by Mama/Nanay/Mommy/Lola! This is not only from our home country but also from our favourite local fast food as kids (I'm too late so for me as a young adult, I was a McDonald's baby), Jollibee's burger steak!

Although the original Jollibee franchise has already made its way here in Dubai sometimes you just don't want to eat out and you prefer homemade food then you can follow thenotsocreativecook's recipe for the burger steak. I simply googled it and found her blog but you can just view the recipe by clicking here.

I had a lot more beef than the amount suggested so I adjusted accordingly. The recipe got the taste of Jollibee's but I did one thing wrong. If you look at the list of ingredients you will see that there is NO salt and just pepper (Ikr what kind of Filipino dish is this!) but I put salt in mine and it was SO salty. You don't need to add salt because you get enough taste from the soy sauce and the stock cubes. One more thing, we didn't have mushrooms so I didn't put any in the gravy and it still tasted as good. 

Recipe taken from https://thenotsocreativecook.wordpress.com/tag/burger-steak-ala-jollibee/. 

Event: #CosmoFabFemale Awards

My sister was invited for the Cosmopolitan ME Fabulous Female Awards (June 9, 2015) as one of the bloggers and I was her plus one! Click here to view her blog! The event was held in The Act at Shangri-La Hotel, Dubai. It had such an interesting theme although I'm not aware of what it is on ordinary nights. Anyway, I didn't take proper pictures or anything. I was just Snapchat-ing everything I found interesting. Who blogs their Snaps? Me. (This is not all of it, I rather now upload some because it features other people...)

Free cocktails upon entering the venue and lots of models (spraying us Juicy Couture scents! I want to show you guys their showcase which was placed outside the lifts but nah)... My self-esteem was at its lowest throughout the event basically.

The drink stubs got us wine! You can choose from red wine and white wine. It would've been better if they still served food when we got our wine. I loved the cheese in dumpling wrapper with some spicy dip and the meat with cheese on top (well, because those were the only things I tried... They also served sushi and some vegetable salad). I don't know what any of them were called, the servers would just tell us what was in the food. I eat anything so...

The first round of announcements but no acts yet. I took videos of the performances but I decided not to post them. The performers were great though. One chick singing was also part of a dance! Very talented. (Applause) Interesting that a man with a man-bun hosted this event. Everyone has the hots for men with man-buns these days so perfect for a women's magazine event.    

That's it for my Snaps! Now for other picture (of me) taken with proper phone camera use.

After the event we got a bag of freebies! Thanks Cosmopolitan ME, Gilette Venus, Woojooh, Aldo, Olay, Juicy Couture and others! <3

Last but not the least... My make-up for the event. This picture was taken on the way home and my lipstick came off already but I just put on a nude shade (Cherish by MAC) and dabbed red colour (Rouge Allure Velvet 38 La Fascinante by Chanel) on top so it would have that pinkish glow, my natural lip colour would do to complete the look for the picture because I put so much eyeliner I couldn't go any darker. For my eyes, I used my sister's eyeshadow palette from Sephora (the one with the different shades of brown lol so bad at this...). The liquid eyeliner and eyebrow pencil and highlighter are the ones by Sephora as well. For my mascara (tried falsies but no, that was so hard to put on) I used they're Real by Benefit. Yay!

Event: Dubai Poetry Slam (June 6, 2015)

Hey guys! I have been in Dubai for a month now and I haven't seen any of my friends yet. This little Dubai Poetry Slam (DPS) made me get off my ass, wore pants and went to Dubai Mall. I met like four friendships. Two for lunch and two for the DPS in the night. 

I had lunch with the Kumaresan sisters, Melissa and Kate. If you read my blog like back in 2012 I had a post meeting them in Philippines. After high school we would just meet once a year. I don't know why we don't meet more often even if we're in the same country now but her house is just way too far and so is mine and no cars for any of us. So we had lunch at Carluccio's. No pictures because Snapchat. Such a wonderful "blogger" I am. Anywho, I had a seafood pizza which was gooooooooooood. After a lot of talking in the restaurant we walked aimlessly around the mall but just decided Tim Horton's. More talking yada yada and this guy who asked me to go to the DPS finally came and so Mel and Kate went na rin (lol sorry maybe we should watch out for future tagalog). Also saw a couple of kids from my school.

So Raph finally came. None of the people who I thought were coming as he had mentioned them to me. So it was just me, him and Karel who came so late. Moving on to the whole point of this post (as the title tells us)...

This was the first time I went to a Poetry Slam! I have come across people reading their stuff but this was like pure poetry stuff or I don't know what I'm saying... whatever. So what I did was awkwardly sit in a very uncomfortable chair because I couldn't put my feet up or rest my arms jk not complaining anymore. I hope none of them read this. #notags

The thing I noticed was majority of the poets were women which gave me a lot of feels. Nope, not because we're of the same sex but because of what they wrote. They (all the poets) wrote about self-love, family, love, the metro lol and of course, themselves. All pieces were original and you just see them open up in front of their friends and strangers. It was refreshing because I never liked people who are too open about their emotions because I hate hate drama.

Highlights!!!

• The chick who I think rapped her piece. Awesome!
• The couple in which the guy read his poem and it was obviously about love.
• The featured poet and friends!
• The guy who was went in front barefoot. 
• My friend Raph! I'm such a nice friend I don't even know his blog.

I'm really glad that I went for this. I'm going to be honest and thought it would be a bunch of emo kids and other stereotypes about poets you could think of (but I always expect the worst rather than disappointments) but boy was I wrong! These people were amazing and I wish that I could express myself the way they do. Thank you to my friend Raph for inviting me!

Snatched some pictures from their Facebook page!

Food: Whole-wheat Oatmeal Bread

Funny thing was, we didn't have anymore bread at home so I made bread. 

Food: Chunky Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

It was chewy, not chunky. Do not put more eggs than suggested. Dammit, Josel!