FOTD: Ladylike Lilac + Canon Powershot SX120 IS !!

I feel whole again! Dad took me to Best Buy today to look at cameras :D He knows how upset I am without something to photograph. Unfortunately, they didn't have the Sony Hx5 in store so I couldn't test it out. However, we did buy a Canon Powershot SX120 IS for $199, so the updated version of my boyfriend's camera I have been using for the past half year. I love this camera. Even though the pics could turn out a little less granulated, they look pretty good on the new and improved larger screen. The camera seems less bulky than the last model and seems to weigh less but I don't like the little door that covers the memory card and batteries. It makes uploading a pain because it won't open easily and I feel like it's going to break if I use too much force.

I also checked out the Sony H55 but even with 14x optical zoom, the quality is kind of lacking. The Canon is pretty amazing for its price. I also fooled around with the cheapest Canon EOS DSLR for fun and my I'm just drooling for a nice, nice camera. Someday. Someday! 

I really do enjoy blogging. I think without it, I'd go crazy. Facebook and Chictopia I can do without. I've made a lot of friends here and it's not fun to just up and leave. I still like reading everyone's posts so naturally I also want to say my spiel and post post post! (I learned how to spell "spiel" finally through a Murakami novel. Go figure.) Maybe I can take some pictures of outfits I wear and show them to you guys! Also, I can do FOTD's again. Thank goodness.

About a week ago, I was wearing my white lace dress again and a pearl necklace from Mom. It all fit perfectly and elegantly when I went over to a family friend's house for dinner. We stopped by Barnes & Noble on the way for Examkrackers 1001 MCAT Physics Questions book and Bath & Body Works for some handwashing liquid soap and I got many compliments from the sale assistants :D I also wore my low heel white pumps and a red half sleeve jacket. I'll just redo this outfit and take pics next time. It was all lovely.

Products used: 

Anastasia Brow Wiz in Medium Ash

ELF Studio Concealer in Light

ELF Studio Complexion Perfection

Wet n Wild E/S Palette in Lust: Bright purple all over lid, some matte white for browbone highlight

ELF Duo E/S light purple swept over the bright purple

Wet n Wild Creme Shadow Stick in Pixie for nose highlight

ELF Mineral Lipstick in Rosy Tan

ELF Studio Blush from Blush/Bronzer Duo Compact

Imju Fiberwig Mascara + heated lash curler

Nails: ELF Nail Polish in Nude + Love & Beauty pen nail art in White

Geo Nudy Brown Lenses

Of course these photos were taken with Photobooth again. They're okay in good daytime lighting. I like the delicate purple shadow. It complements brown eyes perfectly and shows up but isn't too "whoa save that for the club." I've also lightened up on the whole dark shadows on outer V look for a while. It doesn't seem to fly very well for the au naturale style and I have a hard time getting it to work. Curled my hair with a crappy straightener, put some Garnier smoothing milk to smooth the flyaways and voila!

Did this manicure at home :D Closeup of what I showed you guys in my last post. French manicures are a must for ladies, you know.

Hahaha I don't know how to make videos! This was my first attempt. My voice was kind of weird that day and I was sitting outside on my porch, blabbing away for a Youtube contest entry. My voice is actually not as pip-squeaky girly as you imagined, huh? :D Actually I sound kind of manly when I speak Chinese xD
[edit 6.10.10: deleted because I'm switching Youtube accounts at the moment]

Last but not least, my new camera :D My photos probably won't seem that different than the ones I've been taking all year, but you enjoyed them, right? I can finally get rid of my horrendous Kodak Easyshare. I might still get the Sony Hx5 though at the end of summer, but for now I'll be using the Canon : ) There's something I don't trust about compact little cameras. They seem so fragile and untrustworthy. I want to lug around a huge DSLR to show who's boss. It's all part of that image.

What's your dream camera? Can you live one day without taking pictures? I've only survived about 2 weeks before crumbling, camwhore to the max xD

FOTD: Golden Girl + Forever 21 Prizes + Ring Obsession

Hi guys :D I totally fail at my whole vow not to blog while studying for the MCAT. Yeah ... Well, I feel some progress finally! Kinematics is actually one of the harder things for me to grasp in Physics, plainly because I don't know which equations to use when. It always confused me how giving you the final velocity can have you determine flight time, displacement, and a whole lot of other shabang.

Meanwhile, I occasionally get pretty. My Forever21 Twitter Tuesday prizes came in within a week of me winning - I guess there are some benefits for living close to LA. It came in a nice big FedEx package woot! I didn't even have to pay shipping :D

1) The dress was one of the Forever21 Boutique collection Prom dresses so I'm really excited. It's pretty casual. Size small, $34.80, not bad. The only problem is that the cool beaded straps are, well, beaded, so I can't really shorten the straps properly. I had to tie the back into a weird knot and then safety pin it so that half my front isn't exposed.
2) Pyramid stud connector ring! It is HUGE and I could probably knock someone's teeth out with it. Say yes to self defense via jewelry xD Probably $6 or so.
3) A tiny thing of lip gloss in hot pink, goes on pretty sheer haha. This was bonus.

Excuse my poor crappy photos. Taken with Photobooth:

The beaded work is so pretty but also very heavy. I didn't take pics of the bottom of the dress. I promise when I get a better camera I'll have great OOTD's again :D

EOTD: ELF Mineral Primer first of course to make everything more vibrant. I put the nice shimmery brown all over my lid from the Wet n Wild Vanity palette, then the gold on the inner half of my lid. It blended super naturally. It looked super natural and flirty with a few coats of mascara. I dug up a super old waterproof mascara (Maybelline XXL Length I think): primer first, then the black mascara. It was very natural looking and held curl nicely for being YEARS old xD I think I also swiped some light butternut shimmery E/S from an ELF duo plate above these colours but it blended right into my skin tone and didn't show.

Lol this is pretty obnoxious xD The crazy amount of rings I've bought in the past 4 months maybe? love for connectors and animals! I also really dig this self-done (Dad did my right hand - he's a baller!) French mani. With Love & Beauty white pen nail art polish, ELF Polish in Nude. It lasted a few days before I got sick of having such long nails. Comes with years of being in Orchestra.

I could really pack a punch with these babies :D

What do you think? Should I invest in a DSLR or just go with a regular point and shoot? The DSLR I'm looking at is around $900 and the point and shoot is $370. Either way, I'm pretty much dying without a camera.

Study Break: Pack Your Bags Contest Entry

Hi guys :D I entered beneaththeglass's Pack Your Bags contest a while ago and now voting is up!
There are 5 entries. They're all amazing and super stylish : ) Pick your fave! (Of course it doesn't have to be me).

Here is my photo and blurb:

1. Angie of Pandaphilia
"This Paris-inspired outfit is pretty much entirely Forever21 Tres Paris collection and I fell in love so my Mom bought it for me for Christmas : ) I would like to go to France someday - it is my dream! I'm very enamored with the romance of French culture and I secretly want to get proposed to in Paris x3.

I'd bring my boyfriend! He speaks French and has been to Paris before, so he can show me around. I dream of drinking coffee in a European styled coffee shop and reading novels between shopping for chic Parisian style.

I want to dance on the top of the Eiffel Tower (yes, the tippy top), but I don't think they would allow it. We can always dream, right? ♥


You can vote for your favourite here and be sure to check out Suzy's blog. She has great outfits and chic style : )

Also, check out bangbangsheshoots's Giveaway! She just opened up a new Japanese makeup store and is celebrating by having 6 winners!

MCAT: If Schrodinger Had One, It'd Be Dead

It's lovely summer and I'm stuck indoors all day in front of books and books and books. Primarily ebooks which sometimes makes it worse. Basically, I'm studying for the MCAT, the Medical College Admission Test for med school. Yes, it's a bit early coming out of sophomore year but I'd rather get it over with now than struggle with a boatload of Neuroscience and other classes on top of that.

It's a 5-hour exam testing everything from Physics (my weak link - didn't get much exposure during high school and certainly none during college), Organic and General Chemistry (a joke compared to what I have to deal with at WashU - can that be a hint of optimism?), Biology, Verbal Reasoning, and Writing. It's also on the computer so I better get used to staring and working in my head. It's going to be a tough journey.

I registered to test on August 5th and I better be ready by then! It costs $230 each time to torture yourself in front of a screen for half the day T__T I'm also not a morning person so I opted for the afternoon 1 PM slot.

I'm currently reviewing with ExamKrackers (all the ebooks) and 101 EK Verbal Reasoning passages. I plan on purchasing 1001 Physics questions from the series to buff up my nonexistent Physics skills and supplement with Princeton Review's AP Physics B book and Giancoli text. Whew. I even have a manga for this that draws all these phenomenon out in comic form. There's even Audio Osmosis for falling asleep. It follows me everywhere!

I don't think I'll end up taking a class because they're $2400 for the standard classroom blab and extra 5 million books. I don't think I have the time or car to do that also. I'm basically doing all that, but self study.

How do you get into the Carnegie Hall of med schools?
Practice problems, practice problems, practice problems.

Sorry to bore you with all this, but this is what my summer's going to be. I thought I was going to do research but I probably don't have time for that either. Bleh. The unfortunate point is, I'm going to be cutting off Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Chictopia, and also blogging. I know! : ( Currently my camera absolutely sucks. I secretly do want a DSLR but I have neither the money nor skill nor reason to buy one. I'm aiming for the Sony Cybershot HX5 at the end of summer so I can take nice photos. Right now my Kodak I don't even want to deal with. I did a look the other day with my new Wet n Wild Eyeshadow Palettes and it was so nice and pigmented but my camera is crap and turned everything yellow and lined with magenta bar codes everywhere.

Ain't she a beaut?

I wish I could take pretty pictures of all my outfits I was going to wear and all the makeup looks I was going to do but unfortunately becoming a doctor is more pressing. I have a lifetime to dress pretty and take nice photos : ) 

I will see you lovelies soon~ Hope your summers are absolutely fantastic and feel free to write me comments! I get emails when you guys leave lovely notes and I'll try to reply. It really makes me sad, but spending hours photoshopping the yellow lighting crap out of my poor bathroom images won't fly. I will be back with big awesome pictures in August!

Polyvore: The Bling Phone is RING'in

I am a huge fan of rings. I actually avoided buying and wearing them for the longest time because they never fit. I have size 3 ring finger and can manage a size 5 on my thumb without it falling off some days. Small hands, small feet, sometimes being petite is not so sweet. (I do realize how lame that just sounded hahaha)

I have also become a victim of connector rings (two-finger rings). I'm pretty much obsessed with them and if I picked up every pair I ever saw from Forever21 alone, I'd be in huge financial trouble. Luckily there's Polyvore, which lets me save pretty pictures of all the things I want but can't afford, and compile collages.

I'm going to show you some of my recent craves. You can probably learn a lot about a person by the jewelry he or she wears. I only wear a silver band with 6 small crystals on my right hand's middle finger. It used to be on the ringfinger but I lost that one in an Arizona hotel on the way back from Cali, then lost it again after the hotel kindly returned it at my local Walmart in San Diego. Lame, right? And for a girl who buys a ton of jewelry but usually never wears it, that's doing pretty well for wearing a ring for an entire year. I bought it at my university's import sale freshman year and this fall I replaced it with an identical one, wearing it on a slightly bigger finger :D

[Click on any image and it will bring you to the Polyvore page for the set, complete with names of all items and where I found them]

I have been so enamored with this pair of shoes, it's not even funny. Of course they're too big at size 6, but they're so beautiful! They remind me of kimono prints and I would wear these with any plain outfit or dress that I want to jazz up. 

Set name: Crazy Florals

Of course I love pandas, I clipped some things from Forever21 and sickforcute.com. They have mousepads, messenger bags, clothes, totes, all so pandalicious!

Set name: Pandamonium

I love rings! As you can see, I prefer silver over gold. I bought the panda ring after all and it's so blinged out it's almost obnoxious. I like the chainmail one because I used to swordfight and it brings me back to the good ole days. I'm also really into animal rings lately. I should do a post about all of them. I love the plastic rings (bow and heart) because the pastels are so delicate and cute!

Set name: the bling phone is ringing

My weakness: Connectors. I wish I could nab all of these! I have the heart one with the thin silver bar. I'm a big fan of the plain bar one on the upper left. I won the pyramid stud one from Forever 21's Twitter Tuesday and it's bound to be mailed to me anytime.

Set name: connect me, ring a ling

Last but not last are my FAVOURITE connectors. I'm a big fan of quirky things and I like practical jokes in daily life. I'm always full of puns but they do come in handy for comic relief. I really really really want the tiger ring. I bought the zebra one a while ago, yes it is obscenely huge, but I love it. My own brass knuckles. I like the heart key because "key to my heart" is one of my favourite cliches. The flower one is really pretty and again with the chainmail. My all time fave is actually the eternity ring because it means more to my life philosophy. Everything is transient but time is immortal. I also figured out how to work fonts and backgrounds (finally) on Polyvore, so I have this cool Scrabble tile font that reminds me of newspaper ransoms.

Set name: my favourite connectors

 Last but not least, I won Forever21's Twitter Tuesday Contest 5/18/10 ! I was so lucky to have answered so fast. Every Tuesday, they ask you a trivia question on their products and whoever replies back quickest wins. I had to fill out some legal agreement forms before they send it out, so hopefully my dress and ring will get here soon :D

What's your favourite kind of jewelry? Tell me what you like from my collages : )

Wet n Wild Haul: Glitz-licious and Glamourous

After watching Iron Man 2 on opening night (accidentally, in fact), I had around $13 left after purchasing the movie tickets I wasn't supposed to purchase. Long story short, I participated in the Eco-Friendly Fashion Show and won a raffle of 2 AMC movie tickets, which I tried to use at the Esquire but they wouldn't let me for a "special event" like Iron Man 2 pfft. Well, luckily the movie was worth every penny. [By the way, as I'm typing, all the words I'm saying come out in my head in British. What? I guess that happens after watching charlieissocoollike on Youtube. He's bloody brilliant!]

Walgreens had a Buy one get one half off deal going on for Wet n Wild, so I figured I would get some things I've wanted to try. I like the E/S Palettes because they're very pigmented with primer and because there's 6 shadows for $5 ... not bad. Since it's buy one get one half off, I nabbed both for $7.50. I can live with 12 shadows for less than a dollar each : ) The brush applicator they give you is useless, toss it. I just used my ELF Studio Eyeshadow Brush and it's pretty amazing. It picks up colours and I can keep dipping it into another colour but it will only deposit the colour I want. Is it magic? Perhaps. I also have been looking for an orange/tangerine lipgloss but don't want any of that sheer nonsense, so I found one that looked similar but it was more reddish so I didn't risk it. Also wanted to get some dry shampoo but I realized that I ran out of money.

Purchased:

Wet n Wild Craze Nail Polish in Glitz (the crazy purple glitter LOVE it)

Wet n Wild Craze Nail Polish in Goldmine (a yellowish gold)

Wet n Wild Wild Shine Nail Polish in Blazed (a coral hot pink)

Wet n Wild E/S Palette in Vanity (browns)

Wet n Wild E/S Palette in Lust (purples)

Wet n Wild Dual Pencil Sharpener (which is PERFECT for my big fat Wet n Wild Creme Eyeshadow Stick thank goodness)

Vanity: normal lighting

Vanity: flash

Lust: normal lighting

Lust: flash

Glitz: normal lighting. I love these little bottles! I think I will eventually buy all of the Craze polishes because they're so adorable and application is amazing. I bought this obnoxious purple glitter polish because it reminds me of 7th grade, a little bottle I had with purple and blue glitter. This one is mostly purple, blue, and white small glitters. I like how it dazzles in sunlight.

Glitz: flash

Glitz: up close

Goldmine: normal lighting. I don't really love this colour because I think it's too yellow but it's still nice. It's a cremey, slightly sparkly yellow-gold. The cap is too adorable!

Goldmine: up close

Blazed: normal lighting. I bought this for my toes, I wanted something bright to wear with my sandals. It turns out to look a lot more hot pink/reddish than coral and makes my skin look more than than it is D: Still a pretty shade. The polish is super smooth to the touch : )

I'll do a look with the purple palette sometime. I love purples for brown eyes - they're so compatible and lovely. I've also become interested in the Ashton DSLR .. Nikon D3000 or D5000? Have you heard good things about it? It seems like a dummy-proof DSLR, which flies in my book. I hope it's not too heavy either.

Tell me if you have any camera recommendations! From my deluge of photos, you can definitely tell I need good colour (if my dress is purple, I want it to show up as purple and not blue), macro, and shutter speed. Thanks lovelies~

All You Need is Love, Love ... Love is All You Need (Thanks Sophia!)

I'm so excited about my first love package ever : ) Through this past year I've been blogging, I've met a lot of great people. Sophia is one sweet girl, and I don't just thank her for her gifts that cheered me up so much while sick and kicked down by finals, but also for her big sisterly advice on how to deal with the real world and life. She's so mature in her outlook and philosophies, I only aspire to shed my childish patterns someday and "grow up."

When she heard I've always wanted a pair of angel wing earrings (since probably about 7th grade), she whipped up her amazing craft and jewelry-making skills and made the perfect pair that screams my style : ) Thank you so much, Sophia! The treats were oh-so-yummy too :D

Show her some love! Her blog is amazing : ) Also, support her jewelry store, CutesyJewels. 100% of the profits go to charity!

 Hehe kawaii stickers!

I love the transliterated English on all of these hahaha

 

Zomg yummm! Marshmallow treats with pudding or chocolate inside them. They were sooo delicious ^__^

 

I love the chibi stars! They add the perfect touch. Thank you thank you, Sophia!

:* I have something up my sleeves as well! I can't thank you enough, girl. Stay beautiful! I thank the rest of my blogger friends too since without all of you guys, I wouldn't be here today! Thank you for reading, commenting, giving me moral support when I'm going through tough times, and just being there. You're all amazing ♥