26 Things That Made 2016 Awesome!

Heyyy y'all!!  It's finally the last day of 2016! So for today, I'm listing down all the things I love about 2016 in my last blog post for this year! There were definitely more than 26 things that I truly love but here are the ones that were the most memorable ones~~

1) House visit during CNY

Which was fun! It was also the first time I gamble with RM1 notes hahhaha

2) Stayed in an amazing resort

thanks to my company trip! During which I also got to know a handful of new friends who turned into my favorite people to hang out with #LifeIsGood

3) Year of the Most Alcohol I drank

No kidding. Whether they're new year drinking, social drinking (mostly!), complimentary birthday drink or stress drinking, done that. I personally love Umeshuu, Somersby, Champagne, Sangria, Wine, everything that are made of mild alcohol with mild sweetness. One of my friend loves classics and super strong alcohol I think she has the taste bud of an old man LOL

4) Coffee & Tea

This year I tried lots of different instant coffee but I'm trying to substitute them with black dripped coffee.

 

I have also met up with friends over coffee a couple of times.

5) Attended Nottingham's 6th Annual Bunkasai

During which I got to know the president who took over JSoc after I graduated. We even reconnected a few times after that!
 

 

6) Attended a Japan Cultural event in Shah Alam with my classmates

I love, love the colorful yukatas!

 

7) Traveled to Taiwan with my friends I brought together

The team that made up of my long-time uni friend, my newfound friend & colleague and my bff's sis. So random, I know hahaha

 
I LOVE TAIWAN!

and even after we got back from Taiwan,

8) We still remain as close buddies!

Come this year end will mark our 6 months getting together! I'm so happy :D We've also been going out together pretty often. I even introduced a friend, Yuika who I met in one of the events hosted by the club of my language school. Plus,

9) we even promised to travel together again!

Next destination? Japan! I've been holding off for a while now (because I don't take FAMA loan. That's acronym for "Father And Mother's LoAn" LOL). Can't wait!

10) My camera! 

Because it's awesome and have been with me for most of my adventures!

11) Pokemon Go

12) My birthday

 

13) my first potluck and many get-togethers with my language friends

#gettogether pics
#met in Matta fair
 

14) At 26, I realized I don't shy from getting to know new people or getting my people I know together

 (Well, for as long I'm in the mood to socialize.)

I DO think at one point of your age, doing this should not come as a huge issue. I've heard lots of, "nah, my friends won't want to come. they're shy/comfortable in the same group with same people" and truthfully I think that are loads of bullshit. It's either 1) Your friends think your other bunch of groups are uncool and therefore not worthy to be friends or 2) You suck at art of bringing people together and that's really sad.

Perhaps this comes from my mentality of, "Hey you are my good buddy(ies), you'd so love my other good buddies" and "I want to do my favorite activities/travel together with you people of different group and no I don't have issues bringing you, you and you together. You'd LOVE one another (LOL)" and that I make people comfortable of being themselves or my friends trust me so much that they trust my other buddies. 

OF COURSE my friends played a HUMONGOUS part as well. If they were not actively playing their part to get to know my other buddies and making them comfortable, this totally wouldn't have worked out. Yeah, they're that AWESOME!

15) Innisfree

This gotta be the year for purchasing lotsa Innisfree products, especially the nail polishes and facial cleanser! As of today, I have XX bottles of nail polishes and have re-bought the nude and pearl color ones. Totally love them lots! Will blog about them sometime!

16) Cakes

Yum yum!

17) Being financial savvy

 I have to admit I'm quite a shopoholic and spender. This year, I actually found joy in saving and I appreciate having friends who encourage the habit of saving.

18) Nude color accessories

Simply obsessed with everything in nude color such as my handbag, shoes and nail polish! Even when it comes to makeup, I like them in natural hues like different shades of brown and pink plus coral color lippies :)

19) Paid all the installment for my first car just a few months ago!

and then chose not to drive to work for reason 1) I can save more by simply using public transport and 2) I don't fancy driving through the infamous KL traffic jam and while I'm tired. Thankfully, public transport in KL has been getting better despite the recent 100% hiked in LRT fees :/

20) Attended Weddings of a former colleague and another of my long-time friend

wearing the same dress to both weddings, cause I love it LOL

 

21) Went to District 21 (as a team building activity) and had lotsa fun

22) went hiking at a Kancing Falls, and the waterfalls at the top are spectacular!

23) I attended Bersih 5.0

For the first time and felt so proud of everyone who attended! That's the REAL 1Malaysia spirit!

24) Christmas Get-Together & Skybar

More on this is another post soon! 

25) VoguelyVivien.Com

I finally got a domain for my blog! It had been in my to do list in the longest time and I'm happy it's done! Check out this post to find how I registered my domain.

26) You all. 

Yes, you all. Everyone who's been reading my blog, whether you've been stalking following me for all the years I've been blogging or stumbled upon this blog, everyone for making blogging awesome! Thank you and I'll see you again in 2017.

Getting ready for Christmas at work!

It's a few days to Chrismas guysss!!

And I just set up my mini Christmas trees in my office cubicle hahahaha. Yeah, this post is solely to brag about my trees~ Nah, I'm a bit tied up with work to write a longer post..

Anyway, this is my first time decorating Christmas trees and that was so much fun, no wonder people love Christmas so much~ Aside from Santa and presents and the holidays LOL. Boy, now do I wish I have a bigger tree so that I can enjoy the process of decorating and buy more pretty ornaments, ribbons plus lights!

Here are my trees _ one classic Christmas tree in pink-gold while another Tiffany-color blue-silver theme.

Bought my trees and ornaments from Typo because last weekend they were having last minute Christmas sales. Got everything for less than RM50, super worth it!!

Hipster Santa ornaments hahaha

They have others like the Panda set and another Mermaid & Sea shells set. Wanted the latter though the mermaids look creepy so I ended up not buying. Too bad the ball ornaments in other colors were sold off I only have the blue and pink ones. Oh well, next time a bigger tree and more ornaments!

~ ❤ ~

Dinner today is early Chrismas celebration among my teammates and each one of us became Secret Santa and bought prezzies for our colleagues.

See all the presents~!

Had dinner before the presents were distributed among ourselves.

MY prezzie is this bar of dark chocolate. Just omnomnom-ed it and OMG I super love it!! Super thankful to my Secret Santa. It's so secret I haven't figure out who LOL

That's it guys for today! Will try to post more this weekend. It's already 21st December and I still have a few posts to upload, goodness!

Anyway,  I super hope you guys have your trees decorated and a super duper happy holidays! Have a blast! See ya all in a bit~

Storytime: Housemates from Hell

I've been renting for about eight years now and have always been sharing room for reason to cut down cost of living. I usually have no problems with my roommates though I'm pretty sure they might have found a few quirks of mine but usually my roomies say I'm the nicest person ever, I greet them, we shared stories, I clean up after myself and the list goes on and on. I'm sure my landlady love me for the fact I pay my rent on time :D (except for one who hated me because I'm everything she's not, but that's a story for another day)

Today I'm writing of the few not too nice experiences I had and these are NOT meant to spread hate. Some of you may relate to them or if you have not_ lucky you!_ feel free to be emphatic towards my experience or just laugh at my past misfortunes like my bff does. She thinks I have quite interesting stories to tell.

Rotten Apple

One time I was staying with this housemate who from what I hear is from a not-too-bad family but has the tendency to steal. His habit made him got kicked out in college. 

My then roomie and I only found that out one day when she was alone in the room and the dude came into our room, thinking the room was empty. Later, we confirmed that we did loose a few RM50 notes_the one time I left some cash in my room! His roomies knew about this and only after the incident, told us WTF. Later his roommates moved out in hope to get away from renting together with him because they too had lost quite a sum of cash.

Romeo, please leave me alone

So I have this housemate that was smitten by my independence and face WTF and ... Turn down factor _ he talks too much and need me to babysit him. From "where should I put (my stuff)", "how should I do this", it got to the point that it was so annoying I had to ask him to stop talking. He tried to 'buy' my attention by giving me gifts which I turned down the second time. Personally, one, I don't want to accept gifts that expect any sort or returns unless it's from my best buddies. Secondly, I can buy my own stuff. Damn right I can if I want to.

I thought rejecting his gifts were direct enough but I only found out he only 'get it' after, well, let's not have me describe how it happened. Later he moved out, I presumed for another job.

Slippers-wearing roommates

Yes, a lot of them. They all have one thing in common, wearing indoors flip flops because the have no time to clean the room, or totally don't give a damn about how dusty the house are. Totally not my favorite people.

Blood-y scare

A few years ago I lived in a townhouse and rented the top floor together with another girl, while a family of three lived in the ground floor. One night I got back home from my parttime then and was shocked to find the porch of the home splashed with red paint. I initially thought it was blood. Took a while to register it was paint because the housing area was dark.

It appears that the daughter of the tenant living downstairs had not paid a loan she took from loan sharks and they were finding for her. Thinking back it was good I came back after the loan sharks had left, what if they had mistaken me for her?! Not long later I moved out and was super relieved.

Ghost at home

So I have this one housemate, who, before she became my roommate begged me for a place to stay but forgot all about my niceness after staying with me. She wouldn't greet nor bother to talk after a few weeks of living there. Literally she's MUTE and goes about around the home without sound except for the time she calls her parents and bf, which is why she's like a ghost.

Many times I had stopped myself not to ask her to move out cause it's so annoying having her as my roomie, probably the first of a kind. (Though my bff reminded me that I have bad experience living with girls who's name rhymes with Shan Shan. What a curse!) And oh, one time I found my belt on her rack and yanked it back cause I wanted to wear it. And after that it went missing without a trace. I wonder which fucker who took it.

The only bright side is that she's paying her bills on time. Still, can't wait for her to move out or for me to get my own place :/ Would you gals actually stand this type of roommate or is this just me?

And this concludes my #storytime. I hope you people who are renting are not one of these sorta people here LOL. I have a few more post on #storytime but if you want to hear me talk about any of my previous experiences, tell me about it!

DomainPlus: How I Registered My Domain in 5 Steps

Hi people, I'm super pumped up since yesterday evening because, I finally, finally bought a domain for my blog and so it's now

Www.VoguelyVivien.Com!!

OMG, OMG! You see, I've been wanting to do so for the longest time and all this while I have the wrong perception that having your own .Com site requires me to pay for hosting! How wrong was I! And stupid.

If you bloggers been wanting to have your own domain, whether it's a dot Com or dot whatever sites, today's post will be just for you!

 
By the way, I chose Domain Plus because of its affordability, at about RM50 per year for five years (with add ons)! Also, DomainPlus belongs to a Malaysian company located in Penang, which means communicating with the customer service execs will be a bliss! Cause local time mah hahaha.

So let's get started with the 5 steps to getting your own domain:

 

1) Go to Www.DomainPlus.Com.My

Direct link here then go to Check Domain. Here, enter the domain you are interested and click search for its availability. Photo here shows that the domain I'm looking for VoguelyVivien22 is still available (Using this as example since I couldn't use my VoguelyVivien cause I bought it hahaaha)!

 

At this point, you can choose whether to go for a .Com or .Com.My or other types of your domain. Obviously, I chose a dot com site On top of theat, there are choices of 1,2 years up to 5 years option to decide on. Click "Add to Cart" after that.

2) Add Ons

Going forward, after signing up and clicking next, this will bring you to this Domain Configuration page. Feel free to add on either/both DNS Management and ID Protection, which I did.

 

  3) Review & Checkout

Clicking continue will bring you to another page, stating the details of your purchases and require you to sign up for the site if you have not done so.Won't take long, no worries!

 

4) Make payment

In the following page, you can choose 3 options for payment from 1) Online Banking or 2) Manual Banking or 3) MOLPay a.k.a your plastic cards OR Paypal.

  

Because DomainPlus website is not connected to iPay88 or other payment services, after choosing your option, this would bring you to an online invoice which provided details of the local banking details since I opted for Online Banking.

 

After that, I immediately made my payment and email DomainPlus to confirm that I have made my payment (details are provided in email). It did not take long before the payment has been comfirmed via email. 

You can also check by login to DomainPlus -> Domain and if verified, will be shown as "Active" status in green. 

 

5) Add your domain into Blogspot

Now you're ready to add my Domain to Blogspot! Log into your account and go to Settings -> Basic and under Publishing, click "Add 3rd Party.."

Enter your site address WWW.YourSite.Com and an error message will be displayed in red. You would need to enter the CNAME into DomainPlus' site.

 

 

Simply go back to DomainPlus' site and click on your active domain and then DMS Management tab on your left. Then enter the details provided earlier under CNAME for Record Type.

And THAT'S IT!

After this step, it might take 2-3 hours for the whole connection between Blogspot and DomainPlus to be registered on your site! So take my advise and go shop or read a book during this time. 

I was too eager and right after I did the last step, found nothing and freaked out. Thankfully, DomainPlus' Customer Service was super amazing during the first one hour, I got some help and suggestions to fix my domain. Turns out I just needed to be more patient FML. But THANK YOU DomainPlus, Home to be with you guys longer than 5 years :D