Avril Lavigne - Alice

~Pop Song of the Day #30~

Meet Avril Lavigne, a 25 year-old Canadian pop/rock singer-songwriter, fashion designer, and actress. She's known for her worldwide hits "Complicated", "My Happy Ending", and recently, "Girlfriend". Avril's also currently one of the top-selling pop music artists of the decade in the US. You seriously MUST have heard of her before. She's one of my favorite artists ever!! She caused some controversy when she changed from her old punk/rock genre to pop/rock; in other news, she recently got divorced... Alice is her first single since her The Best Damn Thing days, and fans have been eagerly anticipating this song. It's also going to be on the new Disney remake of Alice in Wonderland's soundtrack. She has been reported as saying that her new album will show off her singing voice more. This song is fantastic.. hope you enjoy listening!! =D

Why I Love #6: Movies That Aren't Sad

You know what's one thing that always manages to get me down? (Well, besides for the usual everyday things in life, of course.) Sad movies. I absolutely do not like sad movies ie. My Sister's Keeper. I have seen enough of them to last a lifetime, believe me. I mean, is there really any point to have the audience leaving the movie theatre thinking, "Wow, that was so... SAD!" Ok, so I understand that sometimes there are reasons why the movie has to be sad. For instance, My Sister's Keeper is about a family's struggle when they realize that one of their daughters has cancer. (Hope I didn't spoil that for anyone.. there's also a twist at the end, that I totally wasn't expecting & so I didn't spoil anything really.)

So sometimes, it is necessary to make a movie sad because the subject material itself is aad, and it wouldn't make sense to turn a bad situation into a comedy. (Oh, I just realized that the title I put onto this blog post was a little ironic. Yep, we are not going to talk about something I love today.. instead, we are going to talk about the opposite of the title.) The thing is, I just really don't like sad movies at all. If a movie wants to make me cry, then I think, "Why did I just watch that movie?" I mean, real life is depressing enough. Do we really want to depressed over fictional characters that we don't know, also? I guess the answer is yes, since there is such a high market and large audience for these "sob story" movies. Do people honestly need a movie to get their "sad fix" or something?

So yesterday, I rented My Sister's Keeper from a local Redbox. (You can read more about my LOVE of Redboxes in a previous Why I Love post.) The thing is, I knew already that the movie was going to be pretty sad. So you might wonder why in the world I want to see a movie that I knew was going to be sad if I really really don't like sad movies. Well, the answer is that many of my friends/acquaintances had been going on and on about the movie lately. And I would hope you would know by now, I only watch new releases. That is, if I have time. (I rarely ever have time to sleep, let alone watch a 2 hour movie.) But I enjoy watching new releases, just so I can talk about them with people when it turns out we've watched the same ones. I guess you could call me a pop culture junkie.

Anyway, many of my friends on Facebook have been saying, "This movie was so sad... it made me cry." and such. So I decided to see the movie just because so many people that I know have seen it. I believe that you could call this "peer pressure" of a sort, because I watched it only because I didn't want to be left out. In conclusion, I watched the movie. (I don't normally watch a movie for the acting, plot elements, lighting, or anything like that... so don't even ask that.) Instead, I realized again exactly why I hate sad movies. Because... it was sad! Duh. Not to say that the movie was horrible, because it wasn't. I'm sure that someone in the world out there would praise the acting, the twist in the plot, etc. But I'm not going to.

The only positive thing that it did to me was open my eyes to what someone going through cancer has to go through. It was very informative in that way, and I learned a lot from this movie. (Note: it must be horrible to have to bleed and throw up and everything, and I feel really bad now that I'm saying that I didn't like this movie). The truth is, I chose My Sister's Keeper as a subject on this blog post simply because it was the first sad movie that I have watched since I got this blog. It could have been any other movie out there, so please don't hate me if you're a huge fan of My Sister's Keeper or something. Lastly, I hope that next time a really popular "sad" movie comes out, someone will remind me not to see it =D
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1,000 views!!

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To my readers, thank you so much!! =D I know that you guys aren't doing anything for me besides reading my blog, but I sincerely want to thank you. Today, I checked my view count (which is on the bottom left corner of my blog), and I noticed that I had over 1000 views! I never imagined that so many people (or repeated visitors) would want to see what books or music artists that I recommend.. especially since I opened this blog less than 2 months ago. Again, the point of this blog is for me to review teen fantasy books that I like and recommend pop music songs that I love. I also have "Why I Love" sections where I post about random things. Well, if you seriously enjoy reading my blog, please send this link to your friends!

Thank you for the 1,000 views!! =D

Ps. You may have noticed the advertisements on the page lately.. well, these are basically "ads by Google". I'm pretty sure that all the ads have been tested by Google, so they are 100% safe. Just letting you know..
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Rachael Yamagata - Be Be Your Love

~Pop Song of the Day #29~

Meet Rachael Yamagata, a 32 year-old American singer-songwriter and pianist. Born in Arlington, Virginia, she is a fourth-generation Japanese American on her father's side and of Italian and German ancestry on her mother's side. Be Be Your Love was a single released from her debut album, Happenstance, which was released in 2004. It was featured in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and on One Tree Hill. Her songs have been featured in many other places, and her second (most recent) album, which had a darker sound, was released in 2008. I was thinking today that I hadn't featured any sad or melancholy songs lately. Well, here's a reminder that not all pop songs are completely happy and dance-type music =D

Gabriella Cilmi - On A Mission

~Pop Song of the Day #28~

Meet Gabriella Cilmi, an 18 year-old Australian singer and songwriter, who is best known for her debut single "Sweet About Me". She has won six ARIA awards including Single of the Year and Best Female Artist in 2008, and has had very mild success her in the US. On A Mission is her first single from her second album, and on this song, she experiments with the dance-pop genre. I like this song much better than Sweet About Me. Although both are pretty catchy, On A Mission has been stuck in my head all week. Definitely listen to this more than once =D

Shontelle - Licky

~Pop Song of the Day #27~

Meet Shontelle, a 24 year-old pop/r&b/reggae singer-songwriter from Barbados. She recently won the Barbados Music Award for "Song of the Year" for her song T-Shirt in 2009. She can be called a newcomer, since her debut album came out in 2008 and was only mildly successful in the US. She's definitely not a household name yet, even though her singles are very, very good. I became a fan of hers after listening to her debut album; however, I think that the only good songs were the ones that she released as singles. Shontelle is currently working on her 2nd album, and Licky is the first single to be released from it. It samples a Princess Superstar track (which I have not heard), but it is insanely catchy. Unfortunately, Youtube won't let me embed the official music video (what is with VEVO these days?!) but the song can stand well enough on its own =D

The Secret to Teen Power by Paul Harrington

~Book Review #4~

So I picked up this book from my local library based on a recommendation from a friend. Sure, I had heard of The Secret before- I mean who hasn't heard of one of the latest best-selling books of all time (citation needed, lol)? I was initially interested, particularly because this book was aimed directly at teens. Being a teenager myself, I just HAD to read this book.

After reading this, I have pretty mixed opinions about this book. The logic of the Law of Attraction seems very sound- especially since the author mixed real-life quotes of famous people with stories from regular teenagers around the world. I just don't think that it will actually work. What, you say? How in the world could I not believe in The Secret after all the evidence that the book cites? Well, maybe it is because I already have a very very good life... in my opinion, I am one of the luckiest people that I know. So have I managed to attract very good things into my life even though I constantly think negative as well as positive thoughts?

I realize that some of you readers may have no idea what I'm talking about. Well, this post is for the people who also know about The Secret. (Spoiler warning.) Back to the subject. The book says that you can attract anything you want into your life simply by visualizing that it will happen, thinking positive thoughs, and believing that it will eventually come true. I just don't believe that this can happen. Sure, there are miracle stories, but I don't think that something will happen simply because you want it to. Also, people who think negatively all the time can still get what they want... it's common sense. In conclusion, I guess that The Secret may work for some people, and others may not ever understand it.

I still recommend this book though, because it is a very nice book that will let anyone get his or her self-confidence back. Overall, it's very positive, and I'm sure that anyone who truly believes in it will find that their life will become better. However, I call this the "placebo effect" (no, I didn't make that up). It's basically when a sick person takes medicine that doesn't do anything, but because the person believes that the medicine will work, the patient ends up getting better. I think that the same principle applies here. People who did not know The Secret may have been taking the good things in their life for granted, or not noticing them. However, once they get the book, they will start noticing all the good parts in their life and atttribute it to The Secret. That's my theory. I recommend this book to people who think that everything's going wrong in their life- perhaps The Secret will help them develop a more positive outlook and will "work" for them =D

Recommended. 3 out of 5 stars.
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