Why U So Obsessed With Bella?

It took me roughly 4 hours to read the second half of the New Moon book, because I was paying a lot more attention into it (as the climax was building with the Volturi [which happens to be the scene I was looking forward to the most]).

I think the biggest tragedy of the story is Jacob.

After finishing reading Twilight, I thought, okay, very interesting to see Edward and Bella together.

But now I think that the Edward-Bella relationship is very unnatural and unrealistic, and that thus makes me a "Team Jacob" member.

I still think Edward was first attracted to Bella because of her bodily scent. Whether it was a metaphor or not, it was not based on emotions but based on natural pheromones, so Edward is like an animal. And I think Edward is over-obsessed with Bella. After the Volturi scene, when they speak together once they've returned back to Forks (shortly before the voting at the Cullens' house), Edward keeps expressing the fact that he is unable to live without Bella.

This kinda shows that Edward is very dependent on Bella not because her presence satisfies Edward, not Bella's personality or anything, because Edward never fell in love with Bella's personality.

And Bella is obviously very horny and is pretty superficial, because she wishes to be transformed into a vampire as soon as she can, dreading that she would be 30 years before she gets changed, making her 10 years + older than Edward. She wants to be a teen while she is transformed.

Look at Mariah Carey, who married Nick Cannon, who was 10 years younger. To her, looks and age do not matter.

And now, look back at Bella, who is utterly superficial and wants to be of the same age as Edward and is already unhappy that she is merely one year older than Edward (who has the appearance of 17). Bella's very appearance-based.

I think the Edward-Bella relationship is not deep at all. It's merely based on obsession.

However, Bella and Jacob's friendship was built into potential romance, which is a lot more realistic, and Jacob is definitely someone Bella can count on, unlike Edward, who is insecure and irritable all the time.

That's why, Team Jacob. (Now I understand and agree why majority of the podcasters in Imprint are also Team Jacob. Edward is too unrealistic, though in truth, Bella is the worst.)

Anyway, my favourite Volturi vampire among the highest three is Aro. Caius is boring. Marcus too.

New Moon Again

I've read the first 299 pages of the Twilight sequel, New Moon, and I actually think, Stephenie Meyer captures the emotions of the story really well.

I was playing my Mariah Carey songs playlist as I read the first half of the book, beginning with Through The Rain, the first track of Charmbracelet. After the Charmbracelet album completed playing, the next album was The Emancipation of Mimi, and it was super co-incidental that while Mine Again was playing, I was reading the scene when Bella was talking to Jacob for the first time since he got "mono", since they hung out with Mike Newton at the movies.

I was most impressed by that scene because you can really see the contrasting difference between Bella and Jacob's friendship before and after what would be revealed as Jacob's beginnings as a werewolf.

Bella and Jacob were actually really good friends, continuously making jokes of each other's age, sharing an interest in re-building motorbikes and practically hanging out together with so much to talk about and so much to laugh.

And then, when Jacob suddenly disppears (his father coming up with a bad excuse that he's got mononucleiosis), he and Bella meet again again in a very long time, but the friendship has changed drastically. Jacob's eyes are really fierce, and his tone towards Bella makes him sound like a stranger. And Bella's just helpless because she has no idea what's going on with Jacob, who idiotically refuses to tell her.

I just see a parallel of these two contrasting friendships with the actual world, because one moment we are best friends with a particular individual, and then many months or probably the year later, we don't talk anymore, and sometimes, the only thing we ask ourselves is, "how did we get here".

Anyway, I've not yet explained what Mariah's Mine Again song has to do with that Jacob-Bella scene.

"Maybe you could be mine again. Maybe we could make that dream for real, like way back then."

The song's simply about the protagonist wishing everything could revert back.

The Twilight Saga is not cleverer than Harry Potter, but it does successfully capture intended emotions and amplifies them all over its pages. However, this is most probably because Twilight is written in first-person while Harry Potter is a third-person perspective.

Okay, why do I keep comparing Twilight to Harry Potter? I've already established that they are different. I do enjoy tremendously the fact that the Twilight movies stay very very very close to the books. The dialogue in the films are taken straight out of the books (although with minor edits, which is perfectly understandable), and the scene progression is similar.

In comparison with Harry Potter (sorry that I'm doing it once again), Twilight seems more faithful. The major Harry Potter plot is retained in the HP movies, but because the Potter universe is so massive, several sub-plots were condensed or removed in the films, and the dialogue in the Potter films are also pretty different from those in the books. It's alright, but I do prefer if the books and the movies were very closely related.

P.S. My reading rate is approximately 100 New Moon-sized pages in 1 hour, which means it will take me probably 2 and a half hours to complete the book and move on to Eclipse, which I am most excited to read since the movie's releasing in a matter of months.

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Ignore the boy standing at the back, the girl at the top-left and the girl all the way at the bottom, and you will see the young Christina Aguilera when she was in the Mickey Mouse Club.

You might have already guessed that the boy behind Christina is yes, Justin Timberlake, and the girl all the way below would grow up to become the (in)famous Britney Spears.

Isn't it cool that three of today's biggest pop stars used to start out in a televion show entitled The New Mickey Mouse Club?

Christina's mom is American, and her father is Ecuadorian, making her an Ecuadorian American. If you visit the Ecuadorian American page on Wikipedia, you'll find that Christina is the most prominent one of them all. Cool, eh?








1998: Reflection & RCA Records
After the cancellation of the new Mickey Mouse Club, Christina and her mom sought to find an appropriate record label in order to turn Christina into a star. She already had an incredible voice for a young age and was very influenced by several pop divas including Mariah Carey (she covered Vision of Love during a talent show).

Disney was looking for someone to perform the song Reflection for the upcoming Mulan soundtrack, but no to avail, largely because Reflection was a ballad that required a big voice. Christina managed to hit a high note and got the job to record Reflection, thus making it her first professionally recorded song.

While Reflection did not impact the world massively, it was nominated for the Best Original Song award at the Golden Globes. It also led to Christina being signed to RCA Records (which would later also sign stars such as Avril Lavigne Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert and Ke$ha).

1999: Genie in a Bottle & Christina Aguilera
Christina worked on her first self-titled album while former Mickey Mouse Club co-star, Britney Spears, signed to Jive and became a pop phenomenon. Britney's first single, ...Baby One More Time reached #1, and so did Britney's debut album. This motivated Christina to really succeed as well, and soon enough, the first single, Genie in a Bottle was released.

Christina proved to be even more successful than Britney when Genie in a Bottle stood at #1 for five weeks (compared to ...Baby One More Time's mere one week at #1). Christina's debut album also topped the Billboard 200, resulting in the media naming Christina as Britney's rival, since both of them had a #1 debut single and album.

However, while Britney would not experience any #1 single for almost a decade, Christina collected more #1's as the months went by. What A Girl Wants (originally entitled What A Girl Needs) was re-recorded and released as a single. Christina wanted to prove that she was not a one-hit wonder, and wanted the world to hear the extent of her vocal power, since Genie in a Bottle gave no high notes.

2000: Subsequent #1 singles & Mi Reflejo
Two weeks after the beginning of the new millennium, Christina scored her second consecutive #1 single when What A Girl Wants jettisoned to #1. As its preceding chart-topper, Smooth by Santana and Rob Thomas, first began its #1 run in 1999, What A Girl Wants is considered to be the first #1 song of the new millennium.

Christina released I Turn To You as the third single from her self-titled debut album. A cover of the Boyz II Men original, it was a pop ballad which differed from the teen nature of her first two singles. I Turn To You was Christina's third Top 5 single when it peaked at a good #3.

Meanwhile, the media began showering a darker light on Christina when they gave negative comments to some of Christina's fashion outfits. At the same time, rapper Eminem released a song, The Real Slim Shady, which accused Christina of performing oral sex on television host Carson Daly. It upset Christina, who first tasted the bad side of the business.

To end 2000, Christina also re-recorded and released Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You), giving it more upbeat hip hop influences from its typical pop original. The song was a success, becoming Christina's third #1 single when it topped the Billboard Hot 100 on October 2000. The song's music video also sparked a series of ever-changing looks Christina would experience for the rest of her career (the music video featured Christina with red streaks of hair).

In 2000, Christina also brought home the Grammy award for Best New Artist, and released her first Latin-language album, Mi Reflejo, featuring songs from her debut album re-recorded in Spanish. The album was a Top Latin album and was certified 6x Platinum.

2001: Lady Marmalade
Christina joined Lil Kim, Mya and Pink to record a cover version of the Patti LaBella original, Lady Marmalade, which was a chart-topper in the US.

The song would serve as a soundtrack single from the Moulin Rouge film. In the recording, Christina was the last of the four to be heard. It was also the first song where Christina belted.

The song returned back to the #1 spot thanks to the Moulin Rouge version, and won a Grammy award for the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 2002. Meanwhile, Christina collected her Latin Grammy award for winning Best Female Pop Vocal Album for Mi Reflejo.


2002: Dirrty & Stripped
Tired of being the usual pop singer she felt the world looked at her as, Christina wanted to break the boundaries put on her and show everyone her inner self. She named her upcoming album Stripped, and in the opening track, Stripped (Intro), she sings, "no hype, no gloss, no pretence, just me, stripped." The track also features short recordings where reporters speak of Christina as Britney Spears' rival.

Christina spearheaded the Stripped project with Dirrty, an intense dance and hip hop collaboration with Redman. The song was evolved from the Redman original, Let's Get Dirty (I Can't Get In da Club). Dirrty would be most iconic for its music video, which featured Christina in a very different side, losing her sweet teenage image for a more sexually-appealing woman who had just entered adulthood.

Everyone was taken aback by Christina's shocking new image. The video had seen her dancing in a littered underground club wearing revealing clothes and flashing her red underwear. The video culminates with her dancing in the waters of a bathroom.

The song and music video were negatively received in the US, all unready to accept Christina's new image and career choices. Dirrty became Christina's worst-charting single as a lead artist, only peaking at #48. However, it enjoyed tremendous success elsewhere, becoming a Top 10 hit in more than ten countries and topping both the UK Singles Chart and the Ireland music chart.

Due to the failure of Dirrty in the US, the next single, Beautiful, written by Linda Perry, was rush-released. It returned Christina back to the top when it peaked at #2. The song also topped the charts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Romania and the UK and Ireland again.

2003: Stripped World Tour
Christina chose a pop rock song as her first of three singles in 2003. Fighter, co-written and produced by Scott Storch, was the last music video among the Stripped singles to see Christina in blonde hair. The video itself used moths as a metaphor for metamorphosis and development.

Dying her hair black, Christina released two more singles from Stripped, entitled Can't Hold Us Down (featuring Lil Kim, whom she collaborated with on Lady Marmalade) and The Voice Within. Can't Hold Us Down, a women-empowering song, peaked at #12. The music video for The Voice Within was filmed in one continuous take.

Christina collaborated with fellow pop star and former new Mickey Mouse Club member Justin Timberlake on the Justified/Stripped Tour, which was later re-done as a solo, Stripped World Tour when Justin Timberlake pulled out.

When 2003 ended, Christina had already collected the third Grammy award in her career. Beautiful won the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

2004: Tilt Ya Head Back

Christina would develop herself artistically from 2004 and 2005 before returning in 2006. She dyed her hair once again, and recorded a collaboration with Nelly for his album, Sweat.

The song, entitled Tilt Ya Head Back, first saw Christina donning a classic appearance that later be seen in 2006. Meanwhile, the song did not perform well in the US, merely peaking at #58. It was claimed that Nelly's record label had believed Christina was overshadowing Nelly on the track and quickly began promotion on another single, hence resulting in the mediocre performance of Tilt Ya Head Back.


2005: A Song For You

2005 was another quiet year for Christina. A Song For You, covered by Herbie Hancock featuring Christina, was released in August. It was nominated for the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals award at the Grammys.









2006: Back To Basics
Christina's first era was her youthful, teenage self back in 1999 and 2000. Her second was the Stripped phase, which featured a very revealing side of the artist. In 2006, Christina began her third era.

Inspired by art, fashion and especially music of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, Christina had spent the past few years working on an R&B, soul, blues and jazz album, Back To Basics, which she describes as having a modern twist.

The album was first promoted through the lead single, Ain't No Other Man, which performed tremendously well. It peaked inside the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and was a Top 10 and Top 5 hit elsewhere.

Back To Basics was finally released, and debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200. The album consisted of two CDs, the second of which would spawn the next two singles.

Hurt, which bears similarities with Grammy-winning pop ballad Beautiful, intended to re-create similar success. Hurt entered the Top 20.

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