I pretty much harbor a massive celebrity crush on the man, so I was pretty excited to hear that he was planning on releasing a full scale solo album this past July 1st. One of my favorite things about music is that you don’t necessarily have to understand the lyrics of the artist, per say, to appreciate it…or at least that’s what I tell myself to make me feel better about listening to music I don’t understand. Hah.

Entitled Solar, this album is arguably Taeyang’s (Korean: 태양) first foray into the Korean music industry as a solo artist. (If you don’t count the release of his previous EP Hot, that is.) It personally took me a couple of listens to get acquainted and familiarized with the album — and I have to say that I love it. Some of my favorite tracks:

Superstar Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	Just A Feeling Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
니가 잠든 후에 (feat. Swings) Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.	Take It Slow Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’m actually in love with the whole album, except for the song You’re My — it’s way too cheesy for me to take it seriously. There’s also previous hits Wedding Dress (which may or may not be my all-time favorite Taeyang song) and Where U At for us “old school” Taeyang lovers looking for something a little familiar.

This album is generally described as a hit or miss: you either love it or don’t really care for it. It’s a lot different from the songs that were present on his previous EP, and it’s taken some time for some of the fans to get used to; I guess it’s easier for me to adjust to because the music on Solar is similar to the type of music you would find in the “American” R&B scene.

I think it’s definitely worth a listen if you’re trying to find new music to listen to. Plus, you know, the man isn’t half bad to look at :)

Yes, I actually watched both. Yes, I wasted 4 hours.

And I feel I should also provide this little disclaimer: I abhor the Twilight series, and I absolutely love the original Airbender cartoon series from Nickolodeon.

Like any other fan of any source material, I’m generally pretty excited when there’s an announcement that a movie adaptation is going to be made. I wasn’t really expecting much — I always seem to prefer the source material to its movie adaptation, and the backlash M. Night Shyamalan has gotten for “racebending” resulted in low expectations — but I couldn’t believe that mother freaking Eclipse, the third installment of the IQ-lowering Twilight series, had gotten a substantially higher rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

I tend to regard Twilight movies as comedies — they’re always good for a laugh. The acting is stale, the plot is horrible, and the fight scenes are, at best, mediocre. Yesterday, I set out to find the truth behind the ratings — could Rotten Tomatoes be true??? (Surely, not!)

On Eclipse (a.k.a. I bet RPattz is regretting his decision to take on the role of Edward right about now)

I watched Eclipse first. My logic was this: any following movie that I watch afterwards surely couldn’t be worse. It’s a pretty well known fact that Twilight has more or less become a cultural phenomenon, and it’s one that I particularly don’t understand. I have read all four books in the installment trying to figure out what teenage girls and their mothers find enthralling about it. (Off note: my mother recently watched Twilight on TV and thought it was “romantic” and “cute.” The biggest bashing fest ensued in my household, with my sister and I trying to make my mom see the light — and not the light Edward gives off when he sparkles. What kind of self-respecting vampire SPARKLES??) My biggest regret is the money wasted buying the books and the fact that I have to hide the books in my bookshelf to save myself from embarrassment if anyone happens to see that I actually own them.

It’s pretty much a given that I go in watching these movies with absurdly low expectations. The stiff acting of RPattz, KStew, and Taylor Lautner (TLaut?) are almost unbearable to watch, but they never fail to elict laughter from me — which is pretty much the only reason I’d voluntarily waste time watching them. That being said, I laughed considerably less in Eclipse than when watching its predecessors, which may or may not be because 1) there was an improvement in acting?, 2) random chance, or 3) I just tuned everything out. Things taken from the movie:

1. Our dear Bella is a horny teenager. So is Edward, but he’s more concerned about her ~virtue~, even though he likes to sneak into her room in the middle of the night to watch her sleep like a creeper.
2. Werewolves never wear shirts.
3. Bella is still useless.
4. Edward is still useless.
5. And the best message of all: it’s okay to give up everything in life and abandon your family for a guy because nothing can fight the power of love.

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…and I kind of love it.

It’s funny how something you’ve mocked up or visually drafted can look so awesome initially, but after a period of time, you grow to get sick of it. I absolutely hated the “Big Bird” theme I had up before, so I decided to change it. I spent the better part of the afternoon/evening working on this theme — I might end up changing the colors later, but for the most part I think this layout is here to stay for a long time. (Or at least what constitutes a long time in my book, anyways.) My favorite parts are definitely the bottom div (which actually gave me a lot of grief) and the header. For the easily amused, image rollovers = win.

My morning was spent “shadowing” a neurologist at UT Houston. I put shadowing in quotation marks because today’s time spent observing her equaled a whopping 30 minutes — less than the time it took for me to drive downtown to the Texas Medical Center, get my TB test read, pick up my name badge, drive over to her secretary’s office building, park my car, walk over to the building to find her secretary, walk across the street with the secretary to said neurologist’s clinic, and finally find said neurologist at said clinic. I came at the time she specified for me, but I was only able to catch her stitching up a patient’s calf from a nerve biopsy she just performed (blood and ooze, galore!!).

Don’t get me wrong; I’m extremely appreciative of the opportunity she’s giving me, but I was only slightly disappointed with my first day. Good news: I still have more days to shadow her, and she’s extremely nice. Bad news: will I have to pay an extravagant amount of money for parking every time I drive downtown to observe?

The pediatric cardiologist I’m also shadowing this summer is on vacation for the next two weeks. Kind of sad, since I was only able to spend an afternoon with her once before she left — but it was a very exciting day. Saw two patients with Marfan’s, an ultrasound being done, a basically newborn baby with a hole in between his ventricles, and a patient she’s been following for about seven years who has had multiple surgeries to address the holes in his heart and mitral valve issue. I’ll have two more opportunities with her after she gets back though, and I’m looking forward to it — her office is literally a minute away from my house by car, and parking is free!

All of this just makes me want medical school more. Too bad writing secondary essays suck. I’ve completed 2 of the 7 I need to do, and up next is Baylor. BCM’s basically been my dream school since I’ve decided to pursue medicine because 1) it’s close to home, 2) situated at the Texas Medical Center, 3) pre-clinical years are slightly shortened, and 4) it’s Baylor. Ugh, here’s hoping.