Rest in peace, Michael.

It's scary what can happen between the time you go to bed and when you wake up. The last thing I read before heading to bed was a tweet, "RIP Farrah Fawcett." It came as a minor shock, although I knew she fighting cancer for some time. The only thing I knew abotu Fawcett is that she used to be the Jennifer Aniston of hair back in her Charlie's Angels day, so I shrugged her death off.

At 9:00am the next morning, my boyfriend Zhuang wakes me up to tell me that Michael Jackson had passed away. And in my groggy, barely awake state, I responded the same way I would every time he tells me things like this, "Don't lie, that's not true!" For some random, unknown reason, Zhuang seems to messenger for news on shocking celebrity deaths. Last year, it was Heath Ledger (which I completely disbelieved) and now, Michael Jackson.

According to reports, Michael had a cardiac arrest and they failed to resuscitate him when he was brought to the hospital. Apparently he was rehearsing till late the night before at Staples Center for his new tour. It's strange when someone who's that influential and known the world over passes away. Michael Jackson was more than an amazing musician, e was a pop culture icon. He was the Elvis of our time. His music, made decades ago, still never ceases to amaze me, and millions of others today.

The world will remember Michael because of his music. For me...

• I remember that We Are The World was my first song from Michael


• I remember being freaked out by the Thriller video as a kid and having nightmares of the zombies crawling out of their graves and dancing away


• I remember my cousin showing off his best moonwalk


• I remember watching Beat It and Bad and thinking to myself, "that's baaaaad ass."


• I remember being in awe of 45 degree pose in Smooth Criminal and trying to figure how how they did the face fade in Black or White


• I remember begging my dad to buy me the Dangerous album


• I remember the pre-CD and internet days where I would fast forward and rewind the cassette to learn the lyrics to Heal The World


• I remember choreographing a dance routine to Remember the Time, just because the video was hella cool


• I remember learning to play You Are Not Alone on the piano


• I remember trying to hunt down the full 38-min version of the Ghosts video


• I remember Boyzone's cover of Ben (which I later found out was about his pet rat, eww!) and David Cook's version of Billie Jean


• I will remember the white-socks wearing, crotch-grabbing, Shiny-Gloved One.

Regardless of the controversies, there will only be one Michael Jackson, and I'm glad that he lived, danced and sang in my lifetime.

For some reason, most of Michael Jackson's videos on YouTube have disabled the embedding feature, so click on the links above to check them out - well worth the watch, considering that there are full versions.