blogtober

Adapted for television

The first time it happened was with Robert Ludlum’s ‘The Bourne Identity‘. I remember feeling a big wave of confusion and disappointment. This was about 20 years ago.

Then it happened again. It literally ruined the book for me. I watched the entire Hulu TV series ‘Little Fires Everywhere’, regretting every minute of it. I had just finished the novel with the same title a few days earlier. Shortly after I started reading it, I had found out that it had been developed for television…and so I thought it would be a wonderful idea to give it a shot. Like I said, I regret that decision.

Being my usual curious self, i decided to find our why these adaptations needed to have these changes at all. It turns out, reading and viewing are two completely different things and must be presented differently. One point I agreed with was the fact that if a book was to be made exactly as it was written, it would be boring for many because people watch television for entertainment and not to be bored.

Lately I have learned to take adaptations with an open mind, I have seen a few unnecessary changes in some adaptations but i must admit that I have come accross some very interesting ones too.

No matter how open my mind has become, I seem to have a problem with a particular change I have encountered in a Television adaptation. The creators of the beautiful TV series ‘The Chosen’ thought it would be wonderful idea for Simon the Zealot (one of Jesus’ disciples) to be the brother of the man by the pool of Bethesda. In as much as this makes for a good twist, it seems to be messing with my head. I found myself searching high and low for any clue to where this may have been mentioned previously in the Bible. I guess I will have to live with it.

I have made a small list of some of the books that have been made into movies that I really liked;

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks
Normal People by Sally

Read some or watch some, either way you will love them.

Which ones have you seen or read? What do you think about them?

My Favourite Music Genre

Music is such a beautiful thing. I don’t know what I would do if there was no music. I probably wouldn’t do anything because I definitely wouldn’t know what music was if there was no music.

Music is so beautiful; it connects people, no matter their tribe and tongue. It is felt and understood very easily.

I enjoy every genre of music but my favourite genre is country. Some times when I listen to people like John Legend, Meghan Trainor, Bruce Springsteen, Avril Lavigne and a few others, I get uncertain about my choice for a favourite. But I stand firm with my choice. Pop, R & B, Soul and Rock are lovely but country music makes my heart sing.
Chris Stapleton gets me so confused about picking my favourite song of his. I am constantly stuck in between ‘what are you listening to’ and ‘fire away’. This doesn’t erase the fact that the others are absolutely amazing. I often wonder if he is my favorite male country musician or if it’s George Strait.

Oh, George Strait, his performance with Stapleton in ‘when did you stop loving me’ drives me crazy. My favourite song by him is ‘Give it all we got’. It gets me every time.

Tim McGraw is good for me especially when he sings with his wife Faith Hill. My favourite song from the duo is ‘It’s your love’.

If you are not a country music lover, I want to suggest a few good artists and my favourite songs by each of them; I am hoping you will give them a try and eventually love them too.

Jordan Davis – Buy dirt
Luke Bryan – Play it again
Blake Shelton – Home
Reba McEntire – Does he love you
Faith Hill – It matters to me
Miranda lambert – The house that built me
Luke combs – Must’ve never met you
Keith Urban – Tonight I wanna cry
Brad Paisley – Whiskey lullaby
Jason Aldean – Tonight looks good on you
Rascal Flatts – I melt
Dierks Bentley – Black
Chris Young – Drowning
Brett Young – Like I loved you

What do you think about country music?

I would love to get a feedback.

Waiting to exhale

A few months ago, after I had settled down for the evening, I started to watch a movie. It didn’t start too well. When I thought i couldn’t take it anymore, just when i decided to change to something else, it started to get very interesting. This was around 30 minutes into the movie. What if i didn’t wait?

This got me thinking about a lot of times when I may have given up too soon on things that could have been of great importance to me. After pondering on this, I asked my self a question: “how is a person expected to know that the first 30 minutes are meant to be endured?”

For the movie, I think it is inexcusable for the creators. The world is full of many impatient people and the number rises daily with fast and more catchy things popping up everywhere. Anyone would expect a movie to draw you in rather than bore you out in the first few minutes.

But with life, sometimes we just have to wait for it. 30 minutes, 3 days, 30 days, 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, 10 years, 20 years. No matter how long it takes, sometimes it usually is worth the wait. But sometimes it is not and it hurts.

Sometimes the thing comes and we realise it wasn’t worth it after all. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all.

Maybe we could just adapt the method I used to get through the first 30 minutes of that movie; I responded to my outstanding messages.

The moment I started feeling bored with the movie, I decided to check my messages. I had a lot of them waiting on my phone from family members, alumni groups and a few other groups. I split my attention between reconnecting with people and waiting for the good part of the movie. That way, I didn’t get too upset with how boring the movie was.

Maybe if we could take our minds off of the thing we are waiting for and spend some more time with friends, family, old school mates and even on things that give us joy, we may not feel the pain and pressure in the waiting so much.

Most times,when the good comes, it usually is so beautiful and totally worth the wait. For me, it always feels like I had been holding my breath and I finally got the chance to exhale.

Things I do in my free time 1

Every once in a while, i find myself sitting alone; in my car, waiting for someone/something; like when I go to pick up my son from school but the bell has not gone yet or when I am sitting in front of my bake shop when I don’t have too much to do. In the aloneness, sometimes I begin to watch people as they pass by. With everyone who passes, i get to think a thing or two about them. I sometimes wonder who they are, who they left at home. Who they are responsible for and what inner demons or angels they face every day. Sometimes I assume situations for them.

On one of such days, I started to wonder if this was unusual and I remembered that everything is on the internet and so I searched.

Below is an excerpt from what I found:

People-watching or crowd watching is the act of observing people and their interactions as a subconscious doing. It involves picking up on idiosyncrasies to try to interpret or guess at another person’s story, interactions, and relationships with the limited details they have. This includes speech in action, relationship interactions, body language, expressions, clothing and activities. Eavesdropping may accompany the activity, though is not required.

For some people, it is considered a hobby, but for many others, it is a subconscious activity they partake in every day without even realizing it. People-watching is not to be confused with naturalistic observation. Naturalistic observation is used for scientific purposes, whereas people-watching is a casual activity, used for relaxation or inspiration for characters or characters’ mannerisms in their own creative works. It should also not be confused with street photography; while the street photographer necessarily does people-watching, they do so for the purpose of taking photographs of the people for art and documentary purposes
Wikipedia

I am glad to know it isn’t unusual. I think I like it because it keeps my mind busy, especially when I don’t want to occupy myself with my phone.

I get to observe people and how they react in different situations and I learn a thing or two from their actions and reactions.

Questions

I used to hate questions. Especially when I didn’t have the answers. I would freeze, recoil or do anything to prevent me from facing the shame I felt. To me, it ranked really high among some of the worst things in the world.

Now, I love questions. Interesting and intelligent questions. Especially when I don’t have the answers. They help me think. They make me ask questions and the more awareness I get from the answers, the more excited I get.

I am not certain how this change occurred.

I have been really wondering about this. I found myself listening to an old message by Pastor Steven Furtick. I have listened to this message atleast 3 times in 2 years. In the sermon he spoke about the source of his sermons. He said every sermon often began with a question and in trying to answer the question, a lot of things would begin to unravel and be revealed.

I think the sermon may have influenced how I feel about questions.

A few weeks ago my husband asked me a question. I was not certain about the answer but i did hazard a guess. In my usual new pattern, I began to ask the necessary questions. I used my guess as a basis for my research. It turned out that the guess was actually like a champagne cork to the answer to his enquiry. All the answers came gushing out and it gave me a lot of good things to think about.

I love questions. They make me wiser.

I created a WordPress blog page in 2009, I was excited because I had been yearning to find a place to write down and also share with others all the ideas I always had in my head.

I have no idea what happened. I want to say procrastination; I also want to say that I was afraid I wouldn’t know how to express my thoughts properly. You see, I have never been a fluent orator; and so I assumed my writing would not be so fluent as well. I didn’t get to write any word on my blog till February 2021, 12 years later.

It was the same year I heard of blogtober. I asked myself if I thought I could make an attempt. The answer was a flat out NO.

What is blogtober?

This is a worldwide event amongst bloggers. The aim is to click the publish button every day in the month of October. This does not require just clicking the publish button with empty content. Readers will definitely expect to get interesting information, tips, stories and lots more from you.

There’s no price or award for participating or completing a blogtober challenge. There is no competition. It is more or less a personal challenge.

Am I ready for blogtober in 2022? Oh YES. This year, I have lots of ideas and thoughts penned down to share and I hope they interest you as much as they interest me.

So this is my introductory blog for the month of October.

I would like you to hang in here.

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#blogtober #ilovewriting #writerschallenge #october #blogging