HOW IT BEGAN…

During my teens, I had a hobby besides reading and scribbling on paper, and that was collecting stuff for my scrapbook. It simply  started with collecting old birthday cards, stamps and some  postcards I received from a childhood friend living in Germany then my collection expanded to pictures at the back of match boxes, celebrities- both Nigerian and International- and then movie summaries from the MNET (Now DSTV) T.V guide and interesting articles on books, news and other stuff. I found my material anywhere- from newspapers to T.V guides, from Binta

Children’s Magazine to Harpers’. Lots of stuff went into that scrapbook because I was interested in a lot of things. And when that old notebook had no room after a while; I carefully moved them all into a thick old office diary, adding blank pages to it because I didn’t want to uproot my collection a second time; a bit of it got lost to my sorrow. I added more stuff eventually, some old family photos and funny lists- either with markers or a pen and more articles I could lay my hands on.

I wasn’t the most popular girl in school but I gradually got some attention because of my beloved battered old scrapbook; which was always in my school bag. I was reluctant to share its contents at first, for fear of what they would think of my curious hobby but to my amazement, they always begged me to show it to them and we would actually have long talks over it.

It’s thanks to this hobby that My Favorite Things- now in its eighth year- came to be in the first place. The first time I ever heard the word ‘blog’ was in 2007, when a friend of mine ( a truly wonderful person) started hers; and I was at a loss of what to write about when she suggested I created one of my own. What would I write about? I had the misguided impression at the time that blogs had one main topic but the only things I could write about were books and movies, maybe T.V. I wasn’t planning on making it a “telenovela blog” like my blog idol’s (Philomena Ojukutu) blog-  Telenovela Love Garden - initially but I got so few views that I thawed and wrote my first telenovela post… and received my first comments, all positive!

 Mrs. Ojukutu’s kind encouragement spurred me on to write telenovela recaps, striving to make the blog at least as good as hers. But after a while I realized… why should the blog have just telenovela posts? And that was after I happened to glance through my scrapbook one evening. I’d named the blog My Favorite Things, after my favorite song in The Sound Of Music but I saw that that’s exactly what I’ve been collecting over the years in the scrapbook , my favorite things! Why not make the blog just like the scrapbook, a whole series of posts of what interest me- instead of a main topic! The scrapbook probably wouldn’t have gotten so much attention if I’d stuck to old birthday cards, stamps and matchbox pictures, which would’ve been the same for My Favorite Things if I didn’t decide to add more topics. Structure is good but can be so boring too!

Hence, the real origin of this blog- my old scrapbook. Not only was it the inspiration behind it but it’s thanks to it I have material, for some of my blog posts are actually from it; for example, Best T.V Couples of All Time, Sabrina: Sabrina and Linus and The Six Faces of 007.

 My Favorite Things is still an unprofitable blog but since it started as a fun hobby evolved from another fun hobby, I’m more than glad it’s still here… and I’m very proud of it, for one thing it currently has over 300 thousand page views and

several positive comments. People have different reasons for starting up their own blog and in most cases, deals with a main topic… like Food, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Gossip, Travel and whatever. Mine… besides movies and Telenovela recaps, Bo and Carly (my favorite DAYS OF OUR LIVES couple) fan fiction, news (both show biz and informative), opinions on T.V shows and so on. I’m apt to express myself better on paper so this blog means a lot to me. It’s a means of fully expressing myself, to be myself and share both information and some of my favorite things to the world in this digital age.

Thanks to an old scrapbook!