english-for-designers
My newfound love for books
2 April 2024
Hi there! I’m Adela. Today I’d like to share with you a little story of my newfound love for books.
To clarify, I was never much of a book person. More like a movie rat. My former hatred for reading books stemmed from high school. We had to read classic literature novels all the time. Back then, none of the stories were super relatable or interesting to me. That all changed around early December 2022. It was a few weeks before Christmas.
So, one cold day in December, I happened to have a day off. I wasn’t doing anything in particular. I was daydreaming and listening to a catchy japanese pop song from the 80‘s on Youtube. But the music was a mere accessory to me as I was staring blankly into the wall. I tend to do that every now and then. It’s actually a very relaxing activity, you should try it sometime!
Anyway, the moment this song ended, I got back into reality for a brief moment. I wasn’t paying attention to it the whole time as it was playing, but it caught my attention the moment it ended. The sudden silence interrupted my daydreaming ritual. I was about to choose the next song to play. But before I could’ve done that, the autoplay feature did it for me. I shrugged and let it play whatever song comes next. I expected another pop tune but I couldn’t be further from the truth. The moment the next song started playing, I got up from my couch to check the name of the song. It was nothing like I’d ever heard before.
The melody sounded like a traditional japanese song from the 15th century at first. But it soon turned out to be a much newer song, definitely something from the 21st century. It was actually a fanmade music video with this peculiar song playing in the background. The visual part of the video seemed to be a compilation of a few scenes from this movie. I had never heard about the movie either. There were these short scenes with a young couple. First, the two were holding hands, then saying goodbye and then parting ways. Accompanied by that alluring song, I got emotional.
Out of curiousity, I looked up the name of the movie. It’s called Norwegian Wood. I found out that this movie is actually an adaptation based on a book from 1987 with the same name. It tells the story about this introverted japanese college student Tohru Watanabe. Besides reading books and listening to jazz, he doesn’t enjoy life that much. Until he starts a tumultuous relationship with his old high school friend Naoko. The girl is nice and definitely turns him on, but she also has her darker side. Their on-and-of relationship plays a huge part in the story. It starts to change Tohru’s approach to life long before he even realizes it.
After Christmas Eve, you guys can probably imagine how quickly I read this book. It had a little over 300 pages and I managed to finish reading it in about a week. For me, that was quite an achievement. For years, I thought I had already forgot how to read! This experience proved me wrong. Like, wow! “She actually enjoys reading”. All and all, I felt like I had gone through the process of enlightment. Just like Tohru from Norwegian Wood, my approach to life has changed too. But for the better! Not only that I found a relatable character that kept me invested in this book. It also made me realize that I grew up. I’m no longer a bored kid who hates classic literature. I’ve evolved into someone who kind of likes it!
Discovering Norwegian Wood became this huge coming-of-age experience for me. I thought of how much I’ve changed since high school. I swear, I was 17 years old yesterday! Sometimes, you forget how quickly time passes by.
Well, I figured that until December 2022, I kind of hated books because of my past. But that was when I wasn’t sure about my actual interests. And because of mere chance, though, I got to know myself a little more. Besides being an artist and a movie rat, I’m a bit of a bookworm now. It makes me proud knowing I’m eclectic! Simply put, anyone can enjoy reading. I didn’t, but I do now. You just gotta grow up a little and then find your genre.