EPISODE 50 – A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

When I was much younger, I believed you only grow older when you mark your birthday. Thus, when my sixth birthday was not celebrated with a party, I assumed it meant I was still five years old. It took a little while before I adjusted to the reality of the fact that not every birthday must be marked in a big way. However, in our part of the world, certain birthdays are looked upon specially. For instance, your first birthday, your third, seventh, tenth, twelfth, eighteenth, twenty-first, twenty-fifth, seventy-fifth and all the

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birthday numbers in multiples of ten are usually celebrated. My brother turned thirty last month and didn’t even throw a party and I was like  . . . Really? Well, maybe I’m just being sentimental but I strongly believe in setting milestones, recording achievements and the need to celebrate or at least acknowledging the crossing of a particular landmark.

This post is very special to me because it marks the golden jubilee of ‘The Geebee Chronicles’ series. I consider it special because it is definitely different from doing fifty random blog posts. Writing a series based on 70% fact and 30% fiction could be especially difficult. I can confidently tell you that it takes a lot of courage, caution and determination to do this. I’m glad we are at this point and I can’t thank you all enough for being there. Really, what’s the point of doing a series if no one is going to read it? I really wouldn’t have loved to call names but I have to acknowledge the bloggers who’ve been a part of this series all this while.

To those who originally began this journey with me:

Aloted, Bumight, StandTall, Writefreak, Buttercup, Nefertiti, Kinshar, Solomon Sydelle, Jaguda, Wellsbaba, Rita, Uzezi, Simeone, Beauty, Original Mgbeke, Femi B, Yewande Atanda, Miss Definitely Maybe, Doug, Iwalewa, Aloofar etc. They are those I’d like to call ‘veterans’. They were my idols and made blogging practically become my life back then. Thanks for the tutelage and the love, uncles and aunties. Lol

To those who joined the series wagon along the way:

Olufunke, Myne Whitman, Qmoney, Tisha, Tommeh, Enkay, Chacha, Spicy, Danny Bagucci, Doll, Spesh, Mikey, Eddee (Where are you, bro?), BSNC, Mariaah, MPB etc. They joined the party and blended even though it was already in full swing, making me feel all the more determined to continue. You guys are awesome!

And those who joined the wagon more recently:

Atilola (my wonderful editor and close padi now. Lol), Toinlicious, Rhelow, Ibifiri Kamson, LohiO, Nafisat etc. They came in after I had taken a long hiatus and my blog was almost deserted. Lol. Still, they’ve been around. Thanks people. You guys are the best!

The list is far from exhaustive but those were the names I could recall. Of course a good number of them have jumped off the wagon and some have even quit blogging and I definitely miss them. Thanks y’all.

Lifting from Episode 24 which was a recap of the first twenty three episodes, I would again state that my motivation for starting the series was the fact that I had always wanted to do an autobiography someday and planned to start when I turned forty. However, the events that have occurred in my life since my eighteenth year have totally set me on an unplanned and unexpected course and while everyone has a story, I see mine as a pretty unique and could not resist the urge to share it. The original idea of my autobiography was to simply talk about my life and my previous forty years of existence (of course when I turned 40), achievements in the academic world and writing world among other things. Sincerely, that was the dream back then. However, life had something totally different in stock for me with experiences of all kinds – pleasant and unpleasant. Then I started blogging in 2008 as a twenty-three year old final year student of Economics in University and a father to a daughter who had just turned one.

My posts were mostly random and just straight from my heart and head. I wrote about anything – from football, family, school experiences etc. The idea of an autobiography was gradually slipping away because as it were, most of my earlier dreams were looking less likely to come true. I watched the first two seasons of Chris Rock’s ‘Everybody Hates Chris’ around that period as well and was impressed with the huge success of the comic television series where Rock gave an account of his life from 1982 when he was twelve years old. Then I thought, why not begin a literary version of my own story in the little way on this platform – blogging – and that was how the series was born. It was dated from 2003 and so far, four years have passed in the series. The last episode of the series was Episode 49 set in April 2007. Of course, like in ‘Everybody Hates Chris’, not everything you’ve been reading here is entirely true but assuredly, at least 70% of the story is true.

It has been awesome so far and sometimes I regret the breaks I had to take. Being a student then, I had examinations, final year projects and a lot of other distractions that often took my time. Then, getting out of school, job scouting, family minding and other issues also took its toll. Notwithstanding, it’s been a most rewarding experience. In the process of doing this series, I was nominated for blog awards in three categories in 2009 and one in 2010. Even though I did not win, no thanks to the ‘veterans’ I was nominated with (lol), it felt great to actually be considered for blog awards. In fact, I still include that as one of my career milestones in my official resume – Nominee, Nigeria Bloggers Award 2009 and 2010. Not bad, right? But yes, ‘Winner’ would definitely have sounded better. Well, half bread is better than none after all.

Sometime after I started, I decided I would turn the series into a book. Now, I’m thinking it would be a collection of three books. Work has begun in earnest on the first book anyway so please buy it when it drops o. Lol. Then, a television series or soap opera would definitely not be a bad idea too, so if you know anyone at MNet or other top international producers who might be interested, holla at me o! Seriously!

I have been asked on a number of occasions when the series would end. As at 2008 when it began, I thought the duration would be from 2003 till 2007 but truth is, so many events have unfolded in my life since then that I honestly don’t know when the series would end. My guess though is, it would stop on or before the year 2015 when I would turn thirty. However, I wouldn’t be able to say if it would run for that long on this blog. Lately, I’ve been itching to do some other things on this blog besides the series but not to worry; the books would tell you all you need to know. Remember, we still have about eight years (2007 – 2015) to go so you know it’s definitely far from over.

So that’s the little story behind ‘The Geebee Chronicles’ series. Hope you’ve been well acquainted so far. You can always update yourself by clicking HERE or on the ‘Series Episodes’ tab to access the full list of series episodes from start till date. I actually planned to continue the story from the last episode on this post but felt led to do something different. Mind me not; I just had to celebrate this milestone so please bear with me. Episode 51 is ready anyway and should hit you pretty soon.

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF THE GEEBEE CHRONICLES

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EPISODE 24 – A RECAP

Recently, I’ve become a fan of Sugarking’s blog and I can’t help wondering where on earth that guy is from. His posts mostly border on his escapades as a young Nigerian guy living overseas and his interminable relations with women of all sorts in JD. Now, lewd and controversial as the posts on his blog tend to be, they have a way of holding me spell bound with laughter and the many readers of this blog would definitely agree with me on this. While I do not intend to focus on Sugarking in this post, I intend to draw a point on how blogging allows you express yourself in any way you desire, especially in ways you never could have done through other means. In fact, I could bet a toe that a good number of bloggers write stuff on their spaces that they wouldn’t dare write anywhere else in order to avoid controversy.




When I began blogging sometime in 2008, I sought an avenue where I could just express myself and write on just anything like I had been doing on my previous webpage. Coupled with my dreams to write some fiction novels and poetry, the idea of an autobiography had always been on my mind for a long while and I thought: Instead of waiting till God-knows-when to begin writing my story, why don’t I start it on my blog? And that was how THE GEEBEE CHRONICLES came about. I decided to do an autobiography of my life beginning with my eighteenth birthday in series format. While the series is mostly based on true events, there are a lot of additions and deductions from the true story and of course, all the names have been changed. Due to my inconsistencies among other factors, we’ve only been able to do twenty three episodes so far and I can’t appreciate my followers and readers (those who began the journey with me, those who hung on for a while and those who are still hanging on among others) enough for being there all this while. This post is actually meant to be a recap of all the episodes of THE GEEBEE CHRONICLES for the benefit of those who have not been able to read through all the previous episodes and to allow for easy understanding and followership in future. Come to think of it, twenty three episodes are not that few after all and I can imagine the stress of having to read through the entire episodes one after the other. Meanwhile, there’s a link to the right of this page that highlights all the episodes till date. That said, here’s a summary of all the previous episodes of THE GEEBEE CHRONICLES for y’all in one post.

The series is dated back to 2003, the year Geebee would turn eighteen and finds himself still struggling to get into University having been stuck at home for about two years already. He relocates to be with his dad and a nice step-mum. He feels caged by his dad, a man who practically refuses to allow him travel to spend some time with his mom. Geebee feels cheated especially because his two brothers, Ben and Steve hardly face the same situation as Ben is far away in University and Steve who just left secondary school enjoys his time with their mom. The fact that his dad (Chief) also has personality issues of his own make it difficult for Geebee to feel comfortable being in the same vicinity. Thus, he constantly longs for his freedom which he assumes would only come about once he makes it into University. He thus passes the time engaging in youthful exuberances of all sorts having teenage affairs with girls in a UME coaching center and taking on other vices like smoking and drinking among others. Finally, on his dad’s prompting, he resorts to opt for a part-time University programme at a location close to his home. Left without much of a choice due to his haste to get into University as soon as possible, he grabs the opportunity. By January 2004, Geebee finds himself in a University system meant for adults and has to endure the pain of receiving lectures with much older people. However, there are some of the younger age grade people in the system as well and he bands himself with many and together, they try to create a more youthful University environment, and to a great extent they succeed.

Being in University proves to be the perfect escape route and soon, Geebee hardly feels different from his counterparts in a full-time University system. The only drawback stems from the fact that the part-time system confines lectures to evening periods only, thus granting a good dose of boredom in the daytime during which he finds himself stuck at home attending to one domestic need or the other. Thus, his only release becomes the period spent at school in the evenings. He begins to excel academically and command some level of attention from his peers, the young and old alike. He however prefers to deal at best with the slightly older ladies who fall just a little above his age grade. Meanwhile, on the home front, his dad and step mum continue to have ceaseless problems and an impending break up seems inevitable. He soon finds solace in company of colleagues in his age grade like Simon and Sam. Simon happens to be the first friend he meets in University and he finds out that they are perfect contrasts to each other with Simon being more on the introverted side and still a virgin at nineteen much to Geebee’s chagrin. In the end, believing he’s acting to his friend’s benefit, Geebee tries hard to initiate him into one or two vices. Sam on the other hand is the outgoing and boastful type who is more than willing to engage in youthful vices of all types and he and Geebee tend to fit into each other’s ways much better.

Geebee is not spared the attention of a few of the more mature women in the part time University system and it is in the course of this that he meets Lovina, a much more older woman who happens to be married with five children. Their relationship is originally planned to be purely academic where he is expected to assist her with extra lectures on difficult courses but in the process they begin to share so much stories together that an affair begins. The affair runs on for a good while and Lovina proves to be the perfect ‘sugar mummy’ providing for all his financial, emotional and sexual needs to the extent that he dares to defy his ‘Almighty dad’ and begins to sleep out once a while in the pretense that he was at Simon’s place. As much as they try to keep the affair secret, things begin to get out of hand due to Lovina (Madam L)’s constant nagging and inability to keep matters simple. Soon, Geebee realizes he is in trap and the guilt of sleeping with a much older woman who happens to be married nearly drives him insane. Eventually, he is able to escape from Lovina’s clutches and get his life back in order but not for too long. He gets a few jobs in between the period to ease the boredom of being at home during the daytime and further take his mind off his travails. The experiences at those jobs equally add to the troubles and joys among other things.

Time flies in its usual form and soon, the first school year is over. Geebee and his colleagues find themselves in the second year in University and it feels pretty good to know that more fresh students would be coming in to join them. He makes up his mind to focus on his academics and for once shun all sort of past bad behaviour he had initially engaged in, especially after the close shave with Madam L, whom he still secretly dreads and desperately avoids. He soon meets BG, Sam’s girlfriend who gets admitted into her first year in the University and over time, he is disappointed to find out that Sam hardly cares about his supposed girlfriend, often ignoring her and treating her as a non existent being especially in presence of his friends. In actual fact, Sam feels BG is a distraction and would likely serve as a clog in his quest for other ‘fresher chics’ on campus. BG however appears to be undeterred or hardly even notices Sam’s annoying attitude towards her. However, Geebee begins to feel uncomfortable about his friend’s behaviour and advices him to either break up with BG or stop treating her badly. Sam drags his feet for a good while but eventually summons up the courage to break up with BG, much to the latter’s disappointment.

Geebee soon regrets his action on convincing Sam to break up with BG after watching BG closely enough to realize that she was indeed hurt and he tries to cover up for this by confessing to her what he did and explaining the reason for his action. BG is shocked to find out that Sam had not broken with her because he wanted to but because his friend had convinced him to but still she can’t help agreeing with Geebee that it was the right thing to do especially since she knew he had been treating her badly all along but simply ignored the reality of the situation owing to the fact that she really cared about him. He was her first boyfriend and she had not wanted to lose him. Geebee and BG begin to get pretty close and in between he realizes that he might have made an enemy of Sam by convincing him to break up with his girlfriend only to begin running all over town with her. He attempts to address this issue by reuniting Sam and BG as friends again. In spite of BG’s initial aversion and stubbornness, she and Sam mend fences and begin to talk again, albeit as friends and nothing more. Finally, Geebee finds the much sought peace in the knowledge that he had done the right thing in asking Sam to break up with BG and the fact that they were not enemies anymore had an added good effect.

He begins to hang out much more frequently with BG, however without any romantic strings attached due to the fact that he did not want to get romantically involved again for a good while as he still feels haunted by his affair with Madam L. He also still nurses a feeling that Sam has a grudge against him for asking him to dump his girl only for him to jump into the picture and he tries to avoid BG without much success. BG continues to keep close and the walls around his heart finally crumble. The ice is finally broken when they share their first kiss in a most unexpected manner.

So that's a full recap for you guys. Let's call it 'starting all over again' with THE GEEBEE CHRONICLES. I hope to be much more regular with the episodes from henceforth, say with like three or four episodes per month, So help me God. . . at least, I was able to do at least two posts in January like I promised. I guess that's a mark of progress, right? lol. So, January's over now and I wish you all a wonderful February.

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF THE GEEBEE CHRONICLES

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