My Monthly Wrap-Up | October 2022

Posted on by Lashaan Balasingam @ Roars and Echoes

Hi guys,

The month has come to an end and it’s time to do a quick wrap-up of what has been done.

Reading Breakdown.

Novels read: 4 (↑1).
Comic books read: 2 (↓4).
Manga volumes read: 4 (↓6).

Viewing Breakdown.

Movies Watched: 9 (-).
TV Series’ Seasons Watched and completed: 0 (-).

Gaming Breakdown.

UNCHARTED 3: DRAKE’S DECEPTION: REMASTERED (BACK ON IT!).
THE LAST OF US PART 1 ON PS5 (CURRENTLY PLAYING).
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Currently Playing).

BOOK REVIEWS.

The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Vol. 1) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers.
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski.

COMIC BOOK REVIEWS.

Rorschach by Tom King.
The Walking Dead: Compendium Three by Robert Kirkman.

TV SERIES REVIEWS.

The Legend of Korra (2012-2014) Season 1.

VIDEO GAME REVIEWS.

Doom Eternal (2020).

TOP BOOK.

Dragon Ball Z (Vol. 26) by Akira Toriyama.

The final volume of Dragon Ball Z is easily the best thing I’ve read this month. A fantastic and nostalgic finale. More on this soon.

LEAST FAVOURITE BOOK.

The Outsider by Stephen King.

It’s a fun book without being extraordinary in any way whatsoever. More on this soon!

TOP MOVIE.

Out of the 9 movies I watched in October 2022, Jaws (1975) was my favourite.

What is Jaws (1975) about? When a killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Cape Cod, it’s up to a local sheriff, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down.

My thoughts: This was a masterfully orchestrated thriller thoroughly exploring the prey versus predator rapport with a terrifying great white shark up against a police chief, an oceanographer, and a shark hunter.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

CURRENTLY READING.

Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler.

I’ve been meaning to read this forever and now I’ve got the perfect reason to pick this up as part of the whole discover-a-new-country-every-month thing! 🙂

PERSONAL LIFE.

What a month it has been! To kick things off, my girlfriend’s mother came over for two weeks and it was such a pleasure to have her around the place. During her second week here, my girlfriend’s sister and her boyfriend also came by for a week and amped up the number of adventures, with a notable detour to visit the La Mauricie National Park a couple hours from our place, and you bet that this time of year the colours of the leaves were formidable!

The last week of October was marked by our trip to Los Angeles, California (without their mum). While I’ll probably put up a summary post about it soon, I can already tell you that we had a blast exploring the countless things that the city and its environs had to offer, yes, that even includes the sketchy Skid Row neighbourhood.

As for October’s random country of the month, which was Haiti, throughout the month, I was able to learn so much about its history but also its extremely fragile sociopolitical climate, which, coincidentally, is terrifyingly bad right now, with gang warfare and a cholera epidemic, ever since their president was assassinated. As much as I would’ve liked to have a more sunshine-rainbows-and-puppies experience, I found it truly eye-opening to see how corrupted and distressed the country has been and still is today. Hopefully, more positive news will be on the horizon for them… I also got around to watching Raoul Peck’s Moloch Tropical (2009), which turned out to be a thought-provoking political satire portraying the self-destructing Haitian society through the life of an incompetent and delusional president. I also read a novel by Dany Laferrière, a Haitian-born author, called “How to Make Love to a Negro” (but in French). What we had the most fun doing, however, and, as usual, is the food, as we went to eat at a Haitian restaurant and enjoyed everything single dish they had to offer (whether it was their Haitian patties, their plantains, creole shrimps, pikliz, chicken wings, or griyo!

If Darkness at Noon wasn’t enough of a hint, our November random country of the month is Hungary! Totally excited to discover it now. 😀

Thank you all for checking out my monthly wrap-up and don’t forget to check out any posts that might interest you or that you might have missed out on!

Stay tuned for my Monthly Anticipation post coming out soon. 😉

So what’s going on with y’all? What have you discovered this month? What are your thoughts on the books/TV series/movies I’ve checked out?

Yours truly,

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Published by Lashaan Balasingam @ Roars and Echoes

Reader. Reviewer. Researcher. Criminology Ph.D. Candidate. Montreal, Quebec (Canada). Want to know more? Connect with him!

42 thoughts on “My Monthly Wrap-Up | October 2022”

  3. HEYY!!! LASHAAAAN!!! HOW HAVE YOU BEEEN??!!?!? AWESOME and LIVIN THE BEST LIFEE, by the looks of it! Also, A NEW BLOG TOOO???!!? CONGRATULATIONSS!!! *pretend these are party emojis cuz im on comp rn lmao xD)

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      1. FOR REALL!!! I have been away for almost two years now and DAMN DID I MISS YOU GUYS!! AND YOUR POSTS, ESPECIALLY, Lashaan!!! *party emoji* (im on pc lmao)

        Even now, I have been trying to draft posts in advance so I can begin in December, you know?!! Work has been crazyyyy past few months (OH AND I GOT A JOBBB!!! But more on that in the posts!!!)

        BUT YES! SO HAPPY TO BE BACK!! Im gonna spam ALL YOUR POSTS SOON!!!!

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  5. JAWS is one of the movies I mean to re-watch one of these days: I’ve been thinking about it since watching a documentary on Spielberg’s experiences as a director, and I was fascinated by what he and the troupe had to do to make budget and story meet halfway.
    As for the food, thankfully in my corner of the world is almost time for lunch, because those pictures of Haitian dishes made me quite hungry!!!! 😉

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    1. I’ve been post-pone’ing my own viewing of Jaws for a while now and am so glad to have finally checked it out, especially during this Halloween season hahah! It’s such a trademark Spielbergian movie. I recommend a rewatch. It really shows how visionary the dude was and still is. Hahah glad to contribute to your own hunger, Maddalena! 😀

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  6. Oh wow, you were practically in my neighborhood, Lashaan! I’m a few miles from the Hollywood sign. I hope the weather was good for you. Sounds like you had a busy, fun month😁

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  7. Jaws is one of the finest movies ever IMHO. I remember the first time I saw it when it came out, there were at least a couple of jump scares where I thought I had died lol. My wife still hasn’t seen the film – she is shall we say not a “shark person.” LaMauricie looks fantastic with the fall colors and the blue water. I will be looking forward to your details on the LA visit. Only been there once, and didn’t have time to see many sights. Curious about your thoughts on The Outsider as well. Happy November, Lashaan.🙂

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    1. Oh man, the underwater body discovery was such an unexpected jump scare! I was convinced we’d be treated to a giant shark in that particular scene hahah And yes, La Mauricie turned out to be gorgeous. I wouldn’t mind revisiting and doing more hiking in the future. I look forward to sharing my experience in L.A. soon. Definitely a fun all-around trip. Hope you have a fantastic month of November, Bruce!

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  8. I am old school with video games. I have always viewed them as prepping generations for strategic war. Classics films are the best. Delicious food goes well with conversations about entertainment.

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  9. I’ve not read The Outsider but I really like that book cover. It’s been ages since I watched Jaws but it really was such a well done movie. They did a great job building suspense. One day I’ll have to rewatch that. I’ve been slowly going back through some older movies I enjoyed when younger to see if I still enjoy them, or just to re-experience them. Jaws might be added to that list. I love seeing your photos. Glad to hear you made it out to a national park, and the trip to LA sounds like it was fun. The only area of California I’ve visited is San Diego for a week. And I think I would have enjoyed trying the Haitian cuisine, which would be new to me. Was it hot or spicy?

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    1. I look forward to sharing more of my thoughts on The Outsider! I do love my own escape to older movies. For example, my girlfriend and I are slowly making our way through all of Hitchcock’s movies (first time viewing for me while she had the opportunity to grow up with all of them thanks to her mum’s love for them). I’m curious about San Diego! I might have to try to make a detour there someday. Around half of the dishes we tried were indeed spicy, especially the pikliz which accompanied most dishes. I ended up eating everyone’s dose of pikliz and adored it alongside the rest of the food hahah

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  10. The food looks good! But I’ve listened to a podcast about Haiti’s recent past, it sure is hard. BTW, there’s a Polish-Haitan connection 🙂 Napoleon sent some Polish troops to fight local rebellion and many stayed, influencing local culture a bit, or so the author of the podcast claimed…

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      1. There even is a bit of Polish culture in Voodoo: “One of the most revered Polish religious symbols is the icon named the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. It is thought to have been absorbed by Haitian Voodoo as Erzulie, or Ezili Dantor. This image of a black Virgin Mary holding the dark-skinned Infant Jesus influenced the vision of one of the Haitian Loa spirits. It is thought that Polish soldiers may have carried her image to Saint-Domingue. “

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  12. What a great month Lashaan, and it seems like you had amazing company too! 😁 It’s amazing that you already had a book in mind for November’s country-of-the-month! I’ve never heard of it but the title sounds fun ahah! Hope you have a great (and probably quieter) November!

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  14. I look forward to hear more about LA, which is a place I would love to visit. The photos of Haitian food made me hungry! It has been a while since I watched Jaws, but I agree it’s a great movie! 🙂

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  16. It looks like you had a great month! That national park looks really pretty. I’m glad you had fun in LA. I’ve only been there once for a day, but I did like it. We keep meaning to go back since it’s only a two hour drive from San Diego, but we always fill our trips and run out of time.

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      1. I’m actually not in San Diego, but south of Chicago. We just try to visit San Diego once a year. Last year we went twice. My goal is to live there, but it’s super expensive. So I just want to move as close to there as possible.

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  18. That is a lot of food and look good. I been reading The Running Man by Stephen King. I was almost finish with it when it got return on Overdrive. I try to check it out again but I has to wait two weeks because someone else has it check out.
    Have a great November reading month.

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