It seems that the earlier posted epic day is becoming a 'day' in bible terms, (i.e who knows how much time it actually measures?)
Ghana is still on top, 3rd african team to reach the final eight in history and the only this world cup!!!!!! Saturday was a good day but then...Sunday came, wow Engurland boi - I actually feel sorry for them because if Lampard's goal had been allowed I think it would have been a different game, the ref is a twat, sorry boys.
Anyway it was not easy but I have decided to pick myself up and start the vigil for Ghana - South America what? Uruguay who? We got the fans to do it and the soccer to play it so COME ON BLACK STARRRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Also I LOVED the 'I am Ghana' thing, wicked!
I love World Cup years! I love the fact that there is football, tennis, F1, all packed into one very small time frame. Sorry for those of you who don't like football but the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world AND I LOVE IT. I have been glued to pretty much all the group phase games...particularly for my beloved countries GHANA and ENGLAND! My nation of birth and my heritage; I just have to rep both to the fullest!
To be honest, the vibe in South Africa looks amazing but the African teams have been awful as have many of the European teams. So come yesterday, I had a tense day ahead as England faced Slovenia and Ghana faced Germany to qualify...
So up first ENGLAND; the perrenial under-achievers. It can get so annoying, there is so much heartache in the ups and downs of supporting England. The fact that the other nations hate us and wish us ill, and the press hype the team up so high that they can never come good. But this year, many felt the 'golden generation' should peak and come good. Then Rio Ferdinand got injured and my heart sank a bit...then we played the USA, and the draw was a little disappointing...then we played Algeria and I almost gave up! But THEN something incredible happened...when England came out for the match yesterday they were ready. They were on it. AND WE WONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!
Pheeeeeeeeeew!
Round two. Supporting GHANA. The 'youngest' African team. Errr......really?! Hmmm, moving on. We have been organised and solid for a few years now. After a very good result against Serbia and a disappointing game against Australia. THE TEST. Borga-land. We were to play the jamians! Ebei! Even though both teams included a Boateng, there was only ever one team I wanted to win...the one that included the Mensah's, Asamoah's, Ayew's, etc. But honestly, I expected ANNIHILATION. But it didn't happen. We held them for an hour and even deserved to score and though we lost, WE ARE THROUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I was almost beside myself last night! How could both my teams go through. And even better they don't face each other. In such a game, I would surely have to take to my bed and sleep. Enye sa menya hypertension paaaaaaa (tr: If not then I'd have really bad hypertension)! PHEW! Job done!
And as if that was not enough, who caught Wimbledon last night?!
The longest game in Tennis history. 2 sets all 59-59 in the final set. Erm.....WOW.
Indeed an epic day in sport!
For those of you not yet acquainted with the beautiful Nneka, get to know! This Nigerian-German songstress has been making moves for a while now and this is one of my favourite songs off her debut album "Concrete Jungle" (or "No Longer At Ease" as it was earlier known). I'm in a fighting mood today so I'm going to let Nneka provide the soundtrack to my week. Enjoy this live performance from Letterman.
"And now the world is asleep
How will you ever wake her up when she is deep in her dreams, wishing
And yet so many die
And still we think that it is all about us
It's all about you
You sold your soul to the evil and the lust
And the passion and the money and you
See the same ones die, people hunger for decades
Suffer under civilized armed robbers, modern slaveholders"
(I wonder who she's supporting in the World Cup?)
Since I wrote my last post my life has been a total whirlwind! But to re-cap, I handed in my notice at work at the end of last month. I was not happy. I needed a change, a push, something to bring me back to life. I stepped out on these feelings and decided to quit. Wrote a nice resignation letter to the boss and waited out my notice period. Funnily enough, the day I handed in my resignation was the same day I had quite a few application deadlines.
Anyhoo...about a week and a half later I get a call-back asking for an interview two days later! I immediately said yes, not even really realising what the job was for. But I did recognise that the end of that week would be my final day at work so I was still pushing for a new job (that ever-elusive career breakthrough role). I had two long back-to-back shifts in the two days before my interview and I started to get really worried that I would not have time to prepare. The day before the interview I worked til 10pm and got home near to 11:30. I was knackered and I had so much to do! I started panicking, called around for some interview advice to calm my nerves and then got stuck into my preparation in earnest. I hit the sack at 2.30am after a little 'God I've done all I can'; I just couldn't physically do anymore. My interview was for 10am and an hour-and-a-half away from where I live. This meant that, allowing for major calamities and time to settle my nerves, I needed to be out at 8am. Crap. And I was seriously lacking two nights worth of sleep. Double crap.
I woke up agitated and slightly nauseous. Oh and by the way my BB was in for repairs, so I didn't have the comfort of my phone to soothe me on my journey or to give me reminders to wake up, which was probably why I was so agitated when I woke up. At 7. After four-and-a-half hours sleep. Look I'm no Sankofa, I'm just not built for this. Anyhoo...I got there in good time. Prepared my answers and tried to will my palms to stop flowing rivers (it's so disgusting! I wish we still lived in an era when women wore gloves...). A nice lady takes me through to prepare for a presentation, 45 minutes prep for a 5 minute presentation. Crap, I didn't know about this. Nobody mentioned any presentation. I don't mind doing presentations but at least some forewarning! Crap, crap, crap, OH CRAP!
Ok, cool. Smile, shake hands, thank the nice lady. Crack a joke, make her smile. Now down to business. For the first 15 minutes I couldn't even understand the document I was reading. Calm down, start again. BREATHE. Ok, now I get it. No time to make use of the flip board. Just do it.
So I fumbled through the presentation. Smiled brightly where necessary. Answered all my questions. Didn't repeat examples, always used examples. Smiled some more. Looked all three panel members in the eye as I went along. Looked thoughtful. Clarified if I thought I sounded unclear. Didn't ramble (Yay for me! Because this is a particular habit of mine). Two small sips of water. Didn't fidget. Asked intelligent questions at the end. Was told that they would be in touch tomorrow. Smiled like a frigging simpleton. Shook hands firmly at the end (despite my sweaty hands *shudder*). Left the building. Pheeew!
Once I left I was nearly in tears. I just slumped at the bus stop for 20mins or so then made my way home. I felt horrible, exhausted and close to tears. I just kept thinking I hope my phone has arrived home by now, the only silver lining I could perceive. I got home to be greeted by my phone (yay!) and the anxious mother, oh joy. I muttered something unintelligible, skulked upstairs and crawled into bed. Fully clothed (minus the shoes). Had a good handful of texts and calls to see how it went. Ignored them nicely.
GO AWAY.
After sleep and food (up until this point I'd eaten nothing) I tried to gain some perspective. I could think of no one thing that should warrant my misery. I composed myself and prayed:
"Lord, if it is for me the let it be mine. If not then, I trust you."
I was a bit more upbeat after that. Misery does not become me. I shrugged it off and got on with life.
The following morning my brand new BB (Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!) woke me up with a private number call, in my best I'm-wide-awake-no-of-course-you-didn't-just-wake-me-up voice—I answered. The nice guy on the other end said he had just called to let me know that I had been selected for the role I went up for. Oh. That's nice. Pause. So, ummmmm, Nsoromma, would you like the job? Pause. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, yes! Needless to say, the rest of the convo was a blur. The rest of the day was a blur. Thank you God. The following day was my last day at the old job. Thank you, GOD! HELLO, ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME NSOROMMA, THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! Called the fam, friends, Pastor and well wishers. This is my testimony. I said it was my moment, I believed it and it was.
THANK YOU GOD,
Love always,
N.B. Here's the song I pilfered (and adapted) the title from...Mary J. Blige: Testimony
(first published on Baring Testament)
Hey there everybody, I know it has been a long time since I have written anything BUT HEY I'm here now eh?
I just want to pay homage to a certain black French actress and in doing so give some props to some other beautiful and talented black ladies.
The actress' name is Aissa Maiga, she hails originally from Senegal and has mixed African parentage (Malian, Senegalese and Gambian) I have seen her in French television and a few films before and after watching a recent film with her in it 'Ensemble c'est trop' I just can't get over how beautiful I find her. This is the backdrop to my appreciation of this lady, I have just returned form a short holiday in a Caribbean country and there were SO many pretty girls, they all had long hair that curled, waved and flowed, or greeny blue eyes or cocoa butter/ tinned-milk-tea skin, in short they were just the perfect ti chabins (creole for mixed race looking girls with light coloured skin) and the whole time I just found it amazing that these were fully black women. They hadn't done much to themselves but the usual Caribbean mixtures inherited from slavery and colonialism just presented themselves as various shades of beautiful. WoW! From the young girls to the old women they were the epitome of what many other black girls would spend hours in the salon/gym/Yinka Bodyline trying to achieve and they just have IT, naturally! So, anyway this all left me feeling very short, dark and hairy (I am currently growing out my eyebrows) -and it doesn't help that my son (being light and quite frankly a bit coolie) fits in very nicely with the general look of the island, and resembled about 50 other women more than myself.
So when I got onto the plane and the little one finally fell asleep, I decided by chance to watch a French film, and there she was, dark, hairy (maybe even short, I can't really tell) but BE-YOOT-I-FUL, and although I don't look anything like her it was just very good to have confirmation that dark is lovely (all shades) so YaY to:
all u creole boté (beauties)
and to Aissa Maiga,
Rama Yade,
Alek Wek,
Lanisha Cole (the dark girl in Pharrell's 'Frontin' Video)
and to my main girls Sankofa, Nsoromma, Afrocentric and, bien sur ... Me!
Category:
beauty,
black,
film,
French,
holidays,
love,
skin colour,
woman
9
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I know this song's been out for a while now in Ghana but I still love it. This debut song by yet another Tema hiplife artist, Nana Boroo is the perfect anthem for days like these when your long-awaited summer holiday has finally begun. There're a million and one languages going on in this song and the chorus is loosely translated as "here's where the fun is; everywhere else is dead". The World Cup is finally here people. GO BLACKSTARS! Yes Go England! Hope you enjoy!
I just came across this video of my beloved Idris Elba and I had to share it with you guys.
I think my soul just died a little. Like many other females (and males) I just love me some "Big 'Dris". Here's a fine-ass half-Ghanaian, half-Sierra Leonian, East London Boy making some moves in Hollywood. He's flippin' STRINGER BELL from The Wire (if you don't know, get to know)! I know music's always been Idris's first love but mate you're nearing 40 years of age and you're wearing a doo-rag under a backwards-turned baseball cap, rapping in pseudo-Carribean patois in 2010?! I'm so distracted that I can't even judge the song objectively. Nsoromma pretty much summed this up when I sent her the vid on facebook:
"Rasclart tune? Gwan? Hol' On? More Fire? Dude ur Ghanaian/Sierra Leonian...I dont understand the influence. I'm so embarrassed!"I just can't ....
I'm feeling good in London Town at the moment, the sun playing games and there is the occasional torrential downpour but all is good. So I decided to give you this throwback I have been jamming to today. Enjoy and have a good day now!
The last year or so has been one big whirlwind of job hunting, interviews, rejection letters and more job hunting. And I was beginning to feel quite despondent and deflated about the whole situation. I have worked in retail since the age of 16 and I really wanted to leave that world behind in search of something bigger - especially with a university degree under my belt. But I was fast learning that in today's day and age a BA degree does not mean jack. I mean who cares if you travelled all the way to another country for a year to become fluent in a foreign language anyway?
The big storms of disappointment settled a couple of weeks ago, when I got accepted for internship I applied for (which was unpaid, other than the £10 a day for travel expenses the company was kind enough to bless me with!). Anyway, a week into the internship, I received an e-mail from The Guardian saying that they liked the article I had sent to them and wanted to take me on as an intern for two weeks. "Wow", I was thinking. "Two acceptances within a week and a half? Not bad at all!" After a lot of pondering and mentally going around in circles though, I decided to send them an e-mail to decline the offer. Considering, I have always wanted to go into journalism, and had recently taken a strong interest in publishing, it is mad that I would turn down a journalism internship, in favour for the PR one I already had. But If I had taken it, the two would have clashed. So being a woman who always like to follow through with what she has already started, I decided to stick with what I already had and to keep on stepping.
So, week two of my three week internship, and I have an interview with Penguin Books, for another internship which would have lasted two months. (Can I please add that I didn't think there was a chance in hell I was going to get shortlisted for an interview with Penguin seeing as the CV and covering letter I sent to them was a slap-dash, half hearted effort that I submitted hours before the deadline.) I thought the interview went well, but after a year of chasing a full time graduate job, I have learnt to not get my hopes up too high.
Anyway, after the interview with Penguin, I went straight back to the firm I was interning for to finish the day as usual, and was even allowed to leave half an hour early. The next day at work however, I notice the MD looking at me in a strange way the whole day. "Why is she staring at me? Is my top too low? Do I smell funny? Do I have toilet roll stuck to my shoes?" Just as I thought I couldn't take it anymore, she called me into the office. "Oh no. This is it. She thinks I'm terrible, and she is cutting the internship short". So I sheepishly follow her into the meeting room trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do for the rest of the week.
Once in the meeting room, we both take a seat and she begins. "We have enjoyed having you here, and the others really like you. Not only that, we think you have been making a positive contribution to the team, and we would like to offer you a job here on a permanent basis." Huh? Did I miss that? Did she just say she is offering me a job? Seriously, I had been waiting for a year to hear those words, and finally my time had come and all I could do was stare back at her with a stupid expression on my face.
"Err...would a full time job here be of any interest to you?" Oh my goodness, the long hunt for full time (meaningful) employment has come to an end! (For now anyway, until I decide to move on)
"Yes! yes! Thank you so much. I am so grateful. I would love to work here!". Looking back now, I think she was a bit taken aback by my explosion of joy. But seriously, I cannot describe how good I felt at that moment. My internship had not even ended and I had a job already. Yippee!!
Fast forward to this week, yesterday to be precise. I missed a call from a number I was not familiar with. So, I called back and was directed to the answering machine of none other than...Andrew Smith! The guy from Penguin! I left a quick message while I attempted to breathe in and then out again calmly. But an hour or so later, I realised I had missed another call from him. Gaddamit! Although I have managed to secure a job, I just had to know what he had to say. So I called back right away and this time he answered. Yes!
"Hello. Andrew Smith's office"
"Hi Andrew, this is Afrocentric. I am just returning your call. How are you?"
"Hi, Afrocentric. You were just playing hard to get, weren't you?"
"Not at all. I am sorry I missed your calls"
"It's OK, never mind. So, Afrocentric. Will you be free between the 28th June and the 20th August? Cos I'm pleased to say you have been successful with your application."
Let me cut in here. At that moment, you could have knocked me with the proverbial feather duster. I had been selected by Penguin??!! Anybody else would be more than ecstatic to work with one of the biggest publishers ever. Hell, a couple of weeks earlier I would have! Except now, I had a big dilemma. Publishing is were the party's at as far as I am concerned but this was just a two month internship with no promise of a full time permanent position afterwards. And I already have a job with a PR company. GRRR!!! So, what did I do next? I kindly asked Andrew Smith if I could call him back later with an answer (needless to say, he wasn't too pleased) and called the one person I always bother with my problems when I am totally lost. Mama Afrocentric.
I explained the situation to her, while she listened calmly. When I was done, she made me understand that after a year, I had finally bagged a job by the skin of my teeth, and I couldn't afford to be thinking about job satisfaction just yet. Especially since the internship did not guarantee a job afterwards, and the job I have now is damn near close to what I want to do anyway. She also explained that maybe after a year or so of experience at where I'm working now, I can probably apply for a proper job with Penguin.
So I called back Mr. Smith and kindly declined the offer and thanked him for the opportunity. I had a big lump in my throat as I knew I was turning down something major. I know you are probably thinking "Afrocentric, you are full of crap! Why are you getting emotional over a two month internship when you already have a job you enjoy?". But what you don't know is that I applied for this same internship last year and didn't even make it through the first round! So being selected this time round is something major to me.
Oh well. Now some other kid is probably thanking their lucky stars and getting ready for work with Penguin in a couple of weeks time. I honestly can tell you that a year ago I seriously did not believe I would find myself in this predicamnet. I am grateful for the job I have, and I love it so much, but having to turn down Penguin was seriously close to a heart breaking loss. Anyway, as I settle into my new job I can't help but hope I am faced with the same "dilemma" on the other hunt. *Wink wink.*
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