Have The Best Of 2019

Dear friends,

I know it has been ages when you last read something from my space here on blogger.

Lately I have been caught up in a lot of things for which I had to put my blogging on hold for sometime. These other ventures has been eventful and a lot of experiences learnt.

This post isn't actually one for which I will type out a long piece. This is just to encourage and wish you the best of the new year 2019.

As always, when a new year sets in, a lot of resolutions, hopes, targets and likes are either written down or kept in memory. For all that you've wished for yourselves, I wish you well and hope they're fulfilled by the time set against them.

From the photo attached to this post, I wish you the best and hope you all become a success story.

I happened to have joined this passenger mini bus on my way back to the office after a meet up with a client.

Immediately I got unto the bus, the conductors attire drew my attention and for a minute, I said amen to that. I then took out my phone to capture it.

Believe in yourself, work towards all your goals, pray about it and 2019 will be a good one for us all.

Cheers to 2019 fam!

I CELEBRATE NANA KOFI ACQUAH

There is always that one person who stands out in a park. Day in day out our country Ghana is blessed with gifted folks from all walks of life as well as their chosen trade for either their livelihood or for the pleasure of it.

I met him at one of Blogging Ghana's premium event, #Blogcamp Ghana after a few interactions online. I had always closely followed his works and admired it. With my little passion for arts and photography, he came in handy and very resourceful after the few minutes chat were had after his break-out session during the event.

I even went ahead to tell him about a plan I had in mind, and he was thrilled and encouraged me to pursue it if I wanted to do that. Within minutes he had suggested a few things that i should look at and then assured me of his doors being open anytime I needed his input. One thing he said under that session for which I remember a lot till this day : "If you want me to shoot your wedding then be ready to pay me a $1000 for each photograph". This was to confirm his decision not to do wedding shoots.

The years went by and I realised most of his works were drifted towards Development Photography. With his poetry background, the grammar that went with the photographs that he posted ( and still does) on all his platforms, were worth reading and taking a look at the photos. I remember being a part of a twitter chat initiated by The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) where himself and other talented photographers moderated on Development Photography (#DEVPIX) and the messages photos posted sold. Such great insight and valuable information shared by him till this day, I documented.

I am sure for those of you that know him, are very familiar to his works and accolades so i won't bug you much. This post is to actually celebrate him. And what are we celebrating?

Last week he was honoured to become the first recipient of the World Press Photo and  Tim Hetherington Fellowship Award. This is no doubt a big feat in his chosen career and as a Ghanaian, I feel so proud. Congratulations no doubt are in order and a big salute from me to this wonderful personality is being sent to him via this blog post.

In his response to the honour, this is what he had to say ;

"I hope that my work can help create the Africa that Tim worked so hard and died for, and the World Press Photo envisions.

In my short life, I have been helped and favoured by so many people over the years and all over the world; and I cannot say Thank You enough".

 Prior to this honour, he had had one of his photos featured in a book chronicling 10 historic moments showed to the Pope.

Do you know, Nana Kofi is also a self-declared male feminist and he has stated that he is driven to change the narrative around African women where they are sometimes portrayed as vulnerable and subdued.

He has been featured on BBC and Reuters in his capacity as an African Male Feminist and on CNN’s African Voices for attempting to redefine the perceptions on Africa through his photographs and writings.

Why won't I celebrate such a person.

Get to know him more and his works;

NANA KOFI ACQUAH'S BLOG

NANA KOFI ACQUAH'S INSTAGRAM

 NANA KOFI ACQUAH'S TUMBLR

Sleeping Cha Cha Cha!!

Hey fellow visitors to my blog, hope the year has been good to you so far. As always a pleasure to see you check up on my posts to read away your time.

This particular post is more of a fun one for which I might not waste much of your time.

It happened in the house of God when I went to church over the weekend to worship. Reason why I titled it Cha Cha Cha, I am sure you will find out as you read along and eventually, at the end of it.

Before I push through my theme, I decided to pick out a few quotes that relates to church, maybe in between the post, I might push in some funny quotes about church also.

Church attendance is as vital to a disciple as a transfusion of rich, healthy blood to a sick man-DWIGHT L. MOODY

 The Church is not a gallery for the better exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones - HENRY WARD BEECHER,

The Church must be intelligible to the simple as well as to the shrewd - ROBERT HUGH BENSON

So now let's ride on.

THE CHA CHA CHA BEGINS;

In the moment, we had observed the bible reading, worship, praises and offertory sessions not forgetting that of those who came in with various prayer requests as well as thanksgiving notes.

Then came the moment for which the congregation I am sure had left their comfortable homes to observe on this Sunday, was to listen to the preaching of the gospel. The preacher mounted the pulpit and his session began.

Down the line in his sermon delivery, I spotted one elderly woman ordering her grandchild to stand-up. The reason, the child was dozing and feeling so sleepy that he couldn't open both eyes. Intermittently, I stole a glance to see what transpired. At one point, I noticed the elderly woman pinching the young lad as well as rubbing his face for him to open his eyes. This young chap was so dead feeling sleepy and at a point, the elderly woman had to give up and allow the young man to take that so wanted nap during service hours.

A couple of minutes went by and as usual wanting to know what ensued further, I found out to my amusement, the elderly woman herself dozing off seriously. I happened to see her head doze down twice for the split second I turned. This really brought laughter to my face and few funny thoughts as well as questions. One of the thoughts were, how I wished the young lad had woken up to see granny now competing him.

Thinking I had had enough of a sleeping drama in church that faithful day, midway through the sermon delivery, I found a couple and their beautiful little daughter in a whole exciting drama of sleeping CHA CHA CHA. In between sessions, I found the wife dozing here and there. I thought it was normal somehow especially with the very previous incidence witnessed. But there was a twist to this one. Anytime the wife was in her sleepy moments, the husband will tickle her to wake up.

Moving forward at one point, I spotted the husband also been caught by the sleeping bug. Beautifully, the wife returned the favour by tickling him also to wake up. The husband realizing this, got out of slumber, gave his wife a wink and both smiled over it. This was after say two sessions of tickling each other to stop sleeping during the service. I remember posting this love sleeping session on one of my social media platforms and it really drew some interesting comments from friends and followers.

I think at a point, I also dozed off before the entire service ended. I hope the video coverage camera didn't catch me during the period I was dozing. I again hope you enjoyed reading my church sleeping experience.

Again, thanks for stopping by my blog. Cheers and have a great week. If you see me in town, just say hi!!!

Follow @Qwophicedi

Confidence Is All That Matters

Even when you're not talking, your brain is chattering away with inner dialogue. Often the conversation is harmless, more a running commentary than a voice of influence.

But when you run into a challenge, the tone shifts. That innocent self-talk, if uncontrolled, can talk you out of doing things that push you past your comfort zone.

To save you from yourself, listen to these thoughts.

Consciously put a stop to unreasonable worries and replace them with thoughts that embolden and uplift.

When a Song Gives You a Second Look at LIFE.

Music they say is the food to the soul. Well for me I think it goes even further.

I am a big fan of music where my interests spans very wide. It'll shock you the kind of music tunes I would die to have and listen to. Personally I am a big fan of listening to full albums than singles. I have mostly discovered much better tunes on albums than the very popular ones that might be running wild on the airwaves.

As a background to his post, I will attempt to lay out how two tunes gave me hope and the mindset to take a second look at life and how it could play out with a new framed mentality.

I had been involved in a trust and failure issue one afternoon and was very dejected. Trying to cut myself out, I launched my tunein app on my tablet to listen to some hard music, no matter the genre. I just needed something to fill up my mind for that moment. So randomly, I chose a station from the favorites and with my headphones on, a song being played was just about ending. A few tunes came by and the tune which I think did the trick for me was from Coldplay titled LOST. I had always known this song but never knew the title. Actually there is a rendition of this from BOB and its the tune that drew me to the original. I did a few searches online and I got the title and the lyrics. It has also been downloaded.
 


It ends and the very next tune that comes on was the tune from Labrinth feat Emile Sande and guess the title, BENEATH YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. Initially I didn't know who did the tune so I recede out for my soundcloud application to track who did that tune. I later downloaded it and have been enjoying it. 

After these two particular tunes I was really motivated to take another step and push further no matter what had happened. I got these tunes for myself and the next morning, there were on my playlist for the whole day. I am sure when I put down the lyrics of the two tunes you'll get to understand what I am driving at.

Motivation and upliftment can come in various forms, it could be from a speaker, your pastor, life lessons, friend, or even yourself. This time round I got it from the tunes of the music artists. No matter the genre of music they do, those tunes gave me some hope. I have always said this, I appreciate Life and I will cherish it in any form it comes.

Check out the Lyrics to Coldplay's - Lost below;

Just because I'm losing 
Doesn't mean I'm lost 
Doesn't mean I'll stop 
Doesn't mean I would cross 

Just because I'm hurting 
Doesn't mean I'm hurt 
Doesn't mean I didn't get 
What I deserved 
No better and no worse 

I just got lost 
Every river that I tried to cross 
Every door I ever tried was locked 
Ohhh and I'm... 
Just waiting 'til the shine wears off 

You might be a big fish 
In a little pond 
Doesn't mean you've won 
'Cause along may come 
A bigger one 

And you'll be lost 
Every river that you tried to cross 
Every gun you ever held went off 
Ohhh and I'm... 
Just waiting until the firing stopped 
Ohhh and I'm... 
Just waiting 'til the shine wears off 

[piano solo]

Ohhh and I... 
Just waiting 'til the shine wears off 
Ohhh and I.. 
Just waiting 'til the shine wears off

This song gave me an opportunity to take a second look at Life after my ordeal. I am motivated and encouraged to go on and make it work.

I hope you also don't give up and push on. Maybe this tune and post might help you take a second look at life as it helped me do.

Credits:

Lyrics: AZLyrics

Video : Coldplay Youtube Channel 

Download Coldplay - Lost EP: Download on iTunes
Download Labrinth - Beneath Your Beautiful - iTunes Download

Follow @Qwophicedi

Appreciation of LIFE worth Expressing

Follow @Qwophicedi

In the early hours of Tuesday 11th March, 2014, I woke up having a lot to do spanning various things I was working on.

One of these duties was going through my old stuff checking up for some documents to be used for some applications for an Msc program.

In going through all those files and brown envelopes that contained most of my papers, I chanced on my hospital cards.

One thing that immediately struck me was the dates on those cards. The year in question was in 2008. The first card indicated 4/1/2008 which if I can recollect, was when I felt sick from some stomach upset from an out eating I had the day before. The second hospital card's date was 28/4/2008. This second card was issued at Hohoe Government hospital after I been involved in an accident a day before on the Kpando- Hohoe link steel bridge. Our car veered of the steel bridge somersaulting twice heading into the river the bridge was over. What happened next?....... The Grace of God I Believe. 

Neither myself nor my boss I was driving with sustained any major injury and that was the my reason for the check up the following day for a thorough examination. The car though wasn't useable again as it was sold to scrubs a few weeks after.

As I have always insisted and expressed, I am an Appreciator of Life not because I am lucky, but I am blessed. I personally Believe it wasn't my time and still my time to leave the face of this earth till I fulfil what I am to do. Be dedicated to whatever faith you find yourself and be strong. Have the utmost faith and be steadfast. I am a Christian and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ghana Health Service

Before I go I will leave you with this food for thought : 

Certainly, we cannot contend the reality of our thoughts and utterances working for or against us. In Swami Vivekananda’s words “Never think there is anything impossible…it is the greatest heresy to think so.”

I believe words have magical powers to heal and hurt… like the hands of our imaginations they have the ability to create memories for the events of our lives…while the hands of time cannot be turned.

With words we are able to exalt emotions and ridicule feelings. Maybe we would begin to appreciate the impact therein contains and begin to build where ruins have been made.

GREEN IS LIFE

More importantly never say to yourself its impossible; just when you are about to give up understand that impossible… with a change of mindset… can mean I'M POSSIBLE!!

Let LOVE reign. Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Credits:

Food for Thought : Esme Hooper

She blogs here : www.inspredigest.wordpress.com

Photo : Google Search.