{"id":361058,"date":"2017-10-11T10:44:09","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T10:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=361058"},"modified":"2017-10-11T10:44:09","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T10:44:09","slug":"nana-boakye-yiadom-writes-rejections-and-disappointments-i-never-shared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/10\/nana-boakye-yiadom-writes-rejections-and-disappointments-i-never-shared\/","title":{"rendered":"Nana Boakye-Yiadom writes: Rejections and disappointments I never shared"},"content":{"rendered":"
I arrived in the UK exactly a month ago and I absolutely love my new home Cardiff University, where I have begun my academic life in pursuit of a master\u2019s degree in International Public Relations and Global Communications Management.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve received a number of requests from friends and readers who followed my blogs (https:\/\/nanaboakyeyiadom.wordpress.com\/) while I was on the YALI programme in the US; that I should blog about my experiences in the UK too. I\u2019ll try to keep up, but before I attempt it, let me start from how I eventually ended up here in Wales.<\/p>\n
The trigger<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m not exactly sure what we were talking about in my office but one of my colleagues commented, \u201cBut Boakye, as for you don\u2019t complain, your life is perfect\u2026 Do you have any problem in this life?\u201d The person retorted and was supported by the others in the conversation.<\/p>\n Another quickly started listing the perceived successes in my work, family and my life in general; \u201cYou are a director in this office, you fly around to different parts of the world regularly and doing well with your iJourno Africa project\u201d. Charley don\u2019t even bring yourself\u201d, he jokingly threatened.<\/p>\n Those comments rather struck me differently and I recoiled to think about it a little bit more. Indeed I have shared some success stories in my career and projects I have championed outside my regular job. In 2014 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I picked up the first place award in the African Story Challenge competition for African journalists. There were over 200 journalists across the continent that competed and I came up tops.<\/p>\n