The Nokia C3 competition on this blog has come and gone. And the winner is none other than…
who not only got all the answers right, but sent it in on time sometime late in the afternoon.
You will be contacted by Nokia representatives in Lagos as soon as possible. I will also give you a call as soon as I can. Thank you for reading the blog and for participating. I hope you enjoy the Nokia experience.
CONGRATULATIONS!
By midnight today, the second third of this year will be gone for good and again we’ll wonder where all the time went. Just four months more and we’ll be in another year, making new resolutions and running after new goals. In some parts of the world, the harmattan season is beginning to gather and will gain force in a few weeks. In some other place like around my yard, trees will be crying their leaves into the river – to rephrase the line in Chris de Burg’s song.
In my case, I will be buried in books, research, (maybe) movies, and a series of other activities that may or may not take me away from this page. (I’ve always wanted to be able to take one month off this blog in order to do a few other things. I tried it in July but it didn’t quite work. Wonder if this might be a good time, especially at this beginning of serious classwork and other personal endeavours around the city. Hmm.
The Nokia competition is still on. The second question is already up where I promised it’d be. There will be another one tomorrow, and the last two on Thursday. The email address will be provided before noon on Thursday and you may send in your answers. You could be a lucky winner. The winner will be contacted via email on Thursday and announced on the blog either on the same day, or on Friday.
See ya around.
The Nokia C3 Competition will begin on August 30 when the first question will be pasted on this blog. There will be a question every day from then until September 2. Respondents will be required to send their response to an email address that will be provided. The first person to answer correctly all the five questions will be the winner of the C3 phone and will be presented the gift at the launch in Lagos on Tuesday 7th September.
Best of luck as you compete.
I feel guilty. I neglected this blog for much of the time this month, and that was because of two nagging issues: internet, and internet. I have concluded that Starcomms was actually a wrong choice of connection for me because I’ve been fond of using it at different places. Not having the connection spread of bigger networks like Multilinks and MTN, they charge more, and offer less. In my next life, or as soon as I find someone to buy this one off me, I will make a different choice. Starcomms is more expensive and offers less national coverage than the other connections. I’ve put this to test. In any case, there are still a few nagging things in my mind and I’ll try to say them before the month escapes from my grasp.
Just in case you haven’t noticed, July concludes my first twelve months of blogging on this portal. Alright, if blogs were babies, this one should by now have started mouthing “ba-ba-ba”. It is for this reason that I will also try to complete the pattern that has been the case since that auspicious night in Lagos in August last year when I made the silly decision to begin blogging :). It has been full of ups and downs. I’ve blogged sitting down on the dusty floor of a train station in St. Louis, on a delayed plane in New York, in a crowded bar watching the World Cup final in Ilorin, with a laptop battery on the verge of dying out in the absence of power, and even under the influence of several bottles of Satzenbrau in pleasant company. It’s been good. And let me confess, I have wanted to abandon it many times. But if I did, how would I survive it?
Now if this blog were a book, August 2009 would be the first chapter, titled THE ENTRANCE. The second month of September would be BLENDING IN. October would be IMMERSION while November would be DISCOVERIES. December was ADVENTURES WITH THE COLD and January SIGHTS. February would be tagged BREASTS & CHRIS, a whole dedication to the Mardi Gras in St. Louis and adventures with Chris, March would be CLASSROOMS, April would be LOSING RESISTANCES, May would be A FOOT IN TWO WORLDS, June would be BADAGRY, and July 2010 would be AROUND NIGERIA. Now that I think about it, it might make a thrilling read, if only a self-publication to distribute among friends, and not for the general public, just like that old one Drawing a Straight Line from Hamburng to Ibadan, never before seen by more than a handful of people.
I have not yet completely processed the lessons, the essence and the thrills of my short trip around Nigeria, perhaps particularly because it was so short and I’ve not yet giving myself the right reflecting space. No, no quasi-perfunctory visit would do next time. I may even need up to four to six months to have as much impact as I would have loved. Maybe volunteer in a local secondary school to teach the English language. Maybe teach them to act a play at their end of the year party. Maybe help construct a traffic sign of paint the zebra crossing at one of their community roads. I look forward in the nearest future to a longer immersion exercise in local communities in order to contribute in a more meaningful way to the lives of citizens. Jos is a special case, and as much as I tried, I was not able to reach the Red Cross officials this time. What have they been doing? How could one help?
All in all, it’s been a nice twelve months and I thank you for being there with me. I have just agreed to work with Nokia to promote their new product Nokia C3, so in the next couple of days, you will see Nokia related posts and quizzes one of which will earn one reader of this blog a Nokia C3 prototype to be presented at the launching in Lagos in August. (See this previous post.) From what I hear, this is open only to residents in Nigeria. So if you are interested, and/or you know anyone interested in winning the prototype, stay tuned to this page. All you would need to do is to be the first to answer a set of questions coming up in the next few days.
Well, happy end of month, when it comes. I am hoping that my last post for this month will be a poem rather than (or in addition to) the usual 10 reasons debate, but let’s see how that turns out. Let us look forward to August with peace. And who knows, maybe it will bring all required good.
PS: I’ve submitted two of my photos for a “Democracy Photo Challenge.” You may see them here and here. You may kindly leave a comment there too. Who knows what I may win for audience choice.
I’ve used one Nokia phone after another since GSM came into Nigeria so I could say that our relationship has grown over years, from the old 3310 that never broke even after falling from a two-storey building or being run over by a car, to my current Nokia N70 that has often made my friends wonder if I used a Blackberry because of being able to reply mails as soon as they come in. I’ve resisted all my friend’s poaching efforts to get me into Apple or Android, and I’m proud to say that I’ve largely succeeded. In any case, I hear that there’s a new Nokia coming out, and I am looking forward to it.
One major benefit that Nokia has over all other phones that I’d wished I could use is that you could buy it without being tied to any network, they are affordable and durable, and… well, they are Nokia: less hype, more performance. I’ve used my N70 for over three years now and it has fallen down countless numbers of times from great heights. It still works. I’ve planned on getting the Maemo that came out late last year, but if the C3 lives up to its expectation, it just might be what I’m looking for. It looks like a Blackberry but it’s not hooked onto any network. What do you think? Have you heard about it? Have you ever used a Nokia? What do you think?
The C3 is a new Nokia phone to be launched in Nigeria before the end of August, designed to put messaging and social networking in the palm of your hand with access to Instant Messaging, social networking and email accounts, with Nokia Messaging.[1] The C3 also has a 2 megapixel camera, built-in Wi-fi, 2.4 inch screen, and support for 8GB of storage on a MicroSD card. (From Wikipedia). In the coming days, I’m going to tell you more about the product and the new promotion by Nokia to give blog readers the opportunity to win the product before it is launched. Stay tuned to this page.