Finding A Voice

Bittersweet

2011-11-25T06:23:00.002+11:00

Eyal and I always knew that it would be difficult building a family from two different countries. It is just now, however, that we have to really put that into practice. In about 7 weeks we leave Israel and fly back to Australia to live. Shiloh has only ever known Israel, and she is very close with her family here.

We don't know when we will be back. The idea of taking her away from the world she knows and loves here is difficult. But, of course, on the other hand, there is so much to show her in Australia. She will meet my mother! She will get to spend time with all of my friends and family. Eat the food we eat, run around in the Australian countryside. But it is hard not to realise that we are trading moments, and we will never actually bring those two worlds together, except within the walls of our own little house.

I suppose all families experience this to some degree. The breaking off from one's family home and becoming your own little unit. At the moment it feels especially painful. It also feels important to not be anticipating arriving in Australia too much. Instead we are working hard on savouring the time we have left here. All the moments that bring us closer to saying "goodbye" here and to rushing into my family's arms there are bittersweet.

Baby talk

2011-11-17T05:13:00.002+11:00

Wow, has it been over a year since I last posted?! That was quick...

I am enjoying so much watching my daughter learn to speak. My husband, and pretty much everyone else she encounters, speaks to her in Hebrew. I speak to her in English.

Just now she is having a real explosion of talking, babbling, singing, mimicking sound and generally trying out her voice (she is 20 months old). She talks to herself, her toys and her books, almost constantly. Often when I manage to tune in to what she is saying (sometimes it seems all babble and I can't understand), I hear her making commentary on things as they happen. She uses almost all Hebrew words. For example, she might be pushing herself along on her three-wheeler, she sees her bike helmet:

"Ananananananannnnn (engine noises in Hebrew!)
"Me, bike, shoes"
"Me helmet, bike, mummy" (all of this, except "mummy' in Hebrew).

She is used to riding on the back of my bike with her little helmet on, and so she associates her helmet with me, and the bike. Almost all of the words, especially news words are used in association with something else. She likes to give commentary on who is associated with what. For example, "mummy shoes", "daddy shoes", "me nose", "teddy milk" (then she gives him some milk) etc.

Recently I realised we would soon be back in Australia and rather than trying to practice Hebrew with her, I should be speaking only English so she will feel good about communicating with my family when we arrive.

Her first words were English, and to begin with almost all her nouns were English, and all her verbs were Hebrew. Hebrew baby talk is very sweet, and it involves using the infinitive form of the verb (kind of as an imperative). The stress in Hebrew is on the second (usually last) syllable of the word. The first part of the infinitive verb is always 'la' or 'le' and the second part, the stressed part of the word is the "root" which occurs in the finite forms.

So what happens is that babies end up repeating the second syllable of the verb, and thus even though they hear mostly the infinitive, she are learning the root! Very tricky! And very easy (much easier than how they teach us in the intensive Hebrew class I am learning!). Although now she is able to articulate a little better she says the entire verb:

e.g. "to come down rain" להוריד גשם
'lehorid geshem' 'It's raining'

My Hebrew is really coming along after four months of classes. I found it much harder to learn than Spanish, I think mostly because the written language is so hard to decipher (usually there is no indication of the vowels in the word, only consonant like letters). I think I learn very visually, I like to know the spelling of a word to be able to remember it. Also, because I was a sleep starved new mother, it was a double whammy of new cultural experiences.

I am enjoying pushing past the point of knowing the grammatical rules of Hebrew and being able to speak fluently. It is so exciting when some further part of your brain takes over, even if for a moment, and you feel yourself speaking fluently and understanding what people are saying to you.

It has been interesting for me to experience having the less prestigious language in social situations. Although of course I value English, for while at least, I placed higher value on Hebrew. I felt like my daughter needed to hear it and know it to function well in the society we found ourselves in. All this time I have never understood how immigrants to a new country could speak a different language, other than their mother tongue, to their child. How could they just let go of their history and culture? Not to mention their own linguistic comfort zone. I can see now, when your own language feels less relevant it is much harder to give it priority.

It's nice to sit down and write again. I will try and do it again soon!

Back in the saddle...

2010-10-11T07:04:00.002+11:00

Whew! Its been a while! Over a year in fact since I last wrote here. I have been meaning to get back to it for a while, but each time I try I feel overwhelmed with how much there is to write and catch upon. In brief three months ago I moved to Israel with my husband and our 4 month old daughter (now already 7 months old!). He is working fulltime, and since submitting my PhD back in December I am a lady of leisure, no strike that, I am a fulltime mum.

We live in a small town south of Tel Aviv in a lovely old house that belongs to my Husband's family (in fact his father grew up here).

So I will consider this a "bringing things up to speed" post and now continue with small stories about little details and big dreams...

Five things I am proud of

2009-04-10T12:32:00.002+10:00

I am going to follow yo-yo no more 's lead and try a little positive thinking...

Ok so five things I am proud of this week:

1. I got it together to go to the gym a few times, even though it is cold and I was grumpy. It was a good way to feel better in a non-guilty way (i.e. I wasn't thinking at the same time... I really should get back to working on my thesis...).

2. I really did work on my thesis! Including a presentation on cultural scripts using NSM semantics (I haven't done that for years!). On the other side of the coin, I hung in there with the LFG classes, and gained a preliminary understanding of how LFG works.

3. I forgave myself yet again for not meeting the deadlines I had set, beating myself up about it just paralyzes me into inaction.

4. I learned how to knit, (I soon hope to be knitting something that can be worn).

5. I spelled out, kind of 'read', an entire email in Hebrew, and with help from Eyal, wrote back entirely in Hebrew.

Yeah! This is a cool idea! It made me think about lots of things I have done in the last week, thoughts that weren't recriminations!

Happy Easter.

Armidale days

2009-04-03T17:37:00.005+11:00

The friendlies of Armidale.

Seeing through hearing

2009-02-09T15:11:00.008+11:00

On the weekend a friend and I visited the art gallery. There was an exhibition of Brett Whiteley's works - bold and evocative and beautiful. As we stood and looked and thought, admiring detail, noticing new perspectives or symbolism, two women walked in. They were middle-aged with their arms linked together and I could hear them talking about the paintings. After a minute I realised one of the women was (at least partially) blind. She was carrying a cane with a ball and had a bandaged patch over one eye. From their conversation I could tell she couldn't hear all that well either.

I was so intrigued I couldn't help myself from eavesdropping as they stood in front of various paintings. The sighted woman would start with the title of the painting, then something about its dimensions, then she seemed to pick the most salient point (some of the paintings are so abstract there wasn't an overall 'theme' I suppose) and describe it. She described the colour and the contours, and sometimes the movement, as though she were describing it being created. She would stand in front of each painting and talk softly and continually and then after a while move to the next and start again. The other woman stood as though lost in thought, she didn't ask questions (except sometimes asking for a repeat), she just stood facing the picture listening intently.

There was something so poignant and beautiful about these two people experiencing the paintings together. And I felt inspired and curious, were they art lovers from a long time back? Did the blind woman already 'know' some of the paintings? Why choose to visit an art gallery with your blind friend? It seemed very normal and simple to them both, as though perhaps they did this every week and it wasn't a big deal.

As we left I felt inspired by people in the world and a new wonder at the power of language to provide images for people to savour and interpret.

The small moments

2009-02-05T00:41:00.002+11:00

So a bit over two and half years ago Eyal was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In a way it is what precipitated our relationship in the real world (nothing like fear of death to make you get things done!). He had a tumour the size of a fist in his chest and a smaller one in his liver. After three months chemo he had recovered completely (I don't like the term "in remission" it seems to imply you still have the disease, and that it is just resting).

Thereafter he has had tests every three months (at first), followed by every six months. Every single one of these tests is a reminder to stick your head up and reassess- for a few moments or a few days or weeks you prepare for the possibility that the cancer is back. A parallel life starts to be conceived where our lives instantly relocate to Israel for treatment, we pull back from other tasks in our lives and start to focus intensely on fighting the cancer. In this parallel life we have to consider the possibility of death or of continued sickness. I get a feeling of resolve, and a kind of fluidity about what in my current life I would keep, and what is superfluous. It is the kind of brilliant and cruel exercise that helps keep your house in order, it helps you get ready to mobilise and let go of the non-essential parts of your life.

Today was different to the last times - just a blood test (no PET CT), Eyal knows how to read the results, and he just looks them up on the internet. We were both pretty casual about it, did our best to 'forget'. So this time there was just a couple of minutes while he looked the results up on the internet for us both to mentally prepare. A small moment - an aperture to another life opens - and then closes. The results were normal. We are back on track...
another small celebration,
another landmark,
then off to bed.

The Situation in Gaza

2009-01-12T17:33:00.002+11:00

The situation in Gaza has been a fairly big part of our lives the last 16 days. Where Eyal's parents live is in range of the rockets from Hamas for the first time, and gets a few rockets every couple of days. People are rarely hurt in Israel from these rockets, however they are more or less occurring constant in the areas of Israel close to the border of Gaza. Everyone has a bomb shelter in their house. The air-raid siren goes off and you have ( depending on where you live) between 15 and 45 seconds to get to the shelter before the quassam hits. Eyal's family have forty-five seconds.

But 40ks or so south things are much worse. I imagine living in Gaza, especially around Gaza City- your heart is always in your mouth. Your appetite has disappeared... I am not just talking about the civilians- but also the young soldiers- the majority of which are aged between 18-21 and have no choice as to where or when they are working for the army.

Now that some reserve army has also been called into Gaza, most of those people have young families. Like our friend who was visiting for Christmas the last two weeks. The day before he left to fly home, he heard he was being called into reserve duty. He has a baby due in May and a four year old at home. Saying goodbye at the Armidale airport and thinking he was on his way to Gaza was surreal, and horrible.

He didn't go in the end, and is instead doing his reserve duty by doing some work in Europe. From a humanitarian point of view I completely condemn what is happening at the moment, that Hamas continue to fire rockets into Israel- and that Israel continues to kill civilians and restrict access. I am hoping that a real lasting resolution, some kind of ceasefire which has the attention of neighbouring countries, Europe and the USA will come into existence. And there might be a hope of a good future for those living in Gaza, and also in Israel. yes we can...

Here is an email Eyal sent to some friends in Israel ( who are constantly discussing such issues).

....................................................

when you are walking out in the bush and you discover that you made an error in navigating, do you turn back or continue walking in the wrong direction?

To be honest, I'm not confident that it is possible.
But I am confident that the current direction only leads to more violence and to life in the region becoming worse as time moves on.
How can it be reversed?
One way is for Israeli leaders to find the courage to tell Israelis the truth - that we have unlawfully and immorally kept the west bank and Gaza and the people living there under military rule.
That we have in fact been engaged in establishing an Apartheid rule in the occupied territories where some people are protected by law and are allowed to vote, and some people are non-people - they get no voice, they have limited rights, they are not protected against the law. That Israel has illegally been settling its citizens in occupied territories conquered by war.
Say the Truth, boldly, and then reach for an historic settlement with the Palestinians. We all know what such a settlement would look like, in general terms. The details are negotiable.

The Palestinian leaders would have to be brave enough to say to their people - using violence on innocent civilians was a mistake. It has delayed our freedom. It has brought suffering and pain to both sides on a larger scale then the occupation in itself was capable of. They have to be brave enough to agree to give up the aspirations of ever returning to the 1948 villages in return for a future that is not full of war and hatred, a future of peaceful coexistence and cooperation. They have to choose life alongside Israel over death and martyrdom.

And the leaders and people of both sides have to be brave enough to say to themselves and to the world - yes we can.

............................................................

Eyal leaves for Israel on Wednesday for six weeks. Luckily he has been discharged from the army- so at least in that way he will be safe. But neither of us are safe anymore from feeling the sickness and fear of war, of seeing our loved ones leave the skype computer screen and head for the bomb shelter, surreal and horrible.

Impressions of Australia

2008-12-15T16:56:00.003+11:00

Over the last year or so my husband has lived in rural Australia. Here are some of his impressions of Australia (he listed them to me).

Firstly, always be prepared with beer in the fridge- or if you are visiting someone, even if it seems unlikely, bring a six-pack just in case (conclusion: Australians are always happy if you arrive with beer or can offer them one).

Secondly, drink tea. He has taken a liking to Lady Grey, however we have been through Earl Grey, Orange Pekoe and 'normal' black tea. Also one must know how to make tea ( i.e. you must stir the milk and usually remove the teabag).

When you visit someone, it is rarely for an hour or a cup of tea, more usually you will have driven for three hours and you will be spending the night, or perhaps days with them (especially family). When people say they will come and visit they often mean they will stay for a few days (because it is so far to travel in the first place). This is a good thing, and means people are used to welcoming visitors into their home for extended periods.

Buy a pair if blundstones, or some shoes that you can work in, walk through mud and wet ground in and you can easily take off when you get to the door.

There maybe at any time a green tree frog in the toilet or the letterbox or some other disconcerting place.

When people say it is 'a bit cold' or a 'bit of a worry' or they feel a 'bit unwell'- they are understating the fact. Understatement is the name of the game.

Australians don't say NO very often (unlike Israelis!), they don't like to be flatly contradicted.

Australians don't mind stopping to help other people, or taking responsibility for a problem if it arises in a public place (e.g. taking trees off the road etc.).

There is a reason to have a four-wheel drive car.

Learn about spiders and snakes (don't touch them).

Four channels is enough.

Everything closes early (especially restaurants).

That is all for the moment!

Arriving Home

2008-12-06T18:33:00.003+11:00

I just had the strangest sensation of arriving home. I have been pottering around the house, sorting through letters and bills and cards, listening to the rain and drinking tea - and I had the feeling that I had finally unwound and arrived.

It was as though each weekend I have been struggling to finish unpacking.. pay bills.. read enough.. write enough... buy nice food, catch up with family etc. etc. like I was only just keeping my (our) heads above water. Almost suddenly everything feels peaceful and complete. I cant remember the last time I lived in the same house for more than 3 or six months, where I wasn't always trying to explain to institutions that I don't know what address they would have for me (mums? dads? Ngukurr? Armidale? New Mexico? Santa Barbara?) and I don't know how they can contact my last real estate agent...

Sigh

Some contributions to this feeling include: finding somewhere to buy bulk delicious honey AND having clean washed dry jars to put it in - to having a fridge big enough to hold lots of veggies - of having fresh cut flowers on the table - finding some incense I like - organising all my music and a way to listen to it - clearing up my computer desktop - the wedding being over - the rain - making my lunch for uni everyday and having everything I need in the kitchen - joining the local library - having the address where I really live on my license - of feeling like I am taking good care of myself - that I have time to sit and talk with friends on the phone or otherwise - of feeling like we have some really good friends in Armidale - getting a massage - playing team sports regularly. And certainly not least, having an office of my own where, for once, I sat for 6 hours straight and worked, and felt like I wrote something substantial and well researched and interesting.

I feel like I am finally at rest and ready for the next six months (finishing my PhD).

Yeah!

"Cash Strapped Teacher Sells Ads on Tests" (Latest US economic Strategies)

2008-12-04T12:22:00.004+11:00

"Farber started letting parents and local businesses sponsor tests this fall after learning budget cuts would limit his in-school printing allowance -- tracked by the school's copy machines -- to $316 for the year. The cost of printing quizzes and tests for his 167 students will easily be more than $500, he said.

That meant Farber, whose courses prepare students for the Advanced Placement exam, would have to give fewer or shorter tests, or find money. Farber, who says 90 percent of his students got a 5 -- the top score -- on AP exams last year, said skimping wasn't an option.

"It has to be a certain quality, or they won't be ready," he said.

So Farber, who says he'd never asked for money from parents in his 18 years of high school teaching, pitched the ad idea to parents at a September back-to-school night. For checks made to the math department -- $10 a quiz, $20 a test or $30 for a final exam -- they could insert an inspirational quote -- their own or someone else's -- or a business advertisement at the bottom of the first page."
from CNN

So I am still not sure why a tinsy little bit of the bail-out packages can't be allocated to maintaining high standards of education ( and maybe health and other community services too)...? Surely this is a necessary investment for the economy too.

I really would like to know?! Anyone know?

Two good movies

2008-11-28T13:03:00.003+11:00

Over the last week or so we have been to see two great movies: "The Lemon Tree" and "Australia". The Lemon Tree is an Israeli film ( here in Armidale!) about the conflict between an Israeli family and a Palestinian woman over a lemon tree grove. It is almost entirely in Hebrew and Arabic and beautifully made. There is a lot of humanity on both sides which makes it feel more realistic. It subtly shows that many Israelis live in a world were they feel oppressed and guilty, perhaps even colonised in some ways by living in such a military state. It also hinted that the children on both sides were heading off into the wider world, they were no longer constrained by the conflict in the Middle East.

The one jarring note in the Lemon Tree was the credits. They rolled by to a beautiful Arabic melody in only English and Hebrew (!!) - no Arabic in sight. My husband was so upset by this that he wrote to the Israeli producer and gently pointed out the hypocrisy. The producer responded in a vague way that it had fit better on the screen that way etc etc but added that perhaps in future he would find a way to include Arabic.

Anyway, it was an excellent film.

Last night I went to see Australia, after watching something on Oprah I was ready for some epic romance. I was surprised to see such an obvious effort to address and include some core issues about the history of Australia, including the relationship between Aboriginal and white people. It is of course a fantasy epic, but there was authentic Aboriginal language ( anyone know what language?) and some sensitivity to cultural realities in NT Aboriginal community.

I cried at least 3 times unashamedly.

The two films also made me realise the we are both beginning to associate ourselves strongly with each others countries and cultures, their battles are our battles.

Look both ways...

2008-11-25T18:45:00.004+11:00

I was walking home from uni just now and there were two kids playing in an empty block next to the main road leading to the uni. I walked right through it and said hello as I passed. The two young boys, maybe aged 5 and 6, largely ignored me- there were no adults in sight. One was stuck as he had no shoes and there are bindis all through the grass. His brother (only slightly bigger) ran back to help him and with much difficulty lifted him up and carried him to the roadside (about three metres at a time).

I could see they were heading for the road and I asked them if they were ok to cross it. The older on looked at me disdainfully and said something like "its just cars".

I watched them for a minute and then kept walking.

I wonder if they had not been Aboriginal if I might have stayed and helped them..? I kind of accepted their independence without much worry.

Was this a cultural barrier I just ran into? If they were two such young Anglo kids I might have felt more worried? And more significantly I might have felt more responsible for little two kids far from home and with no parents around...?

I miss Ngukurr.

Obama "Yes They Did!"

2008-11-10T19:57:00.002+11:00

The poster below is one of the many Obama celebratory pics and posters going about the internet. I must admit that I came home to watch Obama's acceptance speech and was quite emotionally overwhelmed.

2008-11-08T17:14:00.000+11:00

(at least) 5 things that help me write my PhD

2008-09-03T18:58:00.005+10:00

Lately I have felt on a slippery side of procrastination. I could feel it getting out of control but I couldn't find a way to stop it. Usually the 'panic button' (thanks SC) approach will save me. This approach is that you give yourself, or someone else gives you a deadline and as it approaches too fast you push your panic button and get your ass into gear.

This time it just never kicked in. I felt I was wading about up to my ankles in readings, literature reviews, minor data analysis. I really needed to just dive in- right in, head first and get swimming (writing).

Here are five things that helped me get out of this ( it continues to be a struggle!):

1. Don't beat yourself up about it. Just get help, as soon as possible. Talk to your supervisor as soon as possible. Be really honest with yourself and them about how much work you are doing. Keep checking in.

2. Give yourself seriously do-able chunks of work to do each day. Starting with the next half an hour. Write it down, plan each tiny step by step. Work for half an hour. Get a cup of tea. Plan the next half an hour... etc.

3. Don't try and write in a way that is effectively edited/complete/perfect on the first run. Just sit down and let your creativity go. Don't monitor yourself to much, just write. You can check it later.

4. Give yourself, or 'protect' some serious writing content time. Where each day you just write content of your PhD (creatively) for a blocked out 3 - 4 hour stretch- turn off your phone/other errands/demands/interactions. People tell me about 5 hours a day is all you can manage of this kind of concentration consistently.

5. Organize your mind and your workspace. Deal with emotional issues honestly and carefully. Don't let them build-up and distract you. And keep your data and drafts organized. This REALLY is important.

5a. Do something creative/active/fun a few times a week ( like paint/dance/swim/read novels).

5b. If possible: go skiing.

Don't give up!
oh yeah
and BACK UP YOUR WORK.

On Being a Wife

2008-08-10T12:00:00.002+10:00

I am reading a great book called "A History of the Wife" by Marylin Yalom. She traces the roles of wives, legally, socially and emotionally from Greek and Roman times, through the middle ages until the present. It is based on women from England and the USA, maybe like any historical study it clarifies where old prejudices are still influencing people today.

My own marriage is imminent, and I am enjoying learning more about it- almost in an anthropologist like way! I grew up in a counter-culture where marriage was ( and still is) far from the norm. The amount of life-long happily married couples that I know I can count on one hand. This is not necessarily a bad thing- it has been my experience that there are plenty of good alternatives to marriage. In fact sometimes I feel like I am choosing the (less usual) alternative by getting married.

Initially it was hard to imagine that things can really change all that much after a ceremony with friends and family. But I realise more and more that my (our) status in the social community could be considered significantly altered- and this could have implications. I will tell you about it if I notice any differences!

Actually I have noticed a few things lately. One is that the women around me, friends or strangers, are interested in the wedding. The details- the dress, location, flowers etc. (certainly they ask more questions about that than about the groom!). And, it seems to bring something out in people, either defensiveness, or joy or excitement- but some kind of shared emotion. People feel they can relate to you about it. I suppose it is already being publically acknowledged as a bride-to-be feels like something almost everyone can relate to. I like feeling part of something.

How significant are ceremonies anyway? Do they really change things?

I think somehow they can. And I am looking forward to ours, very much :)

ALS Follow-up

2008-08-10T11:55:00.002+10:00

ALS in Sydney this year was good fun. It was great having J and C there, so I could practice my talk with them and they helped me iron it out. As usual just giving the talk was helpful to me in understanding where to go from here.

It was also great to see so many familiar faces and catch up with some people. I felt a bit of a veteran on realising this is my 6th (?) ALS already- and i hope the next time it comes around I will at least have submitted my PhD!!

I am also beginning to realise I need to start thinking of the world APhD ( After PhD), and think about applying for post-docs/jobs - where to next?

Sticky data ( a rant and rave)

2008-06-16T20:06:00.003+10:00

As I go over and over and over the discourse data that I have gathered I begin to get a feeling like it is thick sticky treacle. Everytime I think I have found a patterns and a framework which nicely displays it, it is like sticking my hand deep in the goop. And then I think well if I put my legs in too, I might be able to pull myself out.... I end up a big frustrated mess. Covered in wonderful data, and not able to form it into ANYTHING consistent.

Ok, so now I have scraped it all off and formed it into something resembling something, and then I go and stick my hands and my head into the literature... "word order in discourse", "what is focus", "focal discourse particles" and the likes. Very sticky, very messy, very hard to know what the shape is they really make.

AAAGH get it off me!!

BUT, I am going to write it anyway. And present it at ALS, and everyone can come along and have a giggle at the debacle, or if they are really brave, get into it.

See you there!

PhD

2008-06-12T22:09:00.002+10:00

Yes I am still doing a PhD in linguistics... but things are kinda slow on that front :(. Maybe I will have something juicy to report after ALS conference in July ( where I hope to see Change Junkies, Langguj Gel, Transient Languages mob etc! yay!).

Wedding Invitations

2008-06-12T21:33:00.012+10:00

On the weekend me, my little sis, Eyal and my WEDSM (wicked-ex-defacto-stepmother (and you think YOU KNOW complicated kinship systems !)) made the invitations to the wedding! We had such a great time doing it. My brother's defacto-girlfriend-sweetheart suggested we paint little cards and use them as something original. With a little help from the arts supply lady ("now don't forget to have FUN, I see too many couples stress about this!") we ended up around the coffee table on cushions painting and drawing our little hearts out.

With plenty of good food (Indian take-way) a couple of bottles of wine (not for the little sis), and some delicious organic chocolate we rode the wave of creativity all weekend and produced 72 beautiful little cards. We had a break to watch "Sex and the City" movie, but it couldn't compare to sharing stories, swapping ideas and complimenting each others skills around the table with our four little paintbrushes and box of pencils.

In fact we would have done more if need be (Eyal and I were excited to find a few little cards still unpainted). The secret was adding tracing paper over the top with the details printed on it. It looks awesome. We are having doubts about our ability to 'let go' and send them all away to their new owners!

Here are some pics.

Notice the three up the back with the tracing paper over the top.

Wedding Dresses

2008-05-29T16:17:00.007+10:00

Wedding Dress

2008-05-15T20:25:00.002+10:00

So the thing is, we are getting married in less than 6 months :). Every now and then I get excited and think.. 'oo wedding dresses!!!!'. But then I feel kind of busy and overwhelmed and, well, I don't have any close friends living nearby who I could 'oo' and 'aa' over wedding dress pics with. Also I have started to get a bit tired with photos from the internet. They all look the same.

Its true that they do all look beautiful, but I just don't want to look like everyone else! Also I don't think I would like a full length dress. So I have a project for you, if you want one ( maybe even if you don't you should give it a try) -- see if you can find a picture of a really original wedding dress, or if you can, think of one, describe it. Let your imagination run free... colours styles lengths materials. I am dying for some really truly unusual ( bizarre?) possibilities. Or, if you prefer, just something you think is beautiful and classic... I will see if I can find some unusual ones too and post some pics.

Strange New Ideas

2008-05-15T18:38:00.003+10:00

A friend sent us a story of someone visiting Sweden. He said that while working for a big software company a friend would come and pick him up from his hotel every morning, early. They would arrive at work, and look for a park in an enormous parking lot. Because they were there early he would have plenty of parking spaces to choose from.

So each morning the Swedish guy driving would park in a place far away from the building, leaving them a 15 minute walk to the office. After a couple of days the visitor asked, 'why, if they take the trouble arrive early do they park at such an inconvenient distance?'. The Swedish guy replied "well, since we arrive early, we have plenty of time to walk to the office and not be late. But for people arriving late, it is better for them if they can get a park closer so that they don't have to walk so far".

This kind of logic keeps messing with my head. This is not the most efficient way to run your life ( or is it?), but somehow, of course, it makes sense. Perhaps because life is compartmentalised too much -- commuting to work is not (usually) a designated 'exercise' time, so like, walking when you don't have to seems like a waste of time! and also, why help someone else out at (an apparent) cost to yourself... Wow, are we so geared to valuing work above almost everything else...?

I often ask myself what I mean when I decide I don't have time to walk to uni ( it is like a 15-20 minute walk), seriously, there is no-one waiting for me but my inbox. So why don't I want to 'waste' those precious 20 mins of 'work' time. I have to make myself walk up the hill.

Just for the record, I usually do end up walking (mostly because driving a ton of metal 1 km, then paying for parking is beyond ridiculous).

Have you heard of this kind of 'slow' living before? Is it part of your life?

Houmous

2008-05-05T01:48:00.004+10:00

I have been confused again and again by Israelis talking about houmous as though it were a meal. Questions like:
"Would you like houmous for lunch?"
I found confusing. It is a spread right, like pesto, jam and nutella.... Well this is what I thought.
Until some friends took me out to the Old City of Jaffa where there is a renown houmous maker. The only thing you can buy from there is houmous, they make one bath in the morning and it usually runs out before closing time. We had to line up for 10 minutes to get a corner of an old plastic table. Then the waiter placed in front of us three bowls filled with houmous warm and soft, with oil, lemon juice and paprika on top: a pile of warm fresh pita bread and a plate of fresh raw onion.
It was superb. Finishing everything in front of us was a task!

And this is how I came to understand that houmous can be a meal (and an experience).

:)

noises in the night

2008-05-05T01:11:00.003+10:00

Two days ago I woke to the sound of a wailing siren. It went for two minutes. These two minutes are part of Holocaust Remembrance Day. People all over the country stop what they are doing and observe these two minutes in silence. Cars on the highway stop and people get out and stand to attention. The world stops for two minutes and remembers.

Later that day I decided to read about the Holocaust on Wikipedia. Of course I had read/heard some statistics about the Holocaust before, and I have visited 'Yad Va Shem' ( the Holocaust Memorial museum in Israel). But I was a bit traumatized when I read the entry in Wikipedia. The entire catastrophe was based on the psychotic dogmatism of Hitler- he wasn't waging war over land or resources. The most heinous part is the description of the treatment of people in the concentration camps. The humiliating and disgusting ways in which men and women and even worse, children, were used for bizarre 'medical testing', worked to death and killed with cruelty and hate. So bizarre were these things that no-one believed the few escapes from concentration camps until 1944 when someone with a photographic memory gave such precise and consistent details the Allies could believe it.

As the sun was setting we visited a cemetery where Eyal's grandmother is buried. She died two years ago on Holocaust Memorial day. Much like Anne Frank, she lived three years in a an attic in the Netherlands. From when she was 15 to 18 years old. Unlike Anne Frank, who died in a concentration camp, Hanna escaped and made her way to Israel.

Her diary from those three years have been published into a book ( in Dutch and Hebrew). Eyal's father read part of it and said a short prayer. Eyal's grandmothers brother was there. He said he remembers the day his father and older sister went to the 'work house'. He said he told them not to go, pleaded with them not to go. But they went (to the concentration camp), and were never seen again.

Later I admitted that I had been scared when I heard the siren, I thought it might be an air raid siren. The pantry to the house is a bomb shelter, big enough to fit us all in, the shelves lined with food and water, gas masks, a radio and a little map on the wall. Every house, apartment and building I have been to in Israel has a bomb shelter. Eyal told me not to feel silly, everytime he hears a motorcycle start he thinks it could be an air raid siren. In the 1990's the entire family spent a bit of time there, gas masks on- waiting for the radio to announce that it was safe in their (colour-coded) part of the map, to resume normal life.

The rockets falling about 80kms south of here daily are a constant reminder not to make light of these worries.

Later the next night we both woke to a loud banging sound and yelling, I turned to Eyal and he smiled and said- "relax it's just fireworks".

language acquisition

2008-04-20T23:29:00.003+10:00

Most people I meet in Israel speak English well. However, I have noticed that once there is 4 or more people to the conversation, it can never be continued for more than a few seconds in English. For example the other night we went to a housewarming with 12 or so people, all people I have met before and spoken with in English. Everyone there has been friends with Eyal since High School and everyone had a lot to catch up on.

After the initial 'hellos', I realised I was in for a long evening, as Hebrew was the only language being spoken. After an hour or so, listening in and paying attention became exhausting. I was surprised by lonely I felt despite being surrounded by friendly people I knew. The isolation was really quite overwhelming.

It was a very good chance for me to remember what it must feel like when your language has little or no status. The isolation ( that I remember from the first few months of High School in Costa Rica) makes it hard to feel like you have a sense of identity in the context.

One of the hardest things as the evening wore on, was watching a joke form and everyone start to laugh. The problem with laughter is that even if one can't understand to not look amused makes you look grumpy!

There were a few brave souls who would risk English in front of all their peers (risk sounding silly) and made conversation with me. We were all sitting around a big circle so unless there was a devoted few to keep the English alive it quickly disappeared. Of course, everyone speaking English for my sake was also uncomfortable [what to do!]... It reminded me that to learn a new language properly means enduring many such evenings - it is much harder as an adult!

(p.s. Eyal was a constant translator where possible- but the conversation was so quick and often drew on many years of shared experiences- at some point I thought it best to just let things pass...)

Love and Marriage

2008-04-18T01:42:00.002+10:00

So yesterday we went to the 'Rabbanut' so that Eyal could act as a witness for a some friends who are getting married. The Rabbanut is where a Jewish couple register their intent to marry. In Israel there are no civil marriage ceremonies, and so only couples of the same faith can marry (either Jewish, Muslim of Christian). As a result Eyal and I can not legally marry in Israel, although they will recognize our marriage if it is performed elsewhere.

Of course many Jewish people in Israel are not religious, they are secular. However they still MUSt get married in a religious ceremony, performed by a Rabbi who determines most of the content of the ceremony.

There is a strange kind of mix between 'civil' and 'religious' at the Rabbanut. Eyal assured me it was not any kind of religious ceremony- just a registry office- but that I should dress cover my shoulders and my knees...

When we arrived it felt very much like a little registry office, but with framed pictures of famous Rabbis and religious paraphernalia adorning the walls. We waited for half an hour observing the Rabbi (looking!) men walking about busily and the plastic plants. The Bride and Groom to be were joking about how much he should 'buy' her for. Which was a joking allusion to a contract ( non-legally binding) both parties sign before the wedding somewhat like a pre-nup stipulating how she will be recompensed in the case of a divorce. This contract is in a currency from ancient Babylon, I think it was called 'zus'.

When we finally entered the office we were all surprised to find a (very) secular woman behind the desk. She was very friendly and joked a lot ( I don't know what about- I barely understood a word).

Eyal and another friend testified that neither bride nor groom had been married before. Apparently this is an issue because it is relatively easy to marry in Judaism. A man says in Hebrew to a woman a line about her being 'consecrated to him under the law of Jacob' ( or something - sorry I cant remember). If there are two (male, Jewish) witnesses and he gives her something worth more than 'a penny' they are married. Yes thats right she doesn't need to make a peep! Apparently there are some strict rules about women re-marrying if they have been married in this way already ( i.e. they can't marry someone from the Cohen family).

Anyway, she went through various paperwork, dates, times, names etc. it was over quickly and we went for a coffee.

Later I realised something else I found sinister and Eyal confirmed it- both bride and groom to-be showed their parents' marriage certificates... turns our if your parents were not married you will have a lot of trouble getting married.

Whew! That is two strikes for me.

'Shalem'

2008-04-16T20:58:00.003+10:00

Yesterday was an end of an era. My Israeli nephew ( now three years old) realised for the first time that I don't speak Hebrew. We have spent quite a few fun evenings together in the past. I could say enough to get by ( juice, apples, nose, where are you?, good night, hello, how cute etc.). But this time his language skills way way outstripped mine.

Dressed in a lion suit he was running about telling everyone to to 'be scared' and to cry out 'mummy' ( immale) when he roared. Noticing that I was not doing what he said but just smiling at him, he asked his mum to "tell Sophie what to do". And then a bit later he said "I want to talk like Sophie" and asked "why doesn't Sophie speak (normally)?". The cat was out of the bag, his mum explained that I grew up in a country where they speak English. So I couldn't speak Hebrew. Then we made a game where I asked him how to say something in Hebrew and then told him how to say it in English.

This lead to him fabricating significant parts of a new language "English". Suddenly you ask him how to say anything in English and he had a confident reply ready, he joined in our English conversation with gibberish. When his mum told him to say "Shalom"( good bye), instead he corrected her, solemnly stating that in English you don't say Shalom, you say "Shalem"!!

2008-04-02T23:18:00.004+11:00

In Rainbows

2008-04-02T23:10:00.003+11:00

As I walk to uni these days, all the leaves are turning colours. Brilliant yellow and red and rusty coloured, ochres, hundreds of different colours against a very bright blue sky. I really enjoy my walk to uni. Lately I have been listening to Radiohead's "In Rainbows" album. There is a particular song- called "nude" ... I think it is about living in suburbia or something - I don't really know.

At the moment I find the lyrics very soothing.. "don't get any big ideas, it's not gonna happen". The reason I like it is because it reminds me that I just have to do baby steps to get through my thesis. No "big ideas"- I don't have to do one monumental task.. just lots of small little ones. And in the end it will be done!

(by the way - I just read the rest of the lyrics and they don't really apply.... I had only noticed the lyrics that applied to me).

Now I just have to go and read a paper.

A new idea

2008-03-21T17:04:00.002+11:00

I am having a go at 'tumblin'' for a while. It is easier and gives more instant satisfaction that blogging. It is an experiment. You can go over there and have a look at my tumblog. Let me know if you have one yourself so I can follow it! I recommend trying it out.

"Black Shorts"

2008-03-05T14:52:00.002+11:00

Check out these cool short films (very short) on the SBS website. Made by Indigenous Australian Film-makers. I love being able to watch short films on the internet. Its amazing how easy it is to get your voice out there in some ways.

Ain't broadband grand!

We bought a car!

2008-03-04T17:21:00.002+11:00

After a few weeks of looking in vain- of hot grumpy drives around Sydney and extended hours of internet trawling, we found one! it is pretty exciting to buy a car together for the first time. It is already ten years old and a bit shabby- but we are very proud owners of a white Subaru Forester.

Unfortunately it is in Tenterfield, two hours drive north of here. We were excited at the prospect of catching a bus up there and then driving home. But it turns out the price of the bus fare one way for the two of us is $120 dollars. This seems a bit prohibitive- and as usual I am trying to work out what is the most environmentally sound way to do it- hitch-hike? ( do people still do that in Australia...?, catch the bus? drive another car there and then drive two back? ride our bikes (198kms).

My office-mate tells me the buses used to be cheaper, and people used to catch them more, but now in this area they are becomming redundant. Everyone uses a car- and to my knowledge no-one hitch-hikes. Hmm.

I wonder if there is some sort of country NSW website for car-pooling? Any ideas?

Nanotechnology... "powerdressing"

2008-02-16T15:06:00.003+11:00

There are some cool interesting things on the BBC website about technology. One of them is about a new development in nanotechnology that harnesses the energy from small vibrations and win. You can weave it into clothes and use the energy generated from walking around to power small electronic devices (!!)- and more...
Check it out!

So I wonder what things will be like in fifty years.....

Full text: Apology to Aborigines

2008-02-13T10:06:00.000+11:00

A Symbol of Hope? or a "Meaningless Exercise"

2008-02-12T22:51:00.000+11:00

I just read this commentary by Roger Sandall regarding tomorrow's Apology to the Stolen Generations. It is interesting that so many people are thinking about these things right now and discussing them -- everyone everywhere, it is becoming a public open matter of interest.

------------------

"I'm sorry. In fact I've been sorry for 40 years. Back then, a young Anmatyerra man came to my caravan one night. I was making a film on a godforsaken cattle station in the Northern Territory, and he needed something because of the pain. He kept repeating the name 'Ian Jackson'. There was no-one called Ian Jackson anywhere that I knew so I asked him to come in and explain, but he wouldn't - or couldn't because of his discomfort.

I felt bad. Apologetic. I probably said sorry. Then the man went off into the darkness, driving an old truck toward Mt Denison. As I lay awake that night I realized he was trying to say 'injection'. He needed antibiotics. I never saw him again.

What makes me sorry is the state of Aboriginal health. What makes me sorry is the state of Aboriginal education. What makes me sorry is that instead of moving on from that night 40 years ago things have got steadily worse. Today, tens of thousands of people in outback Aboriginal communities not only cannot speak usable English, they can't even read the dosage on their bottles of medicine.... [continued]".

----------------------

We were waiting for it....

2008-02-06T23:40:00.000+11:00

'Coalition backs Stolen Generation Apology' ( ABC news Australia).

So Brendan Nelson bites the bullet... well sort of. I have seen the phrase 'in principle' floating around a bit lately. My local MP, an Independant for New England, also sent around media release stating he supports such an apology 'in principle'.

I looked up 'in principle' and it means 'with regard to the basics'. I wonder what these basics are, or is this just a euphemism for 'ok but no monetary compensation'. A kind of caveat that means one can agree in theory, without have to actually agree, and hence deal with the consequences. I hope perhaps that Brendan will agree 'wholeheartedly' when he sees the 'exact wording' of the apology. It is so interesting watching this complex dance unfold, each step so carefully placed.

For a wonderful commentary see Anggarrgoon's post the anatomy of an apology.

Australia Apology to Aborigines

2008-01-31T10:43:00.000+11:00

This international news headline makes me feel proud to be Australian. Good on-us all! I feel like it is something Australians have come together to make happen. Though there is of course opposition from some.
I think most Australians will be very happy to see it happen.

Nice One.
-------

It was the "first, necessary step to move forward from the past", she said. (Jenny Macklin)

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced plans to apologise after his victory in last year's general elections.

The move is a highly symbolic one marking a definitive break from policies of previous administrations, correspondents say.

-------

Aboriginal Archive Offers New Digital Rights Management

2008-01-30T07:00:00.000+11:00

You can read this news story here. The amazing thing about it was that I read it in on the BBC international headlines!! This is wonderful! Not least because it is about the Warumungu people, NJ would be so pleased. I would like to know more about this software... anybody know? It seems like the kind of the thing the language centre would like to know about.

...

"Dr Kimberly Christian, who helped to develop the archive, told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme that the need to create these profiles came from community traditions over what can and cannot be seen.

"It grew out of the Warumungu community people themselves, who were really interested in repatriating a lot of images and things that had been taken from the community," she said.

"You find this a lot in indigenous communities, not just in Australia but around the world... this really big push in these communities to get this information back and let people start looking at it and narrating it themselves."

...

Home for the long weekend

2008-01-29T14:36:00.000+11:00

Here's a few beautiful photos of our long weekend visiting family. It helps me understand better why I was so homesick in New Mexico- such a different world!

Flying Kites

2008-01-29T13:42:00.001+11:00

I googled 'good news' just to shake off the blues... and it worked!

Check this out:

The First Kite-Powered Cargo Ship Crosses Atlantic

Monday, 28 January 2008

"The world's first cargo ship partially powered by a giant kite has set sail from Germany to Venezuela last week. "Beluga SkySails" is fitted with a giant computer-guided kite, which helps the engines to power the ship - thereby reducing fuel consumption and emissions"

And here is a link to a video about it. It reduces the fuel consumption by about 20 %, and they are hoping to have up to 1500 ships using them by 2009. Not to mention flying kites, especially huge ones, must be really exciting and fun. It adds a playful element to merchant shipping!

Pretty ace huh!

Visa updates

2008-01-29T11:29:00.000+11:00

I am feeling frustrated this morning. After putting together our application, and then sending in some extra stuff about Eyal's health things are still not resolved. Last week we spoke with the Health people and they said the were currently looking at his application, and that it will be very soon finalised.

We were slightly excited because it is the last piece in the puzzle and the day it is happily done we will be granted the permanent resident visa. Today we called and they said it had been finalised, but would not tell us the result. So we called the immigration dept. and they said it 'looks like' it has been deferred (the health check result), and they may have to write to the manager of the department to find out the final result (??), thus it could be another 2-3 months before we hear of the result.

I just called the immigration dept again on a hunch and found that deferred actually means rejected. Our supportive Case Officer says not to panic, it just means she has to put together submission to her manager and then the Minister for Immigration. It will help if we included things like: a more recent oncologists report, proof of private health insurance: proof I could financially support him if he were sick.

She said she hasn't received confirmation that it has been deferred (rejected) but it says so on the screen: 'computer says naoo'.

So we have to wait for a letter they sent us that will tell us ( I hope) what on earth is going on, and what we need do next.

Just to keep things exciting Eyal's company have suggested today he fly to Israel to start work the day after tomorrow, and return in three weeks.

sigh.

Hmmmm these are some choices

2008-01-21T18:07:00.001+11:00

Couch

2008-01-19T21:05:00.000+11:00

So the plan for this year, roughly is: to get married, probably move to Sydney, and with God and my Hard Drive on my side finish (submit!) my PhD. I know this sounds busy, but compared to last year, it is relatively relaxed. Last year, I really think Eyal and I travelled at an average speed of about 250kms/day ( the worst part was four times across the Atlantic in as many weeks...).

This time last year I had just driven from Tucson, Arizona ( after arriving from Israel the week before), to San Diego California. I spent Christmas and New years there, went to a couple of conferences ( LSA AAAL) and then Eyal and I went on our merry way to Santa Barbara. We did pretty good at creating an illusion of living there for at least five months. But the truth was we went to Israel twice, Tucson once and then moved on to Palo Alto in July. Of course we were only there a month before returning to Australia, and then of course only in NSW for 6 weeks before hitching up our skirts and spending 6 weeks in Ngukurr. Since then, apart from going to Syndey a few times, and spending a few weeks with family over Christmas we have been here in Armidale- for at least umm two consecutive weeks now, nearly three.

Naturally our life in peaceful, rural suburbia is relative bliss (for a few weeks), I am becoming slightly too happy about spending all day washing clothes, folding them and putting them away... and I spend more time than ever in shops that sell just linen. Yes, and further to this, we are contemplating buying a couch. Not just like a '$40 I live with four other students" kind of couch. A real lovely couch, that only an adult who lived in a house would buy... we are also thinking of buying car. No not the $1500 dollar 'it will do' kind of car, but a clean, dustproof, 'babies fit in the back seat' car...

Well obviously (ahem) we are not into materialism, but there is something comforting and less intransient about spending money on a new couch. Quite irresistible.

The New Year

2008-01-13T15:12:00.000+11:00

Last year we spent a considerable amount of time preparing Eyal's spousal visa application to become an Australian resident ( and eventually citizen). It was a long process of gathering evidence and sifting through it, writing statements, getting friends to write statements and photocopying and certifying a whole rainforest of paper. We felt a bit sad to hand it over- at least we had the satisfaction of an hour long interview to show it off ( table of contents, colour coded and all), before leaving it forever with the immigration department.
Such personal research I have never done. We both wrote about a six page statement of how we met, fell in love and the significant times dates and places in our relationships. We carefully labelled and printed 14 pages of photos of us and family, friends and work colleagues from all over the world.
We have a case worker assigned to us, she was pleased with our thoroughness and indicated that if the police checks and health checks were finalised ( we are waiting waiting ...) then she would have granted it on the spot :). A+.

We have to get two police checks, one from Israel and one from Australia, both from the Federal police, which seem like a distant unknown entity, hard to find, hard to contact- with long tunnels of answering machines and postal addresses; as well as a health check. Which we did, and despite Eyal's lack of infectious diseases they persist in wanting specialist check ups (he has been in remission from cancer for 18 months).
Though the entire process has been relatively smooth- I am a little frustrated with practices that suggest that even though they believe our relationship and future wedding to be genuine, if it looks likely that Eyal might cost Australia more in health care than he can earn- he can/will be refused the visa.

What the?? Somehow this puts a bleak outlook on my faith in Australians being relatively humanitarian. Instead it works to the policy of simply turning people's lives into economy. Even worse, it seems short sighted- if one needs to argue the point- hasn't the Australian government already invested a decent amount of money in my education? Wouldn't it be a bummer to lose all those years of education to another country because my husband cannot be granted citizenship??Luckily Eyal can work and is unlikely to need any further treatment, so it is more a technicality than a real concern.

Other than that, the sun is shining, bright birds are hopping about the trees, and we are eating divine rockmelon. Nectar of the gods. If I were a believe in Creationsim, I would figure that the sweet fruits of summer must be there to make up for the parasites of the wet season.

Holiday Season

2007-12-12T17:41:00.000+11:00

This time last year I was in Israel celebrating Hanuka. This year it is great to be home in Australia with friends and family. The weekend was a good example of multiculturalism taking a hold on our summer Christmas.Eyal and I spent the weekend with my family, my little sister ( 12 y.o.) decided it was about time for a Christmas tree in the house. So we put on our hats and sunscreen and found a saw in dad's shed and off we went up to 'pine tree Hill', a little hill near our house. We hunted around for a while in the bush until we spotted the perfect tree and took turns cutting through the 2 inch trunk. With a tree over one shoulder we made our way home. We spent a fun afternoon clearing a place for it in the house and decorating it. Since my four year old niece will be the only 'little' kid home for Christmas we put teddy bears all around the bottom to make sure it was attractive!

It will be Eyal's first ever Christmas ( he still can't remember what the date is), and he comments occasionally that we are all very pagan in our symbolism. To be sure I have no good Christian explanation of the tree, lights, glitter kind of scenario???

In the evening we went shopping for flour and yeast and spent hours making home made 'sufganiyot' (absorbers), aptly named (deep fried) jam filled doughnuts, the kind of thing Eyal's mum might make for Hanuka. We lit 5 candles ( as was appropriate for that day in Hanuka) and with the help of my little sis we hassled Eyal into singing the first line of a Hanuka song, which we dutifully repeated before tucking in to the doughnuts. There is some symbolism in the doughnuts- they are deep fried in oil which is one of the central themes of Hanuka- the miracle of one day's worth of oil burning for 8 days after the destruction of the Temple. Many of the foods traditional to Hanuka are deep fried.

On Sunday evening we had a roast dinner (is this a Catholic tradition??? or just an Australian one? ), and of course dutifully deep fried some 'latkis' (potato fritters), and lit what candles we could find.

Overall we were very pleased with ourselves, and certainly fatter than when we started!

Next weekend my older sister is arriving, her husband is Muslim ( from West Africa), so we can see if they have anything further to offer.

What are your traditions for this time of the year..??

Indigneous Language Program producing results

2007-12-04T21:52:00.000+11:00

This story was on the abc website today. On the one hand it is exciting to see real results published in the mass media about how indigenous languages in schools has a positive effect on attendance and learning- on the other hand it makes t all the more frustrating that in schools across the NT that have majority of indigenous students aren't being given the same opportunity. I hope this won't be like climate change ( or is it already?) where someone works it out and then fifty years later governments start deciding it is time for action and policy.

Anyway- good onya Western Sydney schools.

Leaving Ngukurr

2007-11-20T14:07:00.000+11:00

Our last few days in Ngukurr were a little more relaxed as things had been resolved at the Katherine Language Centre. I was a bit nervous about the future of the Ngukurr Language centre... where next? With Wamut in Katherine, it looked like a time for a change- but I think the language centre linguists came to the rescue and are supporting the already great CDEP team there.

The weekend before we left, we took some work out bush the river- it was so lovely to get into the water and sit under a tree and hear all the kids laughing and playing. We spent the whole day peacefully in the river- in retrospect it was a highlight of our visit. We got a bit of work done checking animal names in Marra for the ethnobotany/biology study.

I can't believe ( as usual) how easy life is in NSW in comparison, just the relief of fresh fruit and water and cool weather...the ease of communication and expressing and understaning other peoples ideas and moods. It amazes again and again how opaque the communication between Standard Australian English Speakers adn Kriol speakers is.When I was in Minyerri last the little kids spent a climbed all over me ( collecting new friends as the went) - 'yu sabi tok blakfela ay?', irrimim, im sabi tok blakfela'. It was only then that I realised that 'Blakfela' is the name not just for Kriol, but for the entire 'style' of interaction.I wonder if you were a speaker of Aboriginal English would these kids identify you as a 'Blakfela' speaker, if you used the communicative 'style' that identifies with these languages (dialects).

It is lovely to be home, I love the feeling of summer arriving...

Positive Response from Gen. Chalmers

2007-11-01T10:06:00.000+11:00

"Thank you for your prompt follow up to our discussion. I appreciate the
importance of effective communications and the need to use interpreters
if we are to have any chance of meaningful dialogue with people.

As a result of your email, I have provided the contact details of the
Katherine Regional Aboriginal Language Centre to my staff and directed
that the use of interpreters be a standard planning consideration for
any visit or engagement activity."

Dave Chalmers
Major General
Operational Commander
NT Emergency Response Taskforce

(notes) from a visit from the Intervention Task Force

2007-10-26T14:16:00.000+10:00

This week was my first experience with 'The Intervention', it started with a woman appearing at the door to the language centre saying quickly- after 3pm next Tuesday expect a visit from The Intervention. It seemed a little unofficial and almost clandestine, I asked her who specifically she meant and when and how long for. She replied very vaguely 'oh about 10 people, including General Chalmers'. But I was glad she came and appreciated having a little notice. After she left I realised she didn't tell me her name (I didn't even see her car!), or leave anything typed or informative with us.

Oh well. The next Tuesday we were at the school doing language classes after 3pm, when a minibus full of whitefellas showed up and we guessed it was them. Their guide ( a local man) told us they were having ameeting at 4pm and we should come along. I went back to the Language Centre to wait for their visit. Perhaps time was short because they just slowed as they drove past and continued on.

The meeting was small, about 10 Intervention (ists?) Task Force and about 12 community members. Quite a few of them whitefellas (from the Ngukurr community). From the Government there was General Dave Chalmers, Sue Gordon ( a magistrate from WA), a rep. from the Prime Minister's Office, the newly appointed Government Business Manager for Ngukurr, 2 media persons, some kind of doctor and the General's Aid (secretary type person).

Chalmers started off, saying they were there to address issues of houses/schools being overcrowded, looking into Aged Care Programs and Safe Houses for families. Initially they said this was not the result of the Little Children Are Sacred report but a repsonse to the violence and use of drugs and alcohol in Aboriginal communities ( later Sue Gordon said it WAS because of this research and that to protect children the entire community needed to be supported). They said they report directly to Mal Brough. There was no professional interpretor present and almos the whole meeting was conducted in English. General Chalmers said he worked for the Govt. not the Army but wore camoflage Army gear all the same.

Chalmers said by Christmas there would be 3 more classrooms at Ngukurr School (these had been long promised). The school has to stagger some of its classes as the overcrowding becomes more of an issue.

That 60-70 more Police would be in Remote Communities in the NT. None for Ngukurr ( we have two- this is enough they say).Two Council members asked for more Police prescence here, Chalmers said Ngukurr had been decided to have adequate Police presence.

Chalmers said that early February would bring the Health Check team, who would offer a 'general check' to children, height/weight.skin/teethetc. 3200 children have been checked already and over 1000 referred for follow up ( hopefully there are resources available to actually do the followups). That 100 million 'committed' (by the NT govt.? is it dependant on the election?) for health support for children. Is this more than usual? Supplementaty to what is already in place?

There will be 20 government business men for the NT, a 'face of the government' in the community. They will not be 'in control, or a CEO', they will be 'in the community all the time, addressing issues of health, housing and jobs' ( and earning 100 000p.a.).

In Ngukurr, May next year will bring the transition of CDEP to 'real jobs' 'training' and 'work for the dole' programs. The work for the dole and real jobs remained part of the discussion- we never heard about training programs again.

At this time the 'income managers' will arrive, anyone on govt. benefits will have 'at least half' of their income allocated to buying food, and that it be 'good healthy food at reasonable prices- or we will make it that way'. Centrelink will spend three weeks here 'transitioning' , interviewing everyone. DEWR will come to transition CDEP over 6 weeks, and 'please use of any leave you have before then'.

QUESTIONS:

KR " community needs to come up for some ideas, incentives of their own, otherwise this is a backwards step"

SUEGORDON " this is not about controlling your lives, you have been treated not as citizens, but as 2nd class citizens as you have been up until now (no superannuation not paid properly for the work you do etc.)"..
and then something further about a 700million dollar housing committment for the NT over the next four years.

DD: "We are caring and sharing people" we take care of our community, don't tell us we dont take care of our children.
DD: We have 50 young boys down there learning discipline in Ceremony right now- do you (whitefellas) ever do that?

SN: Have any one of you here today read any of the prior research or information about this community before coming here today? Have you looked at what has worked before in the past? Are assured your policy will work into the future

Chalmers: Brough was not prepared to wait after hearing what was happening to children, he decided to act now. We are seeing too many communities and have no time to read about them. But I do see your point.

SN: What is the research that indicates that abolishing the Permit system will be useful to this cause?

Chalmers: At the moment it is just for govt. reps. so they can move easily between communities, we have acquired a five year lease of the Ngukurr community area, roads and landing area. Within 6 months we will allow any people to these communites without permit. They will be restricted to the community, not allowed into houses. This six months is to allow people to put up signs for visitors. THe reason for it ultimately is to "normalise the economy".

DCITA will hopefully offer up funding to keep on the 4 CDEP workers here (Chalmers said it may be difficult). I hope the reality of all this possible change isn't just putting everyone nto work-for-the-dole.

There was more and it went on for ages, I got to ask lots of questions and feel satisfied to hear directly from the Task Force themselves.. alot of it was Chlamers saying , "I appreciate your point of you, or I can see what you are saying, but this is the policy etc.'

I cam away from it all feeling exhausted. Though somehow relieved. It was good to talk to people about it really, even though there wasn't many community members, and nothing in some ways, was really said, it did seem that despite the policies there are some people really concerned and dedicated to making a difference this time, Sue Gordon for example and that guy from the Prime Ministers office. Even Chalmers.

After the meeting I gave them a bit of humbug about not having more information or interpreters, or any translations. I told Chalmers most people here speak Kriol. He said, 'what is that?'. I hope he knows now. It would be a pity to visit 73 Aboriginal communities and not know what Kriol was (not that it is everywhere).

I felt it was a pity that they had just come to tell us how their new policies wouldbe implemented, some one said "it is like we are being blown around, like leaves, this way and that ( by the government)'. That there will be little agency for the Aboriginal communities, very little positive decision making and planning within the community. Just more beaurocrats coming to 'implement' some policies, I hope at least that they improve some issues.

As usual the visiting government mob flew out as the sun set, not beofre they had been thanked for coming by Council members, and the Task Force thanked everyone for speaking up andmaking it a 'lively' discussion..

Mrs Kumunjayi Joshua (née Foster) Obituary

2007-10-19T13:04:00.001+10:00

Australian Aboriginal Studies 2007/1:p211-213
Mrs Kumunjayi Joshua
(née Foster)
On 6 July 2006 we saw the passing of
Mrs Kumunjayi Joshua (née Foster), a
Warumungu woman who had a wideranging
impact on linguistics and applied
linguistics for Aboriginal languages in the
Northern Territory, in a career spanning 30
years.

She was born 17 June 1951 at the Freweena
Roadhouse, Rockhampton Downs,
in the Northern Territory, and grew up at
Warrabri (now Alekarenge (Ali Curung)).
Her father was known as Snowy Jampijimpa
Foster, and his family’s traditional country
is around the Karlu Karlu (Devils Marbles)
area. Her mother, Ivy Tuala Napangardi
(or Tualla Nalli) Foster was related to
Warlpiri, Warlmanpa and Warumungu.
Mrs Kumunjayi Joshua’s dreaming was
Aakiy ‘bush-plum’, and her skin name was
Nangali (Warumungu), Nangala (Warlpiri)
or Apwerle (Kaytetye).

Mrs Kumunjayi Joshua (also known
as Nangala), spoke many languages: she
learnt her parents’ language Warumungu,
her father’s language Kaytetye, and her
mother’s language Warlmanpa as well as
Warlpiri; she also learnt English at the
Rockhampton Station (Northern Territory).

She met her future husband when they
were fellow students at Batchelor College,
and they moved to his country at Ngukurr,
while continuing to visit her own relations
in the Tennant Creek area. In Ngukurr,
Nangala learnt to speak Kriol and some of
her husband’s mother’s language, Marra.

Mrs Kumunjayi Joshua could communicate
with people from all walks of life
and challenged many cultural barriers
to complete a degree in teaching, and she
continued to teach all of her life.

Nangala earned a Bachelor of Education degree
in 1987 from Deakin University in the
‘D-BATE’ (Deakin-Batchelor Aboriginal
Education) program jointly with the then
Batchelor College. Along with Mandawuy
Yunupingu, she was among the first native
speakers of an Aboriginal language to do
so. When she graduated it was a source of
great pride and joy to her family, especially
her mother.

Her achievement was recognised. In
1987 she was named NAIDOC Aboriginal
Scholar of the year. In 1995 she was awarded
a Graduate Certificate in Education
(Hearing Impairment) from Batchelor
College; she also earned an Associate
Diploma in Applied Linguistics. Later
Nangala began working towards a Masters
degree and a Diploma in interpreting.

She was a brilliant teacher. Jane Simpson recalls
how in 1995 Nangala rescued a CALL
Warumungu language class by running
demonstration lessons, showing how to get
children interested, and drawing diagrams
labelled in Warumungu to explain her
approach. As a further tribute to her unfailing
commitment and enthusiasm, in 2005
she was chosen as leader for the Indigenous
Women’s Development Program for the
Office of Indigenous Policy.

Mrs Kumunjayi Joshua was a linguist in
both senses of the word. She was a NAATI accredited
Warumungu/English and Kriol/
English interpreter, and believed in the
importance of understanding and identifying
cultural differences and prejudices
and exposing them as the underpinnings
of miscommunication between the ‘Anglo’
Australian community and the Indigenous
Australian population. Due to her in-depth
knowledge of English, her interpretations
were descriptive and complex and she
stayed true to the speaker’s individual way
of communicating.

Her exceptional accomplishments
and determination, as well as
humility, made her an inspiration to both
groups.

Nangala was also a language analyst and
had an obvious love of academic linguistics-
you could find her writing verb paradigms
in Warumungu or plant names
in Marra, explaining demonstratives or
speech act verbs in Kriol, or getting excited
about the concept of polysemy; why
should ‘beetle’, ‘charcoal’ and the ‘pupil
of an eye’ share a form in Warumungu,
she wondered. Her younger sister, Barbara
Foster, recalls collecting big old tins of
spaghetti and corn beef with Nangala when
they were children. They would take them
back to camp and Nangala would sit down
with people, including her grandparents,
under a shady tree and she would say ‘sound
these letters out’ they would sound them
out and Nangala would teach them how to
say it properly. She would also sit around the camp fire with the old people and spell
words out on the ground, they would then
sound out the words together until they got
the pronunciation right. She was a born
linguist, teacher and storyteller.

Nangala bridged the gap between the
Indigenous people of Australia and the
mainstream ‘Anglo’ world. She did this in
practical ways, by translating documents
related to health and the law into languages
that Indigenous Australians could access
more comfortably, and by dusting off the
Ngukurr Language Centre, both figuratively
and literally. Under her supervision from
2004 and driven by her vision and determination
the Ngukurr Language Centre has
flourished against many odds.

Mrs Kumunjayi Joshua maintained
strong commitment both to her adopted
community of Ngukurr, and to the
communities where she came from. For
example, she read and checked her family’s
genealogy for the Warumungu Land Claim
(1993) and worked closely with the Central
Land Council. She returned to Karlu Karlu
(Devils Marbles) often for meetings. Her
last visit was in 2005; she was not well, but
spent two weeks there with her families
talking about the old times, hunting, bush
foods and medicines. She translated everything
that was said by her families speaking
in four different languages: Warumungu,
Warlpiri, Kaytetye and Alyawarr. Every
night she and the other women stayed up
late and sang the songs for the country.

Nangala was also an artist and craftswoman
of high calibre, and spent many
years painting for the Ngukurr Arts
centre, incorporating traditional dot painting
designs from central Australia with
contemporary colours and themes.

Mrs Kumunjayi Joshua will be sadly
missed, but her legacy is a strong one. She
inspired many people to learn — as well as
to teach. Her memory acts to remind us to
strive to overcome the challenges and prejudices
inherent in cross-cultural communication,
to live and work together in
harmony with mutual respect. She taught
— by example — to tirelessly support
endangered languages, and the rights and
voices of their speakers. She was brilliant,
diplomatic, kind and graceful.

Her untimely passing is a great loss not only to those
of us who were her friends and colleagues
but also to the linguistic community of
Australia. We have lost a talented, generous
and enthusiastic colleague, whose love for
languages was extraordinary.

Acknowledgments:
This obituary was collated with the
assistance of Greg Dickson, Barbara
Nangala Foster; John Joshua, Francine
McCarthy, David Nash, Jane Simpson
and Kim Webeck.

S. Nicholls, Visiting Fulbright Scholar,
University of California, Santa Barbara, doctoral
candidate, School of Languages, Cultures
and Linguistics, University of New England,
Armidale,

(Reproduced here with the kind permission of AAS)

Ngukurr again (letter to friends and family)

2007-10-18T16:55:00.000+10:00

Hello!

These last couple of weeks we have been up in the NT, in Ngukurr. We
flew from Adelaide to Alice Springs and then drove one long hot day
all the way to Ngukurr, about 1200kms right though the belly of
Australia, and then took a right -and here we are nearly at the coast.

It has been really hot the last week or so, probably up around 40
degrees everyday, and humid in a way that you can feel your energy
soaking away, every movement breaks a sweat, a great thrumming
sauna... it makes you appreciate airconditioning and iced coffee like
never before.

It is great to be back in Ngukurr, to see people again. We went to the
cemetary and I saw the resting place of a very good friend, as well as
some other people I knew well. It was hard, standing in the hot red
sand, little plastic flowers sticking out of a mound of earth, a
couple of small children playing in the dust, drinking soda from a
can. It was hard because for nearly a year I had imagined reaching
this place and then believing that she was really gone, not just away
visiting or at home sick- there buried under that earth. But somehow I
stil couldnt... maybe it is best not to imagine someone you love's
body buried beneath all that earth.

It surprises me how hard it is to really believe in death even through
experience. I cried a bit to myself and the hot wind and red dust
blew my tears away. We picked up the children playing in the ground
and waved good bye to everyone resting at the ceremony in a cheery
kind of way and went back around in all our little circles of life.

It is hard because she was such a
central part both of our lives here at the language centre, but also
the heart and feeling of what was important.
On our way up to Ngukurr we drove past the Devil's Marbles, big round
red rocks that sit in the desert, this old woman was a Traditional
Owner of this part of Australia-
Maybe it feels the lack too,
Maybe it misses her too.

With a team of many we are teaching at the local school, 5 different
languages, we create one unit and then do it for a whole term- the
kids really seem to be learning, and certainly the community language
teachers are learning more too, about their languages- computers-
spelling- you name it.

There is an ethnobotanist ( someone who studies how different cultures
taxonomise plants and animals) coming to visit next week, we have been
working hard to get all the information together - what we have on the
languages of the region- most of it is archived,as there are very few
speakers left of these languages- when you see the volume of knowledge
in the languages you feel sad that they are not spoken any more.

A few days ago some big trucks roared in- dug up the road, and then
left. So now we have a huge mound of red earth and rocks for a road( I
am assuming they will replace it at some point!), in the evenings,
like now, it draws all the little kids out ( tens of them) to play,
they bring strollers and other small toys and bikes and spend hours
lost in games. I like listening to them, and feel pleased this
inconvenience to some is of great fun to others.

The other day a huge lightning storm gathering, red dust and the sun
setting made the sky look surreal,and great gusts of wind tore across
the community shaking the trees- loud thunder broke and then everyone
stepped outin wonder, hands outstretched as rain fell, lovely and cool
and fresh breaking the heat, and opening the heart.

It has been a bit cooler since then.

Ngukurr October 2007

2007-10-16T18:11:00.000+10:00

We arrrived in Ngukurr about two weeks ago. So much has happened since then, its hard to know where to start. It is really lovely to be back. I surprised myself by feeling much more relaxed this time around. Having Eyal with me is great ( especially since he enjoys it here), and the language centre is thriving.

The entire community looks well actually, things look a little cleaner and greener, there are no petrol sniffers around, and these last weeks ceremony has been going strong here.

Every morning three, sometimes four language workers come to language centre, create resources for teaching at the school , look things up in the dictionary, or ring around for words or spellings, sit around making tea and laugh a lot. It is much easier to feel satisfied that I am doing a good job, and I don't feel responsible for the running of the language centre. Sometimes much the opposite, the workers here take it on themselves to take me to the school and introduce me to the teachers, drive around and pick up other people for work, and generally take pride in creating and organising many parts of the language centre- good onya Wamut, and good onya all the language centre mob! Its great to be here.

More soon! I had to start somewhere....

"Food cards doled out in the NT"

2007-09-22T11:24:00.000+10:00

I just saw this article on Message Stick (on the ABC website), and I feel a bit sickened by it. Not that I haven't seen plenty of little kids looking like they could do with some more fresh food, or even adults, drunk on the streets of Katherine trying to scrape together to by something to eat (or maybe drink). The thing is that you know, even if you don't think about it, that they (Centrelink) are giving out these cards only to Aboriginal people. Doesn't that ring a little strange?

Doesn't the word paternalism (in its very worse sense...) loom ominously on the horizon- even a sense of sub-citizen status, people who are having their income spent for them- their right to choose whisked away on the back of an electoral stunt.

Why is this 'food card' issue so quiet?! Where are all the clamouring warning bells? The riots- the protesters and incensed left wing professionals? Something is seriously wrong here, and stepping back in time to methods of disempowering people as a way to 'help' them unfortunately has become the latest flavour of the month.

Blechh.

It reminds me of first year engineering where you are taught about 'closed systems' and learning to consider all of the influencing factors on that closed system and calculate what kind of actions would have what kinds of results. I think in science this can be very helpful, but applying this kind of methodology in human society seems simplistic and reactionary. I feel like someone has just thought: 'ok the problem is: some Aboriginal people in some communities are spending their money on things other than food- to the detriment of themselves or dependents'.

In a closed system perhaps the solution is: to restrict what these people can spend their money on, and encourage buying of food in this way. The problem is, people and human societies are not 'closed systems', they have an infinite variability of inputs, and ways of interpreting as well as spontaneous creativity. I suppose to put it bluntly- they are people- not 'systems' or equations that you can solve with a simple answer.

Someone, at some point (I'm sorry to say this to you John Howard), is going to have to go to talk with Aboriginal people in communities and say- 'whats up?', they are going to have to get deep down and dirty with trauma, death, and the scariest of all: difference. And learn about what kind of solutions might work in with different people in different places. Someone, at some point is going to have to listen.

And for that they will need an interpreter(!).

Post VSU

2007-09-21T14:27:00.000+10:00

So now that voluntary student unionism has come into play ( it used to be mandatory to pay to join the student union), the student union and its services have diminished considerably. At least here at UNE, there is no longer a discounted student dentist available, and after talking with the VC it sounds like it is very hard to get any student groups motivated to 'do' things and create university spirit anymore.

But even worse- the state of the food at UNE is pathetic. There are two places to buy food, open only until about 2pm, one is an expensive sit down and eat kind of restaurant ( about 12-15$ a meal), the other is a small cafeteria with boxed and packaged foods- sandwiches and drinks, on average you would spend 10$ on some food and a drink for lunch. It used to be open all day and it used to give discounts to students...

There also used to be a grand long table with different kinds of salads hot foods, fruits and pies, a full bar and a bustling lunchtime trade where you could spend as much or as little as you wanted. When I asked about it on my return to UNE, the guy said- 'oh that hasn't been around for ages'...

Bobala (sp!) me I have to go home at five pm or I die of hunger! Where is the all night coffee and sandwiches?!

Ironically the health and fitness centre at the uni was given a grant to support it through the hard times and is building a huge extension!

Blogs

2007-09-20T17:04:00.000+10:00

Someone pointed out to me once that blogs were a difficult media in that you never knew if the information written in them can be verified. I thought about this for a while and then realised I only really read blogs of people I know. So if I am really concerned about the legitimacy of what people are writing I can either personally ask them or leave a comment.

This is the good thing about blogs, in this sense they are only as 'true' as you wish them to be. I tend to trust the things my friends say more than journalists ( which surprises me!). For example a friend of mine I met travelling many years ago in Laos, has just started a blog about his life going to university in Beijing. He is an American citizen, but I believe he has Chinese heritage. The interesting thing is I find myself much more interested in what he says and much less cynical than if I were reading a news report. Maybe because he has no agenda to sell papers or bag out Chinese political stance. For example he writes about the internet restrictions ( for example blogger and wikipedia) that Chinese people endure, I was shocked. I think I might have read it somewhere before- but I never realised it was true, if you know what I mean.

It made me re-realise something I thought a lot about when I was an exchange student in Costa Rica (age 15, year 10 at high school), which is that people really relate to and believe what people say when the people that are talking are 'like them'. After a year in Costa Rica I felt much more at home in Costa Rica than I would in any other foreign country and even considered going to university there. The reason I like and believe the things my friends write on their blogs is because in some sense I feel sure that they are like me ( or me like them) and we are trying to understand the same things, have the same values and can easily communicate.

This wasn't the case when I first started school in Costa Rica, I was at a public school with 1200 students, none of whom spoke English (even the English teacher), very few had any real sense that Australia was a place somewhere. I felt very distanced and lonely. But this is ideal motivation to learn to speak another language and culture and after a while I did.

Afterwards, in what now feels a little naive, I always wished that those leaders that started wars, had been to high school for a year in the country they were invading/bombing/occupying. Then they would feel very strange, because they would know if they just spent a bit of time with any of the people in that country they would know how to communicate well and feel some solidarity with the population. The negative aspects of 'us' and 'them' largely dissolve when you get comfortable communicating linguistically and culturally.

I must admit this is one of the things that impresses me most about Kevin Rudd, I know at least that he has some sense that behind every 'other' (Chinese/Iraqi/French/Russian persons) is a human he could communicate with if he learnt how, because he went to the trouble to learn Mandarin well.

So are bi-lingual people more tolerant to other cultures and languages? Can they cope with socially difficult situations more comfortably? And I know at least some of you have also been on exchange also- what do you keep with you from that year, how does it influence your career and work?

What do ya think bloggers.....?

Kul- Nyus in creole

2007-09-04T16:55:00.000+10:00

I was just browsing the ABC online news and came across this. Which is ABC Radio Australia in Tok Pisin, a creole language from Papua New Guinea. When you hold your mouse over the headings they have English translation. So the Fran Pes is the 'Tok Pisin Home Page', and the Nius Blong Nau, I am guessing is the 'breaking news'. It gives me a heady feeling of excitement to see something so official and professional and important in a creole language- and so close to Australia- in fact supported by our own ABC.

Ngukurr again...

2007-09-04T11:37:00.001+10:00

In a few weeks, after our rather short repose here in Armidale, Eyal and I will pack up again and head for Ngukurr via Adelaide and Alice Springs. I have the usual feelings about going, which is the a kind of vague anxiety about it not working out or doing something wrong or noone remembering me etc. mixed with excitement at being back and seeing everyone again, and bringing Eyal with me.

This time it is coupled with the worrying reports of what is happening in Ngukurr as a result of the government's latest fiasco. I am reading a book at the moment called Carpentaria by Alexis Wright (winner of the Miles Franklin Award), which is a beautiful novel and worth a look at, especially if you have or ever will spend some time up around the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Today I received a copy of the Olgaman, NJ's obituary in the Australia Aboriginal Studies Journal. It has been just over a year since she passed away.

Recipe for 'Home'

2007-08-31T17:27:00.000+10:00

First you will need to go away for a while, just to get a real sense of what you miss. This also lets you know what you should include in your recipe ( each person will need to tailor it to their taste). Me , for example, I missed the sweet scent of eucalyptus in the air, hugs from my mum, text messages and dinners with my friends. I missed the accents, understanding how things worked, giving way to the right at round-abouts, and feeling normal about wearing blundstone boots. I missed the call of the ABC news on TV, on only having a few channels, of living somewhere where you knew what the weather was outside even when you were in.

I missed sitting in front of the fire at my dad's house in winter and hearing the rain drumming on the roof, of getting muddy outside and hearing the frogs chorus. I missed the reasonable sized cars and large expanses of open country, clear horizons and empty quiet beaches.

Well, anyway, getting back to the recipe,-once you have a few ingredients sorted out, maybe write them down, or just think about them ( they might change each day). Put them together with someone you love, some clean towels, and a chopping board, your own cupboard with food in, and your own private space.

You don't need to shake or stir or bake or anything. You just put them all there. And observe, you will see it emerge soon enough- there you have it! (also a good cure-all)

Fashion (Fishin'?)

2007-07-26T18:02:00.001+10:00

Australia

2007-07-07T08:53:00.000+10:00

Australia has been on my mind especially in the last month or so. Not least because we have bought our tickets home and I am beginning, emotionally and otherwise to think through the last year and consider going home.

Then a couple of weeks ago the bombshell hit with the Australian federal government's response to the 'Children are Sacred' report. And I felt completely paralysed- immobilised by it. I couldn't think any coherent way to just write about what has happened or could happen- spread the word, discuss it with people- even take in more than a little bit at a time of the news. Let alone talk about how I feel about it. So I am trying to just write something down about it and not get too swept up in it. I suppose the least I could say is that it is all looking a bit shocking and if you check out Transient Languages and Cultures, Langguj Gel, That Munanga Linguist's blogs you will get a lot more specific details, links and insightful comments.

For me I just needed to write down that it is happening and I will at some point have to face it a bit more clearly and understand more of the details and ramifications rippling through out Australian Aboriginal communities. At least when NJ died there was something a little constructive I could do, like collate an obituary (thanks Jane), but with all this at this point I can't see how to approach it constructively.

We will be going up to Ngukurr in October for a few weeks or a month, and I hope by then I will understand better. What I feel sad for really isn't (just) the Aboriginal people affected by the decisions the government is making, but more about what it reflects about the direction of the Australian 'civilisation' as a whole, about the 'soul' of us as a whole, and how little we understand ourselves in some ways.

I have also been thinking about Australia in terms of bringing Eyal to live there with me, in August he will be immigrating to Australia and it is interesting to think of everything, every aspect of the culture, how news is delivered, how the supermarkets are lined, people greet each other or the state of the roads, etc. and how it would feel to someone unfamiliar with it.

We are in Palo Alto at the moment in California, just south of San Francisco. I am going to the Linguistics Institute at Stanford for the month. I am enjoying it very much, though it is an almost disconcertingly perfect and beautiful campus! It feels a little surreal.

Moving...

2007-06-29T18:44:00.000+10:00

This is getting to be a habit, but I am really trying to kick it, we are moving again. This time to Los Altos Hills where I will be going to uni for a month at the Linguistics Institute. It is hard work, even in this year I collected all kinds of bits and pieces, and I feel a bit like a bent old sieve after spending all day sorting through paperwork, old notes and class work, small gifts, hairpins and old perfume...

It is good to throw a mountain of things away and pack what is left. It reminds me to keep discarding what I don't need or use any more even if it is still in working order. In a few hours or days we will be just back to what we can fit into our suitcases, the house will be dismantled and redistributed amongst the Santa Barbara population.

August will see us back full circle- to Armidale and the University of New England, Australia.

Tucson, Arizona

2007-06-20T08:41:00.000+10:00

Here I am back in Tucson. It is hot- really hot- somewhere around 100- 110 Fahrenheit, which I suppose is around 40 Celsius. Flying into Tucson from Phoenix, looking at the red desert stretched in every direction, and some places carefully carved into patchwork squares- you get a sense of Arizona. Big, red and filled with beautiful surprises and uncompromising landscape.

I am here for the American Indian Language Development Institute at the Uni of Arizona. I went along today to have a look and meet some people. It is my first time visiting a conference/institute as an invited speaker, and it reminds me I need to have confidence in myself and say what I came to say clearly. I am still not sure what I really came to say yet. I think I won't know until i am there standing in front of all the people and trying to think about what they already know and what I could say that would be interesting and informative.

I have put together some slides, with beautiful photos of people I love and work with in Ngukurr, of big fish, deserts and floods, colourful maps of the languages of Australia, facts about Arnhem Land and Australian languages. But I know really I am here to talk about my own story really, of what I do, and what I am interested in - because I think when it comes to it- you can't honestly say much more than that.

I have hired a car, and I feel so adult (!) moving from one air-conditioned space to the next, navigating university halls, watching the university life unfolding around me. I drove around in circles a bit getting my bearings, the flat grid of Tucson, the adobe mud square houses with cactus gardens, and endless sky, screeching crickets and dust. I like it here.

A few photos from the shoebox...

2007-06-08T04:10:00.001+10:00

Tent Rocks, New Mexico

Emily visit Santa Barbara

Me and Auxi in Madrid

Playing guitar in the sun- Moab UT

Big spider gets philosophical (Elands obviously)

Not long until we pack up our Santa Barbara life and head across

the Pacific.

Language Issues

2007-06-06T03:38:00.000+10:00

Further to the Occupation 101 post, I wanted to add a couple of language things. As far as I know, in Israel, Hebrew is the language most spoken, these days I bet there is a lot of Russian, some Arabic and maybe some languages Bedouin people speak (? anyone know?!). And in the occupied territories the main language is Arabic. The official languages of Israel are Hebrew and Arabic, and although there are many road signs etc with both- English is more clearly a second language, certainly in terms of prestige. For more info on this check out the work of Elana Shohamy.

One of the most significant and overwhelming government buildings in Israel is only English and Hebrew, I am talking about Yad Vashem the Holocaust Museum, documentation and research centre. Which is a must see if you ever visit Israel (but not if you only speak Arabic!). On the other side of the coin is this fantastic documentary Occupation 101, that interviews academics in Israel, Noam Chomsky, Human rights groups and Palestinian people, presents facts and stories- and yet is not available with Hebrew subtitles, and there for basically inaccessible to Israeli population.

We wrote to the directors about this and they said they were doing their best to get it done soon. The Holocaust museum on the other hand are rumoured to have said they 'catered to demand' and therefor Arabic was not relevant.

The other thing I don't like much are phrases like the 'Palestinian problem' or the 'Arab problem' - it sounds a little like Hitler's rhetoric of the 'Jewish problem', and it makes it sounds as though the the ethnicity of a group of people is the problem. Which is not true, the problem isn't that some people are Jewish Israeli and others are Muslim/Christian Arabs, the problem is all the fear, hype and lack of education, poverty, violence, corruption and hatred that is aimed at creating and maintaining conflict. Haven't Jewish people lived peacefully in Iran, Syria, Jordan for centuries...?

Indigenous Language SPEAK

2007-06-03T04:50:00.000+10:00

So when I first went to University of New Mexico, I was excited to think I was going to a university where the concerns of the indigenous community members of different languages, were very important to the linguistics department.

Though this is certainly the case for the group that Melissa Axelrod has worked hard to bring together, it also became clear that the relationship between language speakers and researchers in the region (and maybe lots of the USA) was not a positive one. Unfortunately the benefits to language revitalisation and documentation lie in these two groups forming positive trusting relationships.

To get some dialogue going about this, and about other issues that come up between language speakers and researchers, I started this blog with some UNM grad students, Indigenous Language SPEAK, Susan just wrote a great post, so go check it out! And if you would like to contribute please let me know!!!

As a result of this, some/much of my linguistic-y stuff I will post there.

A Perfect Day in LA

2007-05-30T11:45:00.000+10:00

We had a very wholesome weekend. It was refreshing and peaceful. We spent the weekend visiting our friend Bonnie in Pasadena. It was kind of like going to home to mum for the weekend (Bonnie is the mother of a good friend) :) . We ate lots of good food, and on Saturday morning decided , on a whim, to go to a Dodgers game at the LA Dodgers Baseball stadium. It was a perfect day with a big blue sky and a gentle breeze. We bought the cheapest seats right up the top (with the perfect view), so that we could leave anytime if it became boring. Bonnie explained the game as it went along, and others around us joined in explaining how the game worked, the teams ( it was the Dodgers vs. the Chicago Cubs), we drank lite beer, ate hot dogs and enjoyed a peaceful afternoon. There was something very comforting and well, fun, about this aspect of American culture. Many people had their entire family in tow, and enjoyed the chance to play with their children, or hold hands with their date. Unlike going to the movies there was plenty of time to chat, and watch the view to the mountains.

The game was exciting and we stayed until the end. Bonnie drove us around Hollywood and Beverly Hills and we ended up at the sea, where we ate some good fish and then came home :).

Visas, PhD and other fun things

2007-05-25T05:32:00.000+10:00

Well they could be fun. But sometimes they are just hard. At the moment Eyal and I are investigating what loops we need to jump through so that he can come and live with me in Australia, as a de facto or spouse (I don't like the word spouse- it sounds too much like 'louse'). We had joked that he could immigrate on humanitarian grounds as in Israel the bitterness of the ongoing conflict can be damaging to the soul.

Luckily he is not Palestinian- I can just imagine how almost impossible it must be to organise and jump through loops when you really are living in war-zone like conditions (as some Israeli's and many Palestinians are). The loops in place are easier for people with lots of money, time, professional assistance and good English reading skills- and of course who live in the same place for long periods of time. Though we have some of those things- finding a place to even submit the visa is difficult- we have only been spending small amounts of time in Israel, so waiting there for the suggested 7 months while they process his visa is not an option...

The problem with the visa loops is that you have to jump through some of the ones that come later before you can do the ones that come first. Bureaucracy is the mother of all catch 22's. But if you do happen to know someone in a similar situation there is free clear advice offered at the 'Immigration Advice and Rights Centre' in Sydney.

As for the PhD, it seems possible that it is finally time to stop collecting parts and frameworks to fit them into, and actually start putting things together, which always sounds like fun when I think about it- and when I sit down to write- it isn't. I am trying to sit down and collect the pieces I have to describe everything I know about what the determiner 'det' does in Kriol, starting with where it fits syntactically into a clause, all the way up to how it is used in discourse, hopefully these various levels of analysis will inform each other. I better keep at it...

Santa Barbara

2007-05-10T17:46:00.000+10:00

Coachella (this post contains swear words...)

2007-05-06T07:34:00.000+10:00

Just to keep you up to date, this last weekend Eyal and I drove south into the desert of California to go to Coachella. Coachella is the name of a very small town near Palm Springs, and also the sight of a yearly music festival, that has over the years taken on epic proportions. This year it was estimated about 40, 000 people would attend, and the headlining acts were Bjork, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Manu Chao, The Roots, Crowded House, Willie Nelson, Air- and most significantly the reunion of Rage Against the Machine.

For those who do not know, RATM are well known for there strong lyrics and activism against, well, the machine(!!), currently cited as the Bush administration, in fact it was suggested that because of the current political climate that they decided to re-unite. There message is a very strong one, powerfully expressed, between songs, the singer Zach de la Roche said:

"A good friend of ours said that if the same laws were applied to U.S. Presidents as were applied to the Nazi's after World War II, then every single one of 'em, every last rich white one of 'em from Truman on would have been hung to death, and shot. And this current administration is no exception. They should be hung, and tried, and shot. As any war criminal should be. But the challenges that we face, they go way beyond administrations. Way beyond elections. Way Beyond every four years of pulling levers. Way beyond that, because this whole rotten system has become so vicious and cruel, that in order to sustain itself, it needs to destroy entire countries, and profit from their reconstruction, in order to survive, and that's not a system that changes every four years, it's a system that we have to break down generation after generation after generation after generation after generation. Wake up."

They have been known to say other things, such as:

"America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you've lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn't belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve".. their biggest hits include songs such as: 'Killing in the name of', 'bombtrack' and 'bulls on parade'. They have also been known to burn and/or invert the US national flag at times.

So perhaps you can imagine this band re-uniting with at least 20- 30 000 young adults, mainly men, late at night... I didn't really like what he was saying about 'killing' or executing leaders, no matter how bad they may be. It doesn't sound all that sophisticated a way to bring about peace... And there was talk, rumours drifting about the 'riot', or even possibly revolution that would be ignited by seeing RATM perform. Clearly the police thought this was a possibility too. The first two days of the festival were very relaxed, being a group of Aussies we were a bit surprised to see so few people dancing, even to Red Hot Chilli Peppers. There was always plenty of room, it was very clean, lots of water around, the restrictions on drugs and alcohol were so tight that very few people looked drug-affected.

There were also some incredible installments of art and performance, truly mind blowing light and lightning and fire displays, beautiful sculptures everywhere and 5 or 6 stages with all kinds of music . Next to the festival grounds there was a huge campsite where about 17 000 people were camping, us included. On the first night at about 4am, we were woken up by a helicopter and huge lights flashing.

You could hear people drumming, singing and dancing somewhere down the other end of the campsite, and then the helicopter: 'This is your first and final notice, DISPERSE or you WILL BE ARRESTED'. It continued to circle low (waking everyone else up) and then eventually flew off, as I suppose the crowd dispersed. Apparently the story goes that a large group of rowdy people had gathered and were playing music and dancing well into the night. Some staff camping nearby complained and asked them to stop, and the rowdy group refused (perhaps rudely?), and the police were called. One person claimed they had been shot with a rubber bullet- but we never heard if this was true...

One Sunday (the RATM was to play) the security was tighter, every single person and their bags was searched as they entered the festival, they took my little plastic fan and two sprayer bottles to fill with water ( it was over 37 degrees Celsius both days!!). They had a policy of not allowing any water bottles in (sometimes if they were unopened you could)- but instead if you collected ten plastic water bottles off the ground and gave them to recycling you got a bottle of water free. We did this with big garbage bags and ended up with about 30 bottles of water!

The RATM performance was incredible, so was Manu Chao and Crowded House who performed before them, as the exhausted crowd was leaving, not a riot in sight, but 30 or so riot police lined up in formation at the exit. Provocatively standing with bullet proof vests, face masks and M16s. I wondered what or who they were there to protect... or if it were really just a show of power in the face of the the anti-establishment music and atmosphere of the festival.

It made me a bit sad think of all the happy teenagers (as I realised they were, here to listen to music), exhausted and scantily clad (due to the heat), forced to walk past the adrenaline pumped, trained and overarmed police. Perhaps the establishment is a little scared...

The night was fairly uneventful, some people started a fire and burnt a tent and danced around and talked and yelled and sung, a few police were around, not many, and as we drove home through the desert the next day with aching muscles, we stopped in a dusty no-where town and ate food cooked by a friendly El Salvadorean woman who spoke no English, it all began to feel like a dream...

American Association for Applied Linguistics

2007-05-04T17:50:00.000+10:00

A week or two ago I went along to the AAAL conference in LA. I have never been to an applied linguistics conference before and I enjoyed it a lot. There wasn't a session when there weren't at least two things I was interested in seeing. I met some interesting people from the Alaskan language centre.
One woman, Kathy Sikorski, was teaching her language Gwich'in Athabascan, up to third year tertiary level, and was just finishing up a Masters in education. It sounds like they have some incredible funding too, which has enabled teachers from remote communities to get their Masters degree, or teach their language at the Fairbanks university.

She told us how she makes a safe classroom environment for people to make mistakes, and that laughter and joking is a way of relaxing everyone and opening them up to trying.

I also sat in on a Colloquium called 'applied linguistics issues in Southern California Native American language restoration or trying not to choke in a sandstorm' where I met more interesting people, teaching language in their community from the Torres Martinez Tribe. They were fantastic teachers and did a brief demonstration of how the immersion classes go. I learnt a few words just sitting there! I also met June and Ernest Siva who told me about the Dorothy Ramon learning centre in Southern California. It is a cultural centre and learning place, with a focus on language, culture, history and arts of the native peoples.

I asked some of the people in the colloquium what had been there experience of academic linguists in their communities. The response was very positive,

'the linguist (Alicia Moretti) came in, and kind of opened the door, just set us up, put us in groups, that's how we got started'
'she formed a bond with us and taught us to teach our language'

(Michelle Morreo, Language Preservation coordinator).

There was also a 3 hour colloquium on 'The misuses of language in the immigration debates', which was also extremely interesting. An Australian, Helen Borland, also came to talk about ' shifting discourses of diversity and the changing dynamics of community language maintenance initiatives in Australia', which was about the language diversity of cities such as Melbourne and the governments changing policies to 'assimilate' more, e.g. John Howard says about wanting immigrants to be 'fairdinkum':

'this is why it's very important that we encourage people from day one to intermingle and to become part of the mainstream and not to remain separate and apart' (radio interview 15/09/06 with Neil Mitchell).

It was a fantastic talk, even though it didn't touch on Aboriginal Australian languages. When I listened to it, I realised John Howard would consider some Aboriginal people less 'Australian' than others, that is to say, they are not white, they don't speak read and write standard Australian English, and as a result they wouldn't be allowed to immigrate into Australia (!!). Borland states that the current trend : 'Integration is a form of neo-assimilation with limited tolerance of cultural and linguistic heritage in family and immediate surrounding heritage community'.

But there were at least 8 other concurrent sessions on, and I enjoyed very much flitting from one place to the next and hearing all these new points of view. I recommend Applied Linguistics Conferences! Lots of activism, lots of stories of experience.

'Did he expose himself to you?'

2007-04-20T11:43:00.000+10:00

As I was walked to the bus-stop yesterday a man sitting on a bench seat lifted his jacket for a second and I was shocked to see that he was masturbating. Two young women were sitting on either side of him, waiting for the bus, completely unaware. I don't think that he meant for anyone to see. I sat down at the neighbouring bench, it was a beautiful sunny day, plenty of people around walking to and from buses. The man was in his late thirties and looked like he might possibly be homeless, or in some kind of state of despair. He didn't look scary, he was balding, overweight with large round glasses.

After a few moments debating in my mind what I should do (I could hear my mum saying 'sometimes not to act is to condone'), I walked over to his bench and said in front of him to the two young women 'I think you should move seats, I just saw that this man masturbating'. One of them got up, and the other ignored me and stayed there sitting with him. The young woman who had gotten up said she was going to get the police, and I sat back down, the man started talking to me, and I realised he was mentally ill. He mumbled repeatedly 'is that what you think is it? are you offended? I don't have any hair..... etc etc etc' more to himself than me.

A security guard came back with the other girl and he asked me if we wanted to press charges of 'indecent exposure', in which case he would get the police. I said that I didn't want to, I just didn't want him to make people uncomfortable in this way and think it was ok. I had wanted someone embarrass him, a man preferably to say to him 'look mate, that just isn't appropriate, put it away'. As we spoke to the security guard ( who seemed reluctant to approach the man) 'he just didn't take his medication today' he suggested, the man got up muttering to himself and walked away.

As soon as I realised that the man was mentally ill, and I realised he was likely not intending to be malicious or inappropriate, I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry that there is nowhere for him to go, no one to look out for him and guide him as to what is appropriate, how to be socially ept. And that the only place we could direct him to would have been a police jail cell.

Santa Barbara is very beautiful and very wealthy, but there are homeless people on every corner of the main street. I suppose they have a bit more of a chance because they may not be battling mental illness and know how to 'beg appropriately' (that sounds awful). Unlike this poor dude. I hope there are people in the community that look out for him. And I hope he never hurts anyone or commits a serious crime. He seemed pretty out of his depth already at the bus stop.

I coulnd't shake the slightly gross, slightly worried feeling that stuck with me all day.

I am interested to know, what would you have done?

Spring Quarter

2007-04-18T11:11:00.000+10:00

I am going to a few different courses this quarter. One with Sandra Thompson on Syntax- the thing about her lectures is that she takes all the jargon, theories and rhetoric of linguistics and elegantly explains it, in clear simple ways.

For example, she very concisely clarified in our last class two things that I had previously not quite got a grip on. One was 'head vs. dependant marking'; Sandy says: either the verb or the nouns (predicate or arguments) will carry the necessary information you need to understand the relationship between the nouns and verb in the sentence. If it is the verb (like most polysynthetic languages) then it is 'head marking'; if it is the noun (e.g case marking) then it is 'dependant marking'. A language can have both, such as Latin; or use alternate means, such as word order. So simple eh?

The second thing was trickier ; 'unergative ' and 'unaccusative'. The first thing that made it difficult to understand was that I didn't know it had to be in a 'split S' system, so it means that where you have the three core arguments, A(agent of a transitive), S(subject of an intransitive) and O (object of a transitive), the S sometimes is marked in the same way as A, and sometimes in the same way as O, in the same language. When it is like A it is called 'unergative' (what awful terminology!!) and when it is like O it is 'unaccusative'.

I am also auditing a course on Corpus Linguistics, using a programming language called R to analyse/manipulate corpora. It is difficult, occasionally I get a glimpse of all the things I could do if I really knew how to use it well, and I feel a bit heady with excitement. But I don't know if that day will ever come.

Finally I am sitting in on a course on Professionalism, how to write a good abstract, apply for grants, publish in journals (all the joys of academia explicated in one short course!!!). The teacher suggested (and I think it is good advice)- to write your grant proposal as if 'for a very smart professor of music'. This in itself is a good reason to know what 'unergative' means, because if any professor of music ever comes asking (having received grant proposals to review), I will be ready.

Two things the lecturer pointed out about submitting an abstract: there DO exist reviewers who, on a bad (or maybe even good) day will reject an abstract based on the authors using data as a singular noun, i.e. it should be the data show, and not the data shows. I wonder how they would feel about the datum shows.... or the datums show (but then that does sound a lot like day-time shows..). I had no idea about this. She also told us that to split an infinitive could have the same result, so never write: to clearly show how the data patterns...

I also came across something from the same lecturer (Marianne Mithun) that I admire very much. When writing an article she always cites who specifically provided her with the data she is using. This means at the beginning of every example she said who had spoken the language, full name and place where that person identifies as being from. She then uses their initials in brackets for further uses of the data they provided. It reads very nicely and gives the kind of credit to speakers of these indigenous languages that needs to be acknowledged. This is a practise I have never seen in Australia and would like to start doing myself. All of the speakers I have worked with freely give their permission to use their name when citing the data ( it is not like usual discourse recording practises).

One last thing, in a recent LISO talk a professor suggested there be a round of questions at the end, JUST for graduate students (of which we were many). This is a very good idea. I think all conferences, workshops, seminars, if there is time, should have a call for questions at some point from the students in the audience. Maybe just so we get used to asking things like, BTW I enjoyed your talk, but could you clarify 'unaccusative'?

"Public Safety overrides the issue of Free Speech"

2007-04-13T16:18:00.000+10:00

Reading through the news I came across this BBC report "Australia Censors Terrorism Books":

"Present laws restrict the publication or dissemination of materials which promote, incite or instruct people to carry out terrorist acts.

The amended law would mark a significant extension of censorship powers, outlawing books and films deemed to speak out in favour of terrorist violence.

The new law would be targeted at removing the material from publication, rather than punishing its authors, and customs officers would be given much broader powers to confiscate books and films being imported into the country".

It is very scary to have a government that bans books and media from their public. It makes me feel much less secure and much more like I am in some 1984-esque world.

When I went to the ABC to see if this is big news in Australia, I didn't see anything about it, but headlining was:

"Howard Calls for HIV Immigration Ban"

Prime Minister John Howard says people who are HIV positive should not be allowed to migrate to Australia.

I hope that both of these things are a sure sign that John Howard is on his way out. I hope that his views and policies are becoming so ridiculously dated that he is inadvertently un-electing himself. Lets hope so...

"As the Australian Society of Authors put it: "We can't refute what we can't read".

But the government has dismissed these concerns, saying public safety overrides the issue of free speech. "

Scary stuff...

Samia's Blog

2007-04-13T06:50:00.000+10:00

I am adding a link to the blog of a friend of mine, Samia: Fulbright Journey to Turtle Island. She is also here in the USA for a year on a Fulbright scholarship. Samia is researching a PhD in 'inter generational trauma' which addresses the enormous discrepancy between the health of indigenous peoples and that of non-indigenous people in developed countries (e.g Aboriginal Australians on average live 17 years less than other Australians). She is doing this through digital story telling, but also doing some incredible healing work as she moves around the US, and she has has been fantastic in introducing me to indigenous peoples where-ever we go (Arizona, California).

As a result of these connections, I have been invited to give a talk at AILDI (American Indian Language Development Institute) in June, which I am really looking forward to. Check out Samia's blog for lots of grass roots American Indian stories, projects and links.

Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-13T05:33:00.000+10:00

I read yesterday that Kurt Vonnegut passed away, age 84. A few weeks a go I read a book of his called 'A man without a Country', which I believe was very much in his style of humour, black humour, slightly vulgar and beautiful human and sensitive. I read that he had said: 'that a tangible purpose of art is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit.'

Reading his book, 'A man without a Country', which is short and easy to read, made me accept somethings about the USA that I had been not really daring to think about. Mainly that it has changed a lot since I was here last five years ago. I spent 3 months as a young backpacker around the West coast. I enjoyed it very much, so many beautiful places, interesting friendly people and cultural diversity and richness (SO many people!). This time I have had a harder time, finding the simple beauty, connecting with the beautiful interesting people (I know there are many!) and cultural diversity seems to be getting a little shameful and out-dated.

Though there are masses of contradictions to anything I can think of commenting about the US, one particularly elegant example is the completely unselfconscious and natural bi-lingualism in the state of California. As I approach the supermarket check-in I notice the 'check out' person moves effortlessly from Spanish greeting ( perfect accent- she must have Mexican heritage I think), back to English (perfect American accent, perfect subtle judgements who is Spanish, who is English- she must have learnt the two simultaneously).... you find the same thing everywhere. On the advertisements, at the police station, the corner store, the telephone to the gas company or Health Insurance, such a smooth unassuming transition from one language to another. But the interesting thing is how it goes quietly unacknowledged.

Spanish is not an 'official language' of California (English is its only official language) except that a good deal of the population identify more closely with Spanish that English. So perhaps it is out of necessity all services are offered in both languages, not by mandate.

I found this on Wikipedia:

"On May 19, 2006, the United States Senate voted to make English the national language of the United States. According to the bill, written by Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), the federal government will no longer provide multilingual communications and services, except for those already guaranteed by law. Shortly after the approval of the Inhofe amendment, the Senate voted for another bill by Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), according to which English is the "common unifying language of the United States", but mandated that nothing in that declaration "shall diminish or expand any existing rights" regarding multilingual services. The impact of these bills is not immediately clear."

Further to this in January 2002 the Bush government (administration?) implemented the 'No Child Left Behind' policy. Among other things this states that all enrolled school children's details: home phone number, address and parents names must be provided (without informing the student or parent) to military recruiters. Parents may 'opt out' of this by filling out a form and submitting it to the school- it means the children's details will also be withheld from Colleges and Job recruiters. The name 'no child left behind' possibly comes from the United States Army Rangers 'no man left behind' (most of this is lifted from Wikipedia and the NCLB website).

Another scary thing about it, is that included in the law was the 'boy scouts of America equal access act'. The bill states that NO school receiving Department of Education funds:

shall deny equal access or a fair opportunity to meet to, or discriminate against, any group officially affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America ... that wishes to conduct a meeting within that designated open forum or limited public forum, including denying such access or opportunity or discriminating for reasons based on the membership or leadership criteria or oath of allegiance to God and country of the Boy Scouts of America

The Boy Scouts of America have had a bit of trouble getting 'equal access' to public forum's, because they believe and actively educate their young scouts that 'atheists' and 'homosexuals' are morally and in other ways 'unclean', and therefor cannot join the scouts. They also, obviously, exclude girls and women.

The act basically focuses on teaching the children to past tests on reading, writing and math, and the school funding is based on the outcomes, in some places this has produced statistics that look like a positive change. There has been plenty of controversy because it often means cutting back on other subjects (no room for languages other than English, which the tests are conducted in). I am not being all that objective in my overview- but I find it shocking.

These kinds of changes in the USA in the last five years are what provoked Kurt Vonnegut out of retirement to write his last book; and returning after five years, (the war in Iraq started in 2003), I feel like things have shifted fundamentally here.

But Kurt Vonnegut was onto to it when he said: 'that a tangible purpose of art is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit.' He was a brilliant writer, and an amazing American that did this very well.

Hebrew

2007-04-06T03:34:00.000+10:00

I am back to the kindergarten of language learning in Israel. Everytime I visit Israel I am surprised to find that there are a couple of words I remember, that the fricatives are getting a little easier, that I can distinguish words. I have an ideal environment to learn. Most of the people I meet speak English fairly well ( so i am not too isolated) but much prefer to speak Hebrew, and almost always slip back to it quickly (so I have a lot of motivation). I also have a new nephew who is two years old and not all that tolerant of someone not speaking Hebrew. He is at the age where he mimics everything everyone says to him, and I feel a bit self conscious about not confusing him, but of still be able to interact.

I have tried to learn languages in two different ways: by studying them at school in a class room (a very little of Japanese, Indonesian and French); and by living in a place with the speakers of the language and trying to assimilate (Spanish, Kriol). One interesting thing is the difference in what you learn. For example in Hebrew I realised that I am learning all of the discourse particles first (aren't they meant to be the hardest....!?), mainly because of their very high frequency and rich, versatile expression. So, for example in Hebrew, I don't know how to say 'where is the bathroom', or 'my name is Sophie', but I do know how to say, shalom, manishma? achla, sababa, tov, tov me'od, yalla, mammash, kilo (sp?) etc. (hello, how are you? good, good, good, very good, mah, really, like etc etc).

I can understand a few restricted things like 'I want', 'where is', 'what is', 'more', 'thankyou' etc. But when I learnt in a classroom, I got onto patterns of grammar much quicker, and patterns of discourse much slower. It still surprises me somehow that people actually speak other languages! Eyal spends a lot of time translating (around the dinner table, on the phone, listening to music), and it is especially difficult not being able to read or accurately get a visual image of what the word looks like in my head ( I still do it in English). But it is exciting to be learning a language again and also remembering what it is like to not be a speaker of the dominant language around.

I am going to go to a colloquium now on a 'multiple grammar hypothesis'. Should be good.

Southern Israel

2007-04-02T20:10:00.000+10:00

Last week we took a couple of days and drove down to the most Southern point in Israel, to the Red Sea in Eilat. As we drove south we drove alongside the border with Egypt, which is a small wire fence, about a metre or so high. It is kind of disconcerting to see the reality of imposed ideologies. By this I mean Egypt (and Jordan for that matter, Lebanon and Syria) all look exactly the same as Israel one side of the border to the other. All the plants and trees, ants and snails make no distinction- unaware they might cross from one country to the other everyday. But the way we perceive Egypt, as opposed to Israel, or Jordan or Syria, it is hard to imagine that they look very similar, that it is all just people going about their daily thing. The rivers run through them, the wind blows across them.

I suppose it makes me sad because in reality these borders seem to be uncrossable ( some really are- movement between Israel and Syria, Israel and Lebanon is basically impossible due to political constraints). But technically Jordan, Israel and Egypt are on moderately friendly terms. But we couldn't go to Egypt ( to Sinai were the beaches are better) because the Israeli government issued a warning against travelling to Sinai due to intelligence of terrorist attacks (against Israelis). Sitting on the beach in Eilat ( beautiful snorkelling) you could see Jordan- the city of Aqaba across the water.

Maybe it is because I am Australian, but borders kind of weird me out. And borders, on land that you can' t cross because someone said so, is especially weird. We went all the way ( it isn't far) to the border crossing with Egypt and looked longingly to the other side for a few moments before driving back to Eilat.

Now we are back in Tel Aviv- tomorrow we fly back the USA (together this time!).

Geekiness

2007-03-27T01:23:00.000+10:00

There should be something in the definition of 'geekiness' that includes laughing out loud while reading cartoons that are funny because they use the technical jargon of your discipline to analyse something irrelevant.

Here are two good examples that I am slightly addicted to. One is from HeiDeas blog analysing Simpson's talk with linguistic terminology, click here.

The other example is a cartoon a friend who studies physics directed me to, lots of the jokes are over my head, but still funny, click here.

mah

ELAN (back to Discourse..)

2007-03-27T00:54:00.000+10:00

On another note, I have been doing some transcribing using ELAN, which once someone shows you how to make it work and set it up, is fantastic for transcribing natural conversation data. I had found this a bit of a problem for at least two reasons. One was simply getting a program that would link the text to the sound file so that other people (or later myself) could easily and quickly verify the validity of the transcription and ( this is much more important I think in an endangered or lesser spoken language); the second thing is that I wanted the transcription at the end to be 'readable' to be at least partly presentable.

The reason that this was causing problems is because, say I want a line for every Intonation Unit (IU) in Ritharrngu transcription (this includes back channeling, like 'yeah' 'ahuh' etc.), and then for every IU I want to have the Kriol translation as given to me by the speakers at the time we all sat down again together and transcribed, then of course a Ritharrngu gloss- and maybe even an English free translation- add to this any notes ( door opens, music starts, person leaves) or meta-language analysis ( e.g sometimes a speaker may insist on a word that was said and I hear something very different on the recording etc), codeswitching etc. it becomes a mess quickly.

I know because I tried it, using Word ( as taught at UNM), which works well for English, or Spanish, or any well known language- but doesn't handle my data prettily, I also tried using CLAN, which connects the text to sound well, but I couldn't make it good for making a good transcript I could easily search and/or present to others. I also tried Transcriber, but again it had positives, but also many bugs that became tedious.

So! ELAN allows you to connect text to a sound file, and to create tiers, so i have it set up to have 3 speakers, all connected to the sound file ( 3 tiers) and then each of these has three tiers connected to it (Kriol, Gloss and English). Another tier (connected to the sound file) for meta data etc. The good thing is that you can exports any parts of it you want into pretty much anything (though apparently not easily into Tool Box- this is no dictionary making tool)- and it looks pretty!

PARADISEC has lots of other good links too.

Tel Aviv

2007-03-27T00:45:00.000+10:00

Here a few photos of Tel Aviv, an interesting mix of 'Europe' feeling and 'Middle East' feeling (and something just of its own!). The beach promenade in Tel Aviv has the old city of Jaffa at one end (you can see it in the distance) and modernises into the Sheraton, bars and clubs as you move along the beach...

Northern Israel

2007-03-27T00:10:00.000+10:00

Over the weekend, Eyal and I drove into the far north of Israel. Last time I was here there wasn't much possibility of this because of the war with Hezbollah/Lebanon . Apart from a car with bullet holes all down the side there was no sign of war. It was beautiful, peaceful, rolling hills and valleys, yellow, purple and red wildflowers and old gnarled olive trees and fruit orchards. We drove through Druze villages, ate some sensational baklava and knafe (sp?), which is goats cheese and honey sweet pastry, and drove up into the Golan heights. We stopped at an old bunker overlooking Syria (which looked just like Israel (!!)) and then hired a bike with a friend and rode around a bird sanctuary looking at cranes and pelicans in the valley...

The cancer test results (see below) came back fine, and we have been not quite celebrating but certainly savouring the sweetness of a life relatively free of worries. We stayed the night in the north in a Kibbutz with a good friend, the big eucalypts and the sound of running water reminded me of being home in Elands.

Anyone know what to call this animal in English?

Discourse -y Stuff

2007-03-22T22:45:00.000+11:00

I have started writing up the ALS 2006 paper I did on 'det' ( a determiner in Kriol), and then furthered at the New Mexico 'High Desert Linguistics Society' conference. One thing I would never have thought of to do before that I have found has interesting results, is to look at things from a discourse analysis perspective. In this case, I had already looked at and noted an unusually high frequency of occurance in discourse (naturally occuring conversation), but another interesting thing came up, which is to look at its distribution when it is a 'core argument' (subject or direct object) of the verb- (no keep reading!). The interesting thing is that at first glance at least the 'det' Noun construction ( I mean like det fish, det Sophie etc) seems to occur the majority of the time as a subject of a transitive verb, and almost never in the other positions... but this needs a closer investigation.

I am really enjoying learning about new ways of analysing language in its functional context, though I am not a complete convert, I think there is a lot to be said for grammar 'emerging' from , or at least being heavily influenced by how the language is used when people speak it. By this I mean that there are other constraints on language, dyamic ones, other than the grammatical ones, such as how much information a person likes to process at a given time, how much breath you have to say each part etc etc.

One thing I had never thought of before is breaking down conversations into 'Intonation Units' (IU's) as you write them down. This solves my prior problems of 'what is a clause' ( try look at a conversation transcript and find one!), which becomes less relevant as IU's can be a standardised way of quantifying (e.g. it is 350 IU's) and analysing the language data. IU's are relatively easy to identify (a single intonation contour..), though I did take a semester long course to try and get the hang of it...but the interesting thing is is that they appear to be 'universal' across languages (something to do with length of breath? 'thinking for speaking?').

I have learnt so many things since I arrived here and I want to tell anyone who is interested about it all. So if you have any questions (baba?) I will do my best to mine out some references and tell you..

Unfortunately the last ALS (2006) was a bit difficult as N died the day before it started, and it was all a bit of a blur, but I just submitted an abstract to ALS 2007 titled ' Reference in Spoken Discourse in the Ngukurr Aboriginal Community: The Status of Proper Names'- which seems a hot topic these days (cf. Garde, et. al), and I am really enjoying researching it, I think NJ would have too.

Israel?

2007-03-21T00:08:00.000+11:00

I realise perhaps a little too much has changed for anyone to make the jump from studying in the USA to desperately trying to reach Israel (fairly often!). The key to this lies in me being fairly newly and very happily engaged :) to an Israeli. We had been friends for some years and due to an interesting and unusual sequence of events met up again after many years and fell in love- proceeded to take the world by storm (Australia-Israel-Vienna-Croatia-Israel-NYC-New Mexico..) we are now fairly settled in Santa Barbara, CA.

And by 'safe is Israel' (see below)- I mean despite from the occasional war, I feel very safe and well taken care of here. And it is easy to feel I have a family (Eyal's) and a home to come back to :). There is something to do with feeling safe which just means you know you will always have someone to eat with, and a hug whenever you need it; somethings I haven't always found in the USA.

Transit

2007-03-20T22:17:00.000+11:00

You just never know when you are going to end up in Turkey, Istanbul, like I did yesterday. It started on Friday morning at about 4 am when I received an automated message saying my flight to Tel Aviv (via NYC) had been cancelled. I called and they rerouted me via Cleveland Ohio- but that was just the beginning....

When I landed in Cleveland and made a mad dash for the connecting flight to NYC, I found it, along with all other flights in and out of NY had been cancelled at least for the day and that they had me on another flight leaving Monday night. This was on Friday evening. In Cleveland, in the snow. And just like all the other sweet naive minds stranded at the airport, I thought I could find a way to make a flight to Tel Aviv- catch a grey hound bus- hire a car, catch the train, get on an earlier flight ( just get the hell out of Cleveland). But it was not to be, and hours, on the phone standing in long long lines, tears arguments etc. later. I was still in Cleveland in the snow, now very late Friday night, with hundreds of other stranded frustrated travellers. I stayed up all night trying to get through to the airline to re-book a flight on the phone (they told us this was our only hope), thousands of other people were doing the same, and at 8am the next morning I fell asleep the phone still on my chest ( I never did get to speak to an operator!).

The airport re-opened the next day, and along with a bunch of familiar faces we all waited in the mayhem, trying to get a flight out of Cleveland, I manged to get on standby for two flights, and dance between the two gates, but eventually the attendant told me I had a 'very very slim' chance of getting on, they had three pages of standby- and no spare seats.

At this point I got in another long queue ( just for the fun of it) and by some miracle landed a consultant who really tried to help me (Eyal had a test for cancer the next day and I was desperate to be there to go to the hospital with him). She cancelled my flight to Tel Aviv, rebooked me to Chicago while I simultaneously bought a new ticket over the internet from Chicago to Tel Aviv via Istanbul (Eyal was online and helped me do it). I had to run like a lunatic to make the flight out to Chicago (also overbooked), when I arrived it turned out the pilot was (not) coming in from NYC. They did by some miracle find us another crew, and I very happily landed in the Windy City :) late that night. Where it felt so calm and peaceful.

I had re sharpened my very tired and hungry wits by then (like any good stranded traveller) to ask at every opportunity what the airline could do to help me. They put me up in a very nice luxury hotel, bought all my food and payed for a taxi. When I finally flew out of Chicago the next day to Istanbul, I felt overwhelmingly grateful- and only slightly nervous that we were an hour late and I had to make my connection to Tel Aviv.

But it all ended happily (groggily?) and I arrived in Israel yesterday after three sleepless days, hungry and just a bit high from living off adrenaline and little else :)- as my mum put it : 'thank god you are safely in Israel' ;)

Israel is overcast and peaceful. I am more severely jetlagged than I have ever been, but it is kind of pleasant because I have the luxury to eat and sleep as I please. Not more planes to catch.
:)
Sophie

Talk

2007-02-13T14:08:00.000+11:00

I always sit there in conferences sometimes not understanding what is being said (or how it is relevant or interesting), and some other times having a burning question or suggestion and kind of hoping that someone else will bring it up in the discussion afterwards- or that I will get to speak to whoever it was afterwards and ask.

In some ways coming here, to the US helps me get into perspective that actually it can be really important to speak up yourself. Not just for your own sake to understand what is going on, but also because it gives people are chance to 'pool their cognition' and look at things in a way they might not have before. I have always excused myself silently thinking, 'well they must have already thought of that- or maybe it is not a relevant question', and I think that this is almost always true. But sometimes it isn't. I think there should be mandatory graduate student questions at every talk, bring in the silly questions, see what other people think is relevant that you didn't, catch academics (including ourselves?! are postgrad students academics?) on opaque technical terms that confuse rather than explain the issue. We must rise up and rebel :) hehehehehe.

I suppose in way this explains in part the change in title: finding a voice. This has also been inspired on a more serious note on two important people to me passing away in the last year or so. And whatever there stories are, were and continue to be is now in some way my responsibility to express, and by withholding it I am denying them a voice too. All the women and men that have lived before me and influenced me. If I believe some of the things they said were important then have a right to be heard through me. You know? I think it is important to think of yourself as the current voice for eons of thinking and sharing and communicating that has culminated up to this point through all the things you have learned. You can't afford not to Speak Up!

Finding a Voice

2007-01-22T19:31:00.000+11:00

It's about time I started writing again. Lots of things have happened and lots of things have changed. It feels like time to get back on the ball, and start thinking and writing and interacting with people again, start speaking again.

I am in California visiting the University of California in Santa Barbara, I just arrived and I am starting to feel the peacefulness of having some rhythm to my life return.

I am still studying linguistics :)

Loss

2006-09-02T03:40:00.000+10:00

My baba (NJ) passed away suddenly and since she was/is such an integral part of my work and life in Ngukurr I couldn't not write about it, on the other hand I couldn't write about it either. But I have decided now that I should. Because it illustrates a point- at least to myself. That there is no possibility of doing this kind of work without being faced with huge ethical, political and emotional challenges. Dealing with N's death isn't a challenge- it is a change in the world, a huge shift from my perspective from having her in it, interacting with everything and now it is no loner that way.

But one of projects we did together in May was translating the story of Rheumatic Heart Fever into Kriol ( conceptually and literally) so that Kriol speaking people with the disease would have better access to the information they needed to understand the treatments offered by whitefellas and how to manage it. It seems to me an awful irony that my baba should pass away so young- in a way that might have been prevented if there was more information around and accessible on how to manage her illness(es)... and that there is some kind of insidious war going on here with the nastiest weapons being the lack of access to, firstly education and also professional legal and health assistance, defeating even someone like my baba who was extremely well educated.

Or even the acknowledgement that people who come from the Kriol speaking world ( among others I'm sure) actually don't truly have access to these services and the cause of that issue is not being honestly addressed. There really needs to be much much more open dialogue between the indigenous people in communities like Ngukurr and the wider Australian population, and I am sure many people agree-but I feel like unless people are actually actively trying to engage in that in a meaningful way- really trying to do it, really trying to listen it just won't ever happen. I feel like it is the mode of this dialogue that is important, that there isn't an easy way for people to communicate without feeling confused or shy or just not being able to get a message across or interpret the one they are hearing.
N knew that and she was working towards remedying it, and now that I feel like she has given me some direction, I want to work at it too.

Reading through my blog I can see right from the start she was there with me in her way. Listening to me, including me, teaching me, it wasn't really until the last two trips to Ngukurr that she became explicitly so. That we discussed in detail the work I was doing ( we were doing), issues with Kriol, interpreting giving a voice to speakers of endangered languages and minority groups and understanding cross-cultural communication from both perspectives.

I have many beautiful memories of sitting many times with her watching as she talked about things and made necklaces, or cooked kangaroo tails, or painted or typed up ideas. She was always teaching me things, asking me things, directing me.. I suppose most importantly she was proud of me. She told me would come to my graduation - and only a month or so before she died her and I were planning on her coming to Brisbane to the awards dinner ( because she had been as much a part of my work as my supervisors).

I feel like she just got me ( and the language centre for that matter) off to a good start and then left us- much too soon.

It made the ALI (LINGQ) conference difficult- and since then- so much of the data I have was from working with her. Most of it is written, not audio but it is still difficult to bring myself to go through it as thoroughly as I need to. I miss her. I wish she was here with me, or at least that she would be there in Ngukurr when I go back, that I could ring her up and tell her about things here in New Mexico, about the languages and the people.

So thanks Baba for the many many years of tireless work, I know I wasn't the first linguist you trained, you will continue to influence and inspire people and ideas for a very long time yet to come.

Blog Death

2006-08-18T02:25:00.000+10:00

:) I am New York, I arrived here via Israel, Croatia and Austria a couple of days ago. I am flying to New Mexico today. Everything is a whirlwind of amazing. The good news is I am very happy, the bad news (?) is that I have decided to retire my blog and return to group mails, at least for the moment. Mainly just to reach my friends and family who actually I have noticed rarely read this blog (except for you lovely linguists!) and it is hard to write everything down in two places!

So look out for my emails ( from a gmail account). And please get in touch if I have not received any and you are interested in reading about my adventures.

xx
Sophie

July

2006-07-02T10:23:00.000+10:00

Did you notice it is July already?! I am still trying to get my head around it. Events seems to be unfolding without much regard to how much I can handle at any given time! I am at my mother's house (eating lots of good food!) and trying to write a paper for ALS (Australian Linguistics Society) conference coming up on the 7th July.

I am trying to write something interesting about the word 'det' in Kriol historically derived from 'that' in English, the noteworthy thing about it being the frequency with which it turns up in discourse, and that it can precede proper nouns. I have been reading through trying to decide if I should call it an 'article' (like a, or the), or an adnominal demonstrative (like a recognitional one, 'that one (you know who I mean- after Himmelmann)- and occasionally forgetting what the difference is between the two anyway. Is there a meaningful distinction?!.. is it something to do with personalised shared world knowledge as opposed to general shared world knowledge? It is funny there is a demonstrative attested in a few languages that is meant to have a 'discourse' function, with a meaning something like 'I think you can know who I mean'- but I haven't (so far) much evidence for it in the actual substrate languages of Kriol!

Anyway, enough of that. Armidale is cold, though the sun still shines- and the people are friendly... only a few days until drive to Brisbane to go to this conference- but most importantly to see Wamut! Yay! I don't think we have ever hung out together out of Ngukurr, I am looking forward to it, and then. well. it is just a matter of weeks until I make my way to the northern hemisphere and make a life there... adventures abound.
:)

Emali

2006-06-16T14:20:00.000+10:00

Here she is! Amy and Gavin's new baby girl.. I spent a few days with them at the coast last weekend. She is an absolutely beautiful and unbelievably peaceful baby.. talk about domestic bliss! Amy and Gavin are all aglow :)

New England National Park

2006-06-13T16:30:00.000+10:00

I spent the Queen's birthday public holiday walking in this beautiful rainforest, it is about 1600 metres above sea level- the air was so cold and fresh and exhilarating! And you could see all the way to the sea...

and to the sea...

2006-06-07T13:16:00.000+10:00

Last weekend I was in Newcastle on the cold and windy beach with Ivy and Mel- catching up on some good performances and good food which Newcastle always seems to offer..
Me and Amanda

Amanda and her love...
Parry st. never changes

and the beautiful Pacific ocean...

New South Wales

2006-06-06T19:59:00.000+10:00

I have been enjoying being back on the East coast, even if I am only here long enough to sort out what I have been doing the last few months and prepare for what I want to do in the coming months! Most importantly I have been home (to Elands) to visit, well Elands-! But also friends and family... here are a few photos, starting with good old Ellenborough Falls

Watching the sun set with Lizzie

Jumping fences..
Aspen at Elands, owner of 'Aspen's at Elands'.. the cafe with the best view in the Southern hemisphere ( and the most gorgeous owner) ..

New worlds

2006-05-20T16:29:00.000+10:00

I left Ngukurr in a hurry when I realised all of a sudden the river wasn't going to go down quick enough for me to drive out and there were very few options other than to hitch-hike out in a plane. Luckily that all went smoothly- though the pilot warned me before I go on that if they turned out to have extra passengers waiting in the next community (Minyerri) they would have to leave me there. I was relieved to not be trying to find a way out of Minyerri.

Katherine always seems like a luxurious oasis after Ngukurr and I spent a whole after noon just enjoying drinking nice water from the tap and considering all the things I would buy in the supermarket! It was a culture shock I knew it would be and I tried to take it very slowly, it was made easy by all the wonderful linguist (and other) mob there. It took me a few days to be able to ring everyone up and talk and tell them I had arrived. I suppose it took me a few days to arrive back. At first I missed Ngukurr and everyone terribly, but I have been on a few adventures since then that have kept me busy..

After a day or so lying by a pool in Darwin I flew to Sydney, had breakfast with Nic, Ruben and Marlo bought the most beautiful dress ever then flew to Armidale- went to uni unpacked all my gear said hello, fell asleep for 13hours and then got up and flew to Brisbane (via Sydney) where I stayed a a big beautiful hotel in the city and spent a day at an 'orientation' seminar with the 20 or so other Fulbright scholars. It was actually much more relaxed and comfortable than I though it would be. The main message seemed to be that they were there to give administrative and cultural support and could everyone please give some media attention to the Fulbright commission and raise it's profile, but other than that the scholarship is completely no strings attached, we are free to change our research focus at any time... The other students were (of course) extremely interesting and interested people.

Thursday night was the awards night and my parents and supervisors and I put on our finery and had a wonderful evening, eating fantastic food, watching some good performances and being substantially photographed with all kinds of VC's (vice chancellors), ministers and important diplomats. And I spent most of the time feeling well cherished, honoured and slightly overwhelmed by the company I was in. I stayed up very late talking and drinking and winding down...

Since I arrived back in Armidale I have had a good 15 hour sleep and slowly expanding my sense of self back into my own home. Feeling everything out carefully and considering everything slowly. It is good to be home.

Peidei

2006-05-04T15:25:00.000+10:00

Today, being Thursday, is the day I pay language 'informants' (someone should think up a better word than that! clients?) I have worked with in the last week. Now that I have been here for a while I can see some people have started to depend on the income it brings them working with me.

This was made very clear today when I was transcribing a telephone conversation that I had opportunistically ( and actually accidently) recorded, I was sitting there as usual with Yapang ( my sister) and my two sons, and every one started laughing (actually this happens to me a lot) explaining to me what had been said in the phone call, basically : ' I have given away my keycard to 'long-grass' somebody and I have to wait for my language money na- I don't know who has my keycard, maybe they are spending all of my pension, but I have language money now to buy food, luckily I can still buy food with the language money'. Pobala. It makes me feel bad when I say really have to transcribe and check today I can't keep recording everyday, but I am running out of my grant money myself... Everyday I go to the shop and buy something/anything so that I can withdraw the maximum cash allowed from eftpos, I do this everyday and then by the end of the week I have accumulated enough to pay everyone I have worked with.

The exchange of money is usually a clandestine affair- the worst possible thing would be to call to someone across the shop- tell them you have money to give them and then wave it and hand it over. Anyone who has lived/worked in a community will laugh just considering this. Today I had to go into the (council) office, a minute or so later my friend followed me, he signs the form, I scrunch up the money and hand it to him so none is showing, and then we leave separately.

It is done in this way because here in Ngukurr, family (and pretty much everyone is family in some capacity), or actually anyone asking for money if they need something and see you have more than them, or some to spare is perfectly acceptable, and what is even more surprising to whitefellas is that people most often give whatever they have ( or at least some of it). And this, of course is exactly what happens. Some munanga find it disconcerting and confusing in two ways, why everyone is always asking everyone else for money ( or food, or a lift in your car, or whatever else) - and secondly why everyone ( except for munanga) always give it (or almost always). And since munanga almost always have more than everyone else (money food cars etc.) it is especially confusing and exhausting, until maybe you realise this 'humbug' is a form of interaction.

I have been thinking about the idea of giving away everything you have all the time, it certainly gives you incredible freedom because anywhere you go you can ask for the things you need from the people around you and you don't have to be constantly concerned with gathering all your stuff and taking it everywhere and guarding it, actually it cuts out a lot of complications.

I have been thinking all sorts of things about this, about family and maybe 'spiritual' relationships being even more important than actually staying alive and healthy , being well fed and comfortable yourself... Which of course is my way of thinking. If my family ask me for money of course I will give it to them, but I would be surprised if they asked me everyday, or greeted me often by saying 'anything?' ( you got anything to give?)- but then I suppose I believe that if they asked me for it they had considered and that I would have considered the importance of looking after myself first ( and my family)- so asking me for money if I subsist on a pension and care for many kids, would seem unlikely unless you really really need it.

This has happened to me once, and that once changed a lot of things. This trip to Garma that had many interesting points, one of them being on the way back finally arriving at Mataranka after a bit of an ordeal (with the broken car)- anyway being very tired and very hungry and not up to unpacking the car to find some money, I asked my Mami ( an old lady on the pension) for some money to buy some food. I tell you she was very very very pleased, first she handed me ten dollars, then took it back and gave me fifty... and she squished up my face and told me to buy myself lots of things. My mami I am sure is a generally very generous person, but I think in this act I understood something important- namely that taking is a reciprocal action, it really solidified our relationship in that she finally had an opportunity to support and protect me in a way I that I had been able to do for her for a long time (anyany main mami).

It is such a good feeling being able to share what you have with someone else you care about when they have little or nothing, and up until this point I had maintained my 'individual' little bubble of a world, taking care of myself all of the time, never needing 'things' from other people, ( except of course love and interaction), but no material things, like food, money or a place to sleep. And in this way I had cut myself out of the loop. Now I had some more clues about how to build more reciprocity into my relationship with my mami and other Ngukurr family.

I have just been thinking about that book the 'City of Joy' when starving people spend their money on rice to offer to the Gods and new clothes to dance at a festival that honours those Gods. That some sort of spiritual union is more important that actually subsisting and being nourished; that living is more important than life.

Let me just reiterate that I don't think munanga culture is better or worse than blakbala culture, but it is interesting to think about differences, but put in perspective the differences are few compared to the vast amount that we all together share.

May Already...

2006-05-04T00:04:00.000+10:00

After all the excitement I am finally feeling like I have found my feet- and now it is time to start pulling everything together, double checking and getting ready to go back. Of course, now it is so close, I really want to stay for a while longer, spend a bit more time with some of the Old people, get a car across the river so we can go on some trips ( that one to Kookaburra Creek is the only time I have left Ngukurr for this whole time!). Actually I am coming up to the longest stretch of time I have ever stayed in Ngukurr without going into Katherine, apart from getting used to 'Ngukurr store food', (where you can only buy flour in ten kilo sacks, a box of cereal is nearly nine dollars, and when they get eggs or fresh milk in everyone talks about it for days!), it is not too bad. The main problem is going to be the culture shock of leaving. The suddenness of cars everywhere, people everywhere, mobile phones broadband internet, media and 'stuff', everywhere! Talking of leaving I really don't know how I am going to get out! The river is still up too high to drive across, though I could catch the store boat across, but then I will be stuck at Roper Bar with no car (and a 300k drive to Katherine). Or maybe there will be a plane flying ( though they seem harder to come across now)....

All the pressure of going to live so far away is heavy at the moment, I can't really justify a twenty thousand k round trip back here when I find 'oops! I forgot to elicit such and such' or 'did he mean this or this??'. I have been showing some Old people where I am going on the world map, and they purse their lips and say 'tut-tut too far!', 'how long will it take you in a plane?'.. but then when I explain how big the plane is- this is no three seater plane with one propeller and windows that open ( I can't imagine 14 hours in that!), everyone apart from my mami F doesn't like the sound of it. My mami on the other hand, I can see it in her eyes- she is an adventurer and I bet she would love to come with me if she could, just to have a look, you know? She tells me stories sometimes about when she was young, canoeing down the river in a dug-out canoe (I wish I could do that with her)...

It is such a challenge to really enjoy what you are doing in the moment and not be anticipating the future, I feel like everything until I submit my thesis, is already kind of determined, I just have to follow through and breathe life into it. But then again (as my baba N would say)- you just never know what adventures lie around the corner...

Legends of Ngukurr

2006-04-30T17:26:00.000+10:00

I don't mean legends as in 'stories' I mean legends as in 'very cool people' and I tell you this Wamut here, my san, 'me' a.k.a Greg is one of those. Last night we went down to the community 'disco' to check it out. This requires some exaplaining, the disco is a large tin kind of shed (a recreation centre), massive really, with a concrete basketball court and a stage... often on weekends a 'dj' or someone collects some music they like (think Boys II Men, dance music), and blast it and tens (maybe a hundred..?) people come and sit around and listen. The real show starts with the dancing, beginning with the little kids, who can shake it, I tell you! The boys do kind of break dancing with incredible skill, the crowd ( of teenagers to adults and babies) cheer and whistle, but mainly sit around the edges looking- so the whole basketball court is open for dancers to 'perform'- as the night moves on some of the older kids get up and start to dance, with really incredible moves, they run into the centre, dance for maybe 1 minute and then run off and hide behind their friends. The standard of dancing is pretty high ( it is defintiely a performance!)

Well last night, our very own Wamut took off his glasses, shook himself and did the equivalent of jumping off a cliff- he got up and danced in front of all those people! En im sabi dens gud boi!! The crowd went wild, all the women around me were going crazy, yelling and whistling, and someone put the spotlight on him ( you have to remember everyone else was sitting down on the ground, maybe only two other people were dancing), Greg and I were the only two munanga ( whitefellas) there, anyway those two mintues were absolutely electric- everyone was cheering so hard ( to see a white person that can really dance!) and then like everyone else he stopped and stepped back into the crowd, nonchalant.

I wish I could adequately explain it- it was like by doing this he stepped over some invisible boundary (maybe there is a fourth 'space' or law, along with the Church, Tradition and Council- the Disco!), and now he has become a legend in Ngukurr. And I couldn't be prouder to call him my san!

Go Wamut!

More Photos

2006-04-29T13:46:00.000+10:00

Back in the good old days (i.e. the dry season) when you could drive across the Roper.

Katherine Gorge

The road out of Ngukurr in the last weeks....