Skip to main content

been so long


sorry sopi and others

i've had a month long break from work and hadn't felt like blogging. actually, i still don't feel like blogging but i thought i'd better say hello after my mami's capital letter comment.

i'm in katherine and have been back at work nearly a week. i should be off to ngukurr next week. i can't say i'm looking forward to it, but i know i'll be fine when i get there.

it's proper wet season now so it looks like i'll be flying in to ngukurr and then will be there until the rivers decide to go down again (or jum jum in alawa). that might a good couple of months.

i had a good break but it didn't really go as planned thanks to the guy who decided i would be the target of his random act of violence and fractured my cheekbone for me. that was followed by some minor surgery. fun fun. i'm still a bit sore about it - mentally and physically - and i'm not my usual cheery self at the moment. apart from that, my break was good and got to see lots of ppl i care about and hadn't seen for ages. and went to a very dear old friends wedding too. here's a pic. thanks wt for the photo!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Good to have you back blogging!
Sorry to hear about your fractured cheekbone - hope it's all over soon!
Will write some proper emails myself soonish, although am off to London on Thursday for three weeks -yeah!- so it might take a little while still.

Hallo to all the Katherine-ites who read this - there are these odd moments when I miss it a little...

All the best for Ngukurr!
Greg Dickson said…
magaggie!

we miss you!

good to hear from you. hope you had a good christmas and i'm sure you'll have a good time back in london.

take care maggie.

ps. wachet und betet.
Sophie said…
Wamut.. Yay!! Your back. I hear on the grapevine that you are back in Ngukurr as of yesteray too. I hope you are feeling inspired and energised... lots of love and admiration and support etc. You are doing a great job!!!!!
yu mami

Popular posts from this blog

A conference, language policy and Aboriginal languages in Federal Parliament

The other day, I was priveleged in attending a TESOL symposium about 'Keeping Language Diversity Alive'. One of the speakers, Joseph Lo Bianco was excellent and discussed Language Policy. He gave a handout at one of his sessions that I'm going to type out in full here, because it was a real eye-opener. It's from the Official Hansard of the Federal Parliament from a debate that happened on 10/12/98. Here's how it went: Mr SNOWDON: My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of the decision by the Northern Territory government to phase out bilingual education in Aboriginal schools? Is the Prime Minister also aware that his government funds bilingual education programs in Papua New Guinea and Vietnam? Prime Minister, given that article 26(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children, will you take a direct approach to the Norther

The Oscar-winning Coda and its (mis)representation of interpreting (or, why I almost walked out of the cinema)

Ok so I'm a linguist not a movie critic but I am an avid movie-goer - part of the generation of Australians raised by Margaret and David to appreciate cinema and think critically about it. (I've even reviewed a few things on this blog: Short-doco Queen of the Desert , short film Lärr and some discussion of the brilliant Croker Island Exodus here ).  At this years Oscars, the film Coda surprised many by taking out Best Picture. It seems like few people have even had a chance to see it. Here in little ol' Katherine, we have a brilliant film society at our local Katherine 3 cinema, where each fortnight we get to watch something a bit different. In late 2021, I had the chance to see Coda there, long before it was thought of as an Oscar contender. Now that Coda is being talked about more than ever before, I wanted to share my experience of watching the film - especially because in one scene in particular, I was so angry that I genuinely considered walking out of the cinema -

Lärr: a gentle film revealing a gently evaporating world [short-film review]

Shorts films about endangered languages and culture form a small niche genre but there are quite a few out there. I've never seen one as gentle and beautiful as L ärr. Films in this micro-genre tend to do a few familiar things. They may be pedagogical videos, focusing on cultural practices that aren't being maintained well enough, and explicitly ask audiences to watch, learn and remember. There might be expressions of serious concern for the language and cultural shifts taking place and we see rhetoric from elders and cultural champions urging for action. Then there are ethnographic films - more 'fly on the wall' views of everyday life where constructing narrative or organising scenes to shoot are not primary concerns. L ärr is a 16-minute look at life with some of the last few speakers of Wägilak in the world, on their country, doing very Wägilak things. But the beauty of L ärr is its softness. The four men in the film let you gently into their world, on the remote out