Nonsense

Today one of my staff came into my office and asked a question that made me laugh. It was funny because the question on the surface makes no sense, but to us two, and a handful of others, it makes perfect sense. Can you figure out what it means?

Q: "Wägilak and Rembarrnga... I mean Ritharrŋu... are blue?"
A: "Yes."

Tee hee.

One-stop shop

I hate the phrase 'one-stop shop'. I don't know why but it makes me want to stab my eardrums and eyeballs with sharp scissors. It's at the top of a list of political/commerce cliches that also features 'touch base' and 'flick me an email'.

Oh well, I better get ready for work. I have some 'capacity building' to do.

My old lecturer on Compass

Hey, when I was at Uni I had the acest lecturer who had been learning from Yanyuwa people at Borroloola for a couple of decades. Borroloola and Yanyuwa country are just down the track from Ngukurr. My old lecturer's name is John Bradley and he's being featured on Compass this sunday night (ABC at 9:25pm). Should be worth watching.

Facebook

Poor neglected blog. I blame Facebook. This blog used to be a good way for ppl I know to find out what I'm doing. Now facebook has taken that role and my blog is sadly neglected.

That and I'm not being much of a linguist these days. How exciting can it be blogging about reporting to funding bodies or replying to emails.

But I'm still here. :-)

good job

Good job to Kevin Rudd for saying sorry. I thought it was a great speech - decisive, clear, honest, to the point and all very reasonable. In the end, it seemed like he was stating the obvious and that apologising was the obvious thing to do. It made me wonder what all the fuss was about with the last government being so stubborn. Seems straightforward to me. Something bad happens, saying sorry can help make it better. Easy. (And I reckon it worked too).

Linguistic notes: Did Kevin Rudd say Yabarrah instead of Yarrabah?? When Brendan Nelson talked about 'involuntary sacrifices', is there such a thing? Is a sacrifice something that can only be made under your own volition?

bunyu

I'm still here and still in Katherine being bossy. Thesedays I find myself surrounded by things such as funding applications, budgets, meetings, emails, reports etc. etc.

I'm enjoying the change althought it's a lot of work. And I miss the Ngukurr mob and miss being a linguist. But I can't complain because I was really starting to burn out after spending most of the past three years working hard in a remote community. And I'll be going back there before I know it anyway.

So hello to anyone still reading this.

Today I remembered this classic tidbit I read in the Guardian:

Talking about gaffs with interpreters and translators... when Bob Hawke was PM and addressing some important crowd in Japan he used the term 'playing funny buggers'. Apparently this caused a bit of a dilemma with the interpreters who ultimately decided to translate the term 'funny buggers' as 'laughing homosexuals'. hehe.

it's alive!

Yes I'm still alive. Hi all. The last couple of months have been pretty huge... no chance of letting you in on all the goings on but here's a summary:

- Was starting to really hit the wall at Ngukurr and feeling burned out. Felt the need to think seriously about medium to long-term plans
- In the middle of that was a mammoth trip to the Indigenous languages Conference in Adelaide. Three of the guys I work with at Ngukurr came along. It was exhausting but great. We did a presentation that went very well (including a few tears and a choked up presenter... hmmm... that would be me!)
- Then i turned 30!!
- then i had a month off while my mami SN helped out with things at the Ngukurr Language Centre. Thanks mami. (You can read some of her stories on 'Finding A Voice' - click the link to the right)
- I went to Dublin to visit my sister for two weeks. Hi sis!
- Then came back to Katherine to find a tricky situation at work whereby I felt obligated to temporarily take on the Coordinator position at the Katherine Language Centre. And I'm still here! It's a huge job that I only started a week ago and I'm trying very hard not to get too overwhelmed and wrought with anxiety.
- But things are still plugging along at Ngukurr. We have a contigency plan in place and I'm off there tomorrow for a couple of days.

So wish me luck with all these goings on.

And we're advertising for the Coordinator position at the Katherine Language Centre. If anyone's interested (or if anyone's interested in doing some work at Ngukurr too), send me an email: munanga at bigpond dot com

Mah, Jaldu na.