Old Ladies

I have just been marveling on how old ladies can be so similar yet different. I volunteer at a book exchange which has occasionally brought me into the path of embittered old ladies (both volunteers and customers) who shake their heads and mutter at the state of Katherine Town: the litter, the graffiti, the antisocial behaviour. (More often than not, these comments develop a racial bent which prompts me to change the topic or flee)

Today I got chatting with an old aboriginal lady who hangs out under a tree near the book shop. As our conversation progressed, she shook her head and began to mutter about the state of Katherine Town: the litter, the graffiti, the antisocial behaviour. I thought to myself how in agreement all these ladies are. How dissatisfied with the youth of today, how disapproving. How in harmony their opinions.

Where is the big shady tree under which we can all sit to air and compare our grievances?

Show us your prefix!

Have just returned from the wonderful nerd-up that was the Australian Languages Workshop 2009 held at the beautiful Kioloa - ANU's coastal Campus.  To any budding linguist (whose cunning is yet to be discovered) it was real-life immersion in one's undergrad bibliography - and they say immersion is a great way to learn!

Topics and issues were from the fun and finicky (getting down and dirty with the nitty gritty of various grammatical, phonological, semantic question marks of particular languages) to the political hot potatoes (the bilingual debate, language ownership vs. linguistic thievery, and various other Governmental and just plain mental decisions which are wreaking havoc on the world's most endangered languages).

Of course, there were puns aplenty and jocular (but jovial) slinging matches between the longstanding linguistic heavy weights of Australian Linguistics.  A section of the lingo-blogosphere was also present: Jangari, Sophie, Jane, Bulanjdjan (and any I have forgotten) it was great to see you in the flesh.

Well, word to the nerd!  Hope to do it all again next year.

Ma.

stuff (and nonsense?)

I hope I didn't offend my (myriad!) of fans with the title of my (unfortunately over two months ago :S) post.  Anyone who clicked on the link would have found a book with the same title as my blog, but whose subtitle imitated (in the negative) the title of the previous post.

(I'm not sure whether I should apologise for all the brackets - it must be the mood I'm in, hopfully my ranting is still somewhat legible through all these curved wossnames)

Felt like I should write, as I haven't in ages, but not sure what about.  But that hasn't stopped me before, so perhaps I should just plow on?  I know at least one munanga (moo-nang-ah: Eastside Kriol for 'whitefella') who shares my pain of literary blockage.

I've recently had two amphibian visitors, photos of whom I won't post here because they can be found here.

I s'pose, in the grand scheme, many things have been afoot in the last two months.  Many or you may know that I have changed jobs.  I have just spent my first week at the new one, still getting a handle on things.  I've also managed to contract Ross River Fever - which, apart from being an exotic tropical disease - hasn't got much going for it.  Oh well, lots of rest, DVDs and mooching is on the cards for me.  I'm already Bollywooded out.

Our (in)famous Taj household is also in a state of newness and change at the moment.  On beloved friend, former colleague and most valued compadre, has left us for the humid climes of the Darwinian big smoke; while another soon-to-be-beloved friend, not-likely-ever-colleague, and all round great gal, will be moving in at the end of the week.  The King and I plow through these changes in a festive and party-like manner -rekindling my love of rope-lights at every opportunity:

Well, I'm all posted out for now.  Hope you guys are still kicken on in good fashion.  Catch you soon.  xxx

Bobo.

(Rembarrnga language for 'that's all')