view original Originally uploaded by keoladonaghy My wife, daughter and I began our sojourn last week Saturday. From Dunedin we flew to Auckland for a connecting flight to Sydney, Australia. Our baggage was considerably overweight, and Air New Zealand happily reduced my checking account by $200 for the privilege of getting all of our things home. It was an omen of more bad things to come. We were also informed that they could not transfer our bags to Qantas for the flight to Sydney – we would have to pick up all 6 bags, haul them to the International terminal,…
Writing, Like Grieving, Is A Process
view original Originally uploaded by Napalm filled tires Billy Crystal and Robert DeNiro starred in a pair of insipid yet entertaining comedies, with Crystal portraying a psychoanalyst and DeNiro the underworld kingpin he was treating. One of the sub-plots in one of the films was the death of the famous father of Crystal’s character. Whenever he was offered condolences regarding his father’s passing, Crystal would reply, “I’m grieving; it’s a process.” I’m learning that writing is also a process, not a product, and that like grieving, it can take a long time to get over, or get it over with.…
Enjoying Our Last Five Weeks…
Our family met on Friday evening to discuss our various return options, and we decided to catch a flight out of Dunedin on Saturday, June 28. We’ll spend two days in Sydney, Australia, then head back home to Hawai‘i on June 30. June 29 is my birthday and June 30 is Marie’s, so it will be a nice last present for us before we return home and deal with all of the things that we were able to put off until our return. M?lia wanted us to leave on the 27th so that she didn’t have to perform a hula…
Last Week Of Instruction at Otago
One of the more enjoyable aspects of our semester in Dunedin was the opportunity for me to act as a teaching assistant in the Department of Music. The classes here are structured a bit differently than back home. Monday is the big instructional day, and the class instructor, Shelley Brunt, would lecture on the week’s topic. On Tuesday, small groups of students would make presentations on the week’s set reading, and their fellow students assessed their work. On Wednesday, Shelley and I would split the class in half for tutorials – she would take half to a different room, and…
Seasons Change In Dunedin
This is the first real change of seasons that Marie and M?lia have ever experienced. By US mainland and even Dunedin standards it still has been relatively mild. We’ve had some nights drop below 30F, but by and large the weather has been tolerable. It seems that things will be fairly stable for the next two weeks, then a steep drop in temperature around May 25. We found out that the timing of our trip to Queenstown could not have been better – there was a considerable amount of snow there a few days after we left. The one aspect…
Facebook Announces Localization Application
I stumbled across a post a few days ago that announced that Facebook now has an application for user translation/localization of the user interface. That’s something I’ve wanted for a long time – the ability to localize the interface into Hawaiian. If you have a Facebook account and have a few minutes, please make a post in this discussion thread and request that they allow a Hawaiian localization. I’ll do the work. Scott, you need to round up a bunch of Cornish speakers and see if they can keep up with me. Five or six might stand a chance 😉
Writing About Writing
I’ve always enjoyed writing, but have always been a “stream-of-consciousness” kind of writer. I’ll sit down with an open word processor document, type, and just go with the flow and see were it takes me. A quick spell-check follows and away it goes. When I wrote my MA thesis (in Hawaiian), I sat down and wrote out each chapter in long marathon sessions. Of course there was a lot of editing, tweaking and additions along the way, but the gist of the chapters and overall structure of the final product was very much like the first drafts. My supervisors were…
On The Downhill Slide…
While we don’t have an exact departure date yet and my math skills are dubious, I am fairly certain we have just passed the half-way point in our stay in Aotearoa and in less than 12 weeks we’ll be jetting back home to Hawai‘i. While I experience doubts during the course of each and every day regarding my process, when I look at the body of research I’ve done – books and articles read, reviewed and re-read, not to mention massive amounts of writing – there is no doubt that I’ve made a great start toward my Ph.d. Much credit…
Countdown To Liftoff Has Begun
My wife, daughter and I have begun to make final preparations for our trip to Aotearoa. We head to Honolulu on Saturday and from there leave for Auckland on Sunday. Our travel arrangements were finalized over a month ago, and we’re now simply preparing our final checklists and making sure nothing is forgotten. I spent some time this evening going through my computer bag, and found a manila folder full of documents from our aborted trip to Ireland. Contained within it were the refusal letters we were handed after being turned back from the Dublin airport, a faxed copy of…
Hele On to Otago….
The last major question mark for our travel to Aotearoa was answered yesterday when our passports were returned with the proper visas – I as a student and my wife and daughter as visitors. My daughter is enrolled in Logan Park High School which is only a short walk from the flat we have arranged near the university, which is equally close. Our tickets are purchased, and the adventure begins in Honolulu on January 6. We arrive in Auckland on the evening of January 7, and after a brief overnight stay we will fly straight to Dunedin. We’ll have three…