I spent all last weekend at a Language and the Law conference which was held at the NT Supreme Court. It wouldn’t have been my first choice for weekend recreational activities (I was there for work), but nonetheless I found parts of it very interesting.
The main focus of the conference was exploring ways to make the legal system more just and accessible for speakers of languages other than English. We heard a lot of input from academics about how messed up legal English is, even for people who speak English natively. But more importantly we flew in about forty Aboriginal language interpreters from all over the Northern Territory to have their say on issues affecting them as language practitioners in remote areas. There were a bunch of speakers of migrant languages there as well.
It seems really boring (probably because it is) but if you could get through all the really long-winded talking, it was actually a chance to make a very real difference to the way the courts operate. It was a great chance to actually, and indeed literally, stand up and speak against injustice, with an audience full of people with the authority to do something about it.
The most interesting bit by far (although I may be biased here, having had a fair bit to do with the production of said bit) was a “roles reversed role play” which we put on for the afternoon of the second day. A troupe of our Yolngu Matha interpreters learned a script, and then got dressed up in robes and wigs a la Supreme Court. The team put on a mock court hearing, with one of the local Supreme Court Justices acting as defendant.
The whole hearing was run in Yolngu Matha, with both the defendant and the audience completely reliant on the interpreter to understand what was happening. It was a huge hit with the conference delegates and was a very powerful spectacle to watch, as English speakers, who are so used to having the run of things in this country, found themselves on the other side of the language barrier.
For the record, the defendant was found guilty of disrupting a ceremony and was sentenced to two years banishment from Arnhem Land and five years of having his name changed to Mudskipper Face.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
30 May 2012
23 May 2012
Stumps
Like many Aussie guys, when I was a kid I dreamed of one day playing cricket for Australia. My childhood heroes were guys like Allan Border, David Boon, the Waugh brothers and (of course) Richie Benaud. As primary schoolers, our following of the sport was nothing short of obsession; every break we would be outside with a bat, a ball and (to the perpetual frustration of the groundsman) a rubbish bin that had been used as wickets so consistently it was dented and squashed hopelessly out of shape. On the weekends we played grade cricket in the dry and indoor cricket in the wet. I played under thirteens and then under fifteens and had a great time, although I remember being quite annoyed by the fact that I wasn’t very good at it.
It didn’t take very long for me to abandon my dream of playing for Australia, but all through high school I kept on following the game with the same passion. Of course, it helped that it was easy to get behind the Australian cricket team at that time, as we spent most of the late nineties being practically invincible. The old heroes were gone, but had been replaced by such legends as McGrath, Warne, Ponting, Gilchrist, Hayden, Langer and Martyn to name just a few. I had to stop playing grade cricket to focus more on school and music, but I would still join mates occasionally for a backyard game. And every time I did, I would be quietly struggling to deal with the fact that for all my passion and enthusiasm, I wasn’t very good at it.
My university years were a time of great change. We could no longer rely on the great heroes of the past, and some of the core assumptions about our role in the world were being challenged. In 2005 the unthinkable happened: we lost the Ashes. Everything we thought we knew about the world had fallen around us, leaving us questioning even our fundamental understanding of the game. If ever there was a time to rally and stay true to our belief in ourselves, in our team mates and in the game, while everything else around us was in flux, this was it. I remember trying out rather optimistically for our college cricket side with fairly tragic results. I really wasn’t very good at it.
In 2009 I stepped out into a brave new world, and a brave new country. Even in the exotic lands of central Spain, I found ways to continue my connection with the game. My exploits with the Madrid Cricket Club have been well documented here, although they’re unlikely to be remembered anywhere else. And while everyone else at the summer school was down at the beach, I was in the internet café checking the score in the test match. But even though I could hold my own in the field against the English staff, it really wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be. As the only Aussie English teacher, it was important that I could beat the English at cricket even if, once again, our test side couldn’t. And I did, but it didn’t matter. I still wasn’t very good at it.
I’ve been home in Darwin for two and a half years now. My relationship with the game is still strong, but changing all the time. I don’t watch it religiously on TV like I used to, mainly because the commentary team, rather than inspiring and educating me, now makes me want to throw things (Michael Slater, I’m throwing them at you). These days they spend more time cross promoting other Channel Nine products and selling us commemorative merchandise than analysing the game play. And when they do get around to commenting on the game, it’s nothing but a series of inane clichés. So now I just follow the games on the internet and keep tabs on the boys while they’re away on tour. Back at home, I’m part way through my third season of local grade cricket. I’ve been dutifully heading down to training twice a week and out for games on Sundays. After all those endless afternoons running around the mid-wicket boundary, I’ve come realise an important fact about cricket:
I’m not very good at it.
After all these years, you might expect that I would have developed an ability to bowl straight, hit a ball properly or catch with some sort of reliability. After nearly three decades of persistence, the time has come for me to face up to the fact that not only am I never going to play for Australia, I’m never going to play B-grade local competition in Darwin. And as the period of my life loosely referred to as ‘youth’ gradually approaches the tea break, I’ve finally reached a place in my life where I can say I’m alright with that.
This afternoon I called my E-grade captain and told him I was pulling out of the competition.
It was a surprisingly easy decision in the end; if I take the eight hours a week I was spending trying to learn to bowl and spend them working on something I’m good at, God only knows what I might achieve. And while I’ll have to start looking for new ways to keep active, for now it’s time to appreciate the game the way the rest of the country does: on the couch with a beer.
And I’m extremely good at that.
Garry with 2 Rs
It didn’t take very long for me to abandon my dream of playing for Australia, but all through high school I kept on following the game with the same passion. Of course, it helped that it was easy to get behind the Australian cricket team at that time, as we spent most of the late nineties being practically invincible. The old heroes were gone, but had been replaced by such legends as McGrath, Warne, Ponting, Gilchrist, Hayden, Langer and Martyn to name just a few. I had to stop playing grade cricket to focus more on school and music, but I would still join mates occasionally for a backyard game. And every time I did, I would be quietly struggling to deal with the fact that for all my passion and enthusiasm, I wasn’t very good at it.
My university years were a time of great change. We could no longer rely on the great heroes of the past, and some of the core assumptions about our role in the world were being challenged. In 2005 the unthinkable happened: we lost the Ashes. Everything we thought we knew about the world had fallen around us, leaving us questioning even our fundamental understanding of the game. If ever there was a time to rally and stay true to our belief in ourselves, in our team mates and in the game, while everything else around us was in flux, this was it. I remember trying out rather optimistically for our college cricket side with fairly tragic results. I really wasn’t very good at it.
In 2009 I stepped out into a brave new world, and a brave new country. Even in the exotic lands of central Spain, I found ways to continue my connection with the game. My exploits with the Madrid Cricket Club have been well documented here, although they’re unlikely to be remembered anywhere else. And while everyone else at the summer school was down at the beach, I was in the internet café checking the score in the test match. But even though I could hold my own in the field against the English staff, it really wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be. As the only Aussie English teacher, it was important that I could beat the English at cricket even if, once again, our test side couldn’t. And I did, but it didn’t matter. I still wasn’t very good at it.
I’ve been home in Darwin for two and a half years now. My relationship with the game is still strong, but changing all the time. I don’t watch it religiously on TV like I used to, mainly because the commentary team, rather than inspiring and educating me, now makes me want to throw things (Michael Slater, I’m throwing them at you). These days they spend more time cross promoting other Channel Nine products and selling us commemorative merchandise than analysing the game play. And when they do get around to commenting on the game, it’s nothing but a series of inane clichés. So now I just follow the games on the internet and keep tabs on the boys while they’re away on tour. Back at home, I’m part way through my third season of local grade cricket. I’ve been dutifully heading down to training twice a week and out for games on Sundays. After all those endless afternoons running around the mid-wicket boundary, I’ve come realise an important fact about cricket:
I’m not very good at it.
After all these years, you might expect that I would have developed an ability to bowl straight, hit a ball properly or catch with some sort of reliability. After nearly three decades of persistence, the time has come for me to face up to the fact that not only am I never going to play for Australia, I’m never going to play B-grade local competition in Darwin. And as the period of my life loosely referred to as ‘youth’ gradually approaches the tea break, I’ve finally reached a place in my life where I can say I’m alright with that.
This afternoon I called my E-grade captain and told him I was pulling out of the competition.
It was a surprisingly easy decision in the end; if I take the eight hours a week I was spending trying to learn to bowl and spend them working on something I’m good at, God only knows what I might achieve. And while I’ll have to start looking for new ways to keep active, for now it’s time to appreciate the game the way the rest of the country does: on the couch with a beer.
And I’m extremely good at that.
Garry with 2 Rs
15 May 2012
Change in the Air
It’s only May, but already 2012 has marked itself as a year for changing seasons. A new job, a new ministry, a new brother in law and a new choir. What else can possibly happen?
Well… a new church.
Okay, not actually a new church, more a return to an old one. A few weeks ago I was approached by the leadership at my old stomping grounds Darwin Memorial Uniting Church with a distress call. The incumbent organist has left to be with his family in Melbourne. I’ve been asked to move in and take over the running of the worship team there, which will be exciting and challenging. So the time has come to move.
It will be an interesting change shifting from a contemporary Pentecostal congregation to a more conservative Uniting Church congregation, but one of the advantages of being me is that I’m equally at home in either one. It’s one of the great side effects of NOT BEING PLANTED.
I’m still phasing myself out of Abundant Life church, so I haven’t quite taken up residence at DMUC yet. I’ll be there from July, after I get back from my sister’s wedding. So really, this post should have been saved up until then. But I don’t really have anything else to write about this week. So… yeah.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
Well… a new church.
Okay, not actually a new church, more a return to an old one. A few weeks ago I was approached by the leadership at my old stomping grounds Darwin Memorial Uniting Church with a distress call. The incumbent organist has left to be with his family in Melbourne. I’ve been asked to move in and take over the running of the worship team there, which will be exciting and challenging. So the time has come to move.
It will be an interesting change shifting from a contemporary Pentecostal congregation to a more conservative Uniting Church congregation, but one of the advantages of being me is that I’m equally at home in either one. It’s one of the great side effects of NOT BEING PLANTED.
I’m still phasing myself out of Abundant Life church, so I haven’t quite taken up residence at DMUC yet. I’ll be there from July, after I get back from my sister’s wedding. So really, this post should have been saved up until then. But I don’t really have anything else to write about this week. So… yeah.
Make of that what you will.
Garry with 2 Rs
04 May 2012
Cheater's Guilt
I don’t know how it came to this.
I’ve been with Samantha for a long time now. It’s been ten great years. Sometimes it seems like forty (even though I’m only twenty-mumble years old) and sometimes it seems like just two weeks, like we’re only just getting to know each other all over again. Every week we’re discovering new sounds, new ideas and new ways to complement each other. I never fail to be amazed by what happens when we’re together, and she’s always been there for me.
There was a time when the comforting and familiar straight lines of her silver casing would bring a smile to my face as I wandered back home after a hard day of doing … whatever it is I do, to say nothing of the joy of turning her on and watching her touch screen light up. Even when other keyboards came along like my old flame Mary, Sasha from the church or even Mary’s successor Marian, it’s always been us; Garry and Samantha. Just a simple guy and his disturbingly anthropomorphised electric piano.
It can happen so fast, can’t it? All it takes is one unexpected meeting; a flash of curvy red chrome across a low lit room, a manual interface that’s so fresh, new and dangerous. And weighted keys. It was just a night of laughs among friends; and then a couple of drinks later, before I even knew what was happening (impro comedy will do that…) I was on stage with my hands on another keyboard. It was all a swirl of lights, passion, retro interfaces and music (obviously). It was so exciting to be lost in another world, just for a night.
God, I didn’t even know her name.
And now I face the long, cold walk back to my flat in Malak. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have to know. It doesn’t matter that it was a one time thing. It doesn’t even matter that the long cold walk is in a car, and that the air-con is on because even at half past eleven at night it’s still pretty warm for May. And still raining. How can I be worried about inapplicable environmental metaphors at a time like this?
I know she’ll still be there. I’ll walk in late and the touch screen will light up room like always. But somehow the light will be a little dimmer. The response will be a little less smooth. The rotary speaker effect will be just that little less Waaahwawawawawawaawaawaaawaaaaaaaa-y.
Things will never be the same again.
Garry with 2 Rs
I’ve been with Samantha for a long time now. It’s been ten great years. Sometimes it seems like forty (even though I’m only twenty-mumble years old) and sometimes it seems like just two weeks, like we’re only just getting to know each other all over again. Every week we’re discovering new sounds, new ideas and new ways to complement each other. I never fail to be amazed by what happens when we’re together, and she’s always been there for me.
There was a time when the comforting and familiar straight lines of her silver casing would bring a smile to my face as I wandered back home after a hard day of doing … whatever it is I do, to say nothing of the joy of turning her on and watching her touch screen light up. Even when other keyboards came along like my old flame Mary, Sasha from the church or even Mary’s successor Marian, it’s always been us; Garry and Samantha. Just a simple guy and his disturbingly anthropomorphised electric piano.
It can happen so fast, can’t it? All it takes is one unexpected meeting; a flash of curvy red chrome across a low lit room, a manual interface that’s so fresh, new and dangerous. And weighted keys. It was just a night of laughs among friends; and then a couple of drinks later, before I even knew what was happening (impro comedy will do that…) I was on stage with my hands on another keyboard. It was all a swirl of lights, passion, retro interfaces and music (obviously). It was so exciting to be lost in another world, just for a night.
God, I didn’t even know her name.
And now I face the long, cold walk back to my flat in Malak. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have to know. It doesn’t matter that it was a one time thing. It doesn’t even matter that the long cold walk is in a car, and that the air-con is on because even at half past eleven at night it’s still pretty warm for May. And still raining. How can I be worried about inapplicable environmental metaphors at a time like this?
I know she’ll still be there. I’ll walk in late and the touch screen will light up room like always. But somehow the light will be a little dimmer. The response will be a little less smooth. The rotary speaker effect will be just that little less Waaahwawawawawawaawaawaaawaaaaaaaa-y.
Things will never be the same again.
Garry with 2 Rs
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