Amongst the Kiwis: An American PhD Student in New Zealand: protest

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Melbourne: Book Sales and State Library

It turned out to be a book day in Melbourne, and thankfully we anticipated buying some books on the trip, so we were able to take advantage of it. We happened to see on an academic organization’s social media post that there was a used book sale by the Royal Historical Society of Melbourne happening just a few blocks from our apartment, so we couldn’t resist (though books are so heavy!). We found a couple good ones, then went to the Book Grocer clearance book store we had seen earlier in the week to find some $6 brand-new books. What a deal! I had to carry the latter ones around the rest of the day, but they were worth it. Despite some of the dire predictions a few years back, I don’t think books are ever going to go away, even with digital. You just can’t browse digital in the same way, and lots of us prefer hard copies.

Yay book sale!

Next was the State Library where there was a protest going on in front about letting in more refugees/closing the offshore processing centers. You aren’t going to find that kind of agitation too often in Christchurch (or New Zealand for that matter). We went through the exhibits on the history of books and some old ones from their collections. I had no idea there were so many copies of Alice in Wonderland in so many languages! There was also an exhibit on the more traditional history of Melbourne’s founding. Pretty much the history of men doing things. The library has a beautiful, uniquely shaped reading room.

miniature books were popular at one point

stained glass Shakespeare

We then stopped into a three-story game store and tested out the Wii U and reminisced at the little display on the history of Nintendo game consoles. Technology can sure do a good job at making you feel dated.

From there we walked to get some of the doughnuts from Doughnut Time, even though they were such tourist prices ($6 for regular and more for the filled ones!). They market themselves though with all of the colorful candy and toppings. We lazed out on dinner for our last night and just got fast food.

pizza, Mr. Burger's chicken ranch burger

chocolate doughnut with cookie dough, gluten-free mint doughnut

Sunday, October 25, 2015

NDF Conference in Wellington and Education Seminars

The National Digital Forum Conference up in Wellington was surprisingly very good. It was mostly surrounding what is going on in digital projects by the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sector, which I normally view as being stale. It actually has some really interesting things going on, even in New Zealand! Before one meeting, a guy at my table was on the subject of how cats were ruining the native wildlife and birds here, and I said there was an easy solution: just have indoor cats like we do in the U.S. He seemed to have never thought of this before. One fun part of meeting new people is meeting Dune fans and trying to convert others. I convinced two women who are science fiction fans but hadn't read it yet (mostly because its length is intimidating) to add it to their list. I’m pretty much a Dune ambassador at this point.

I checked out the National Library's little exhibit on the 1975 Maori Land March while I was there. In short, a large group of Maori led by a 79-year-old woman, Whina Cooper, marched the length of the North Island south to the capital, Wellington, to protest the loss of Maori land. Petitions of support were circulated, and I thought how real and concrete these seem in contrast to today's online petitions.

There were some interesting seminars at the university. One was a Digital Humanities seminar on the issues surrounding preserving, storing, digitizing, and dealing with copyright for all of the old university radio shows and music still stored on cassette tapes. Two others were on the Education Campus and featured Professor Antonia Darder from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles . She spoke on decolonizing the body in education and how we are doing a disservice to young people by enforcing the mind/body split and pretending that education is only about their cognitive abilities and not the rest of their physical selves. Immobilizing them in rows of hard desks and viewing teachers as technicians rather than pedagogical leaders is hampering a development of empathy and whole selves. I had never heard of Paulo Freire before, but I am interested in now checking out his Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Professor Darder also was the keynote presenter at an Education Symposium where she elaborated on her notion of what is needed for critical leadership for social justice and community empowerment in today's world. She ended with reminding us that the Western mentality is a conquest mentality, making everyone believe that everything has to be big to be worthwhile. But she said local, small acts can have great impact and translate bigger. She was a really passionate and inspiring speaker, and I'm glad I had the chance to hear about different ways of thinking about education.

Dr. Antonia Darder in her lecture on decolonizing the body in education

In other news, we were invited for dinner at someone's house where we tried some new foods: parsnip and leeks. We brought American-style buttermilk biscuits which were happily scooped up. They taught us how to play Mahjongg, which was great because we had just bought the game at a garage sale that morning and I have been wanting to learn so I can play with my Chinese friends. Apparently it is so addicting that it is banned in Chinese universities so the students don't get distracted.