Vulnerability and advocacy at WORD Christchurch Festival

Once again, WORD Christchurch was fabulous. All the session I went to were thoroughly interesting and enjoyable, and reading all the fabulous write ups of other sessions caused some serious past-tense FOMO. My holds list has also got rather long…

However, I’ve also been thinking about some of the connections between different sessions. One very sparkly connection was Stacy Gregg‘s silver boots, another around leaving New Zealand – or not. At the very wonderful Mortification session Steve Braunias told a beautifully crafted story about giving a well-known politician fleas, but one of the points he made was about how he wasn’t particularly keen to do a big OE – he was settled in New Zealand. In Explosive Archaeology Brannavan Gnanalingam noted that Robin Hyde developed her career in New Zealand, rather than going overseas to do so. Sometimes it seems that some Kiwis have to go away to achieve in order to come back and be successful, but as these stories show that isn’t always the case. New Zealand is more than enough.

As we found out, when you are mortified you are very vulnerable – think inopportune periods, an inopportune goat in the buttocks, assorted inopportune number twos and buttocks exposed to the elements. I enjoyed hearing people talk about things in life that had not gone so well – we need to be open about our screw ups. Sex also makes us vulnerable. Sharing your wibbly bits with someone else is risky, as is showing your mum poems you’ve written which contain a lot of sex. Tayi Tibble was nervous showing her mum her more sexual poetry, but her mum was fine with it. Her risk paid off.

But, as Chris Henry reminds us, it really is ok to be vulnerable. Looking after our mental health is so very important, and reaching out to people and telling them how we feel is huge and so worthwhile. Chris demonstrates very well how you can be a hero and vulnerable. ‘We can make a life‘ not only covers family stories and the earthquakes, it also advocates for the amazing work that rural GPs do, which Chessie feels is sometimes under appreciated.

Advocacy came up again in Explosive Archaeology – in terms of making sure we are speaking about underappreciated artists and genres, and also in terms of making sure we are leaving doors open for those that come after us. When we succeed – who do we take with us? Who do we raise up?

I love events that make me think and WORD certainly did that. I’m going to make sure that I’m ok with my vulnerability, and that if I like something I tell people about it.

I like the WORD Christchurch Festival, and I’ve enjoyed telling you about it.

Te Reo Māori, niupepa, and Papers Past

The historians and whakapapa researchers among you may already be familiar with Papers Past, an impressive and still-growing online resource from the National library. This site makes digitised versions of Aotearoa newspapers, magazines and journals, letters and diaries, and parliamentary papers available online, for free.

Page one of Te Karere o Nui Tireni, 1 January 1842
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1, via Papers Past.

The fascinating newspaper section (believe me, it’s easy to fall down the rabbit-hole of reading old articles and advertisements for hours!) contains a wide range of digitised New Zealand and Pacific newspapers from the 19th and 20th centuries, including an important collection of newspapers/niupepa in Te Reo Māori (or in English for a Māori readership).

Many of these became available in 2015, when the National Library added a collection of historic newspapers. This latest online collection was based on the digital Niupepa Collection developed and made available in 2000 by the New Zealand Digital Library Project, at the Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato. The original source material for this was ‘Niupepa 1842-1933’, a collection of niupepa filmed by the Alexander Turnbull Library in the late 1980s and made available on microfiche in the 1990s.

There were three main types of Māori niupepa published over this period; government sponsored, Māori initiated, and religious. To see the current list of what’s available in this collection, take a look at the list on the Papers Past ‘about’ page.

More information about the newspapers can be found in Rere Atu Taku Manu! Discovering History, Language & Politics in the Māori Language Newspapers, edited by Jennifer Curnow, Ngapare Hopa, and Jane McRae, available from our collection.

Find out more

• About Papers Past
• Find Māori language newspapers and magazines in our catalogue
• What’s on for Te Wiki o te reo Māori 2018

Drynuary to Movember

Woo hoo it’s Spring?! So maybe it’s time to adopt a new health kick. To be honest, fads are really not my thing and the thought of giving up chocolate or – heaven forbid – coffee makes me feel a little faint. There seems to be something for every month and here’s a list for those of you with more willpower.

• Dry January or Drynuary is the UK version of Dry July, don’t think it would work here as it BBQ / holiday season. There are many articles on the benefits of abstaining from the demon drink. Check out Consumer Health Complete for information on the benefits like weight loss and better sleep.
• Frugal February is perfect remedy to Christmas excesses, spend less and save some cash. If you have indulged too much over the summer, FebFast might be the one for you, another chance to exercise some temperance when it comes to eating and drinking.
• March no catchy name or anything but there is Lent so give up something, sugar or alcohol if you couldn’t face Drynuary or FebFast.
• Grateful in April is a global campaign to get people focused on feeling good about what they’ve already got in their lives. Check out the health benefits of being  grateful with these articles from Heath Source – Grateful-ology  and Gratitude boosts mental and physical health from Heath & Wellness Resource Center.
• Meat free May or No Meat May, plant based diets constantly in the news and what better way to try it out with Meat Free May, it is better for the environment and better for your health. Need some inspiration here is some links to vegetarian cookbooks on OverDrive.
• Junk Free June, run by the Cancer Society. You can pick the junk you remove from your diet can be anything from sugar to fast food, fizzy to lollies your call. We all know that too much junk food is bad for you, but check this article How Junk Food Affects Your Health.
• Dry July – yes, another quit alcohol month. This is the New Zealand version and personally middle of winter seems like a great month to abstain here is some tips to help you Stay Dry this July.  There are other options for July –
  • Plastic Free July and do your bit for the environment and not use plastic for the whole month.
  • Beer and Pie July, the idea here is to celebrate our best pies and beers by consuming one of each everyday in July. This one I am pretty sure has no health benefits and the only gain would be a beer and pie gut.
• Abstain August Not an official event but abstain from your choice – could be sugar, alcohol, beer and pies (especially if you did beer and pie July).
• Steptember – Yes get your fitbit out start moving. Steptember is a fundraising activity supporting those with cerebral palsy. Scientist have collected smartphone data to determine which nationalities walk the most throughout the day check out the article from Health & Wellness Resource Center Which Countries Walk the Most–and the Least?
• Blue September Prostate Cancer Foundation’s national awareness campaign. Wear a blue ribbon, dye your hair blue or hold a blue do and raise money or awareness around prostate cancer.
• Biketober partake in Christchurch’s own festival of cycling and Find Happiness on a Bike.
• Movember the worldwide annual event to raise awareness of men’s health issues such as prostrate cancer, testicular cancer. Personally I dislike the moustache, they remind me of policemen from the 1980s. Searching Movember on Health & Wellness Resource Center I discovered all sorts of fascinating Movember facts like the world record for moustache length is 12ft 6 inches, and that Movember was dreamed up by four Aussies in a Melbourne pub.
• December is just festive, so Have yourself a Healthy Little Christmas with this article from Heath & Wellness Resource Center.

So if you can’t wait for next July to go dry check out some healthy tips from our Health based eResources.

For more on getting healthy:

• Read uncover huraina issue 9
• Download uncover huraina issue 9 [11.83MB PDF)