“Are you filming a vlog?” Asks Ryan, also known as Ray to his friends (and after sharing a meal, I was now on Ray-terms with Ray). “No,” I responded, “why do you ask?” Ray proceeded to tell me that he thought Banda Aceh had a lot to offer for tourists, but that there’s not much […]
Before I had travelled to Bali, I played in an Balinese gamelan (traditional ensemble) in Canberra. Friends there often expressed a sense of regret or sadness about the current state of Bali. “It used to be a beautiful, natural island,” they would say, “but now it has become overrun with resorts and tourists”. They would […]
Hi everyone, I’ve been very sick this week unfortunately so only a very short blog post from me. Unfortunately I came down with some kind of illness on Monday and so I spent most of this week resting up. I was even worse yesterday but once again I seem on the mend (though I recall […]
You’re probably wondering what it is I’m doing in Indonesia (or maybe you just thought I was having a great holiday). The truth is that I am doing fieldwork here. To most people, you probably have a vision of some Indiana Jones-esque archeology expedition when I say that, but real fieldwork is nothing like that […]
I’ve been in Bali for about ten days now. It is actually my first time being in the country of Indonesia – before being involved with gamelan (the traditional music commonly found in Java and Bali), I had no experience with Indonesia at all. I’ve slowly been playing catch-up as a result, now being about […]
This week I attended a two-day conference on health, gender, bodies, and sex at ANU. I was there because I have been working on a health humanities project as a research officer at ANU, under one of my PhD supervisors, Bonnie McConnell. The idea of health humanities is to examine this intersection between medical research […]
Welcome to June! I can’t believe we are almost halfway through the year. In recognition of that, this post contains some things that I’ve been reading, playing, or watching recently, or just generally some things I’ve found neat in the last little period. If you like this sort of thing, let me know and I […]
I’ve been thinking about the idea of a ‘dumb phone’ recently. This is the idea that phones, since they became so smart, are actually hindering our daily lives and possibly even more than they help. Of course, there’s a lot to love about smart phones – maps, browsing, video calling, calendars, music, etc. But there […]
This month, Doctor Who triumphantly returned to our small screens, now on Disney+ and a new writing team. I’m a huge fan of the show, and I love how whacky and zany it can be. If you haven’t watched before, it’s a time travel show where the main character, called just “The Doctor” and their […]
I just wrapped another year working at the Canberra International Music Festival. It’s a 5 day art music festival in May, and I’ve been working there since 2017 – a long, long time. It’s always great to be exposed to so much music in such a small timeframe. A highlight this year was all six […]