Back to School

Dr Sornig has been awarded a $25,000 Emerging Writers Grant by the Literature Board of the Australia Council, which will support the writing of his second novel.

Winning the grant was a matter of both devising a new major project and “having runs on the board”, Dr Sornig said. Since the publication of his critically acclaimed first novel, Spiel, in 2009, he has published several short stories, and has been a book reviewer for the Melbourne Review.

He has also worked out an outline and begun a “bare bones version” of a second novel, which has the working title of You Of All People.

But it’s still early days, he said.

“Certainly the spine of the novel is there, but there are chapters that need to be developed; it’s a non-linear writing process. Or, I might even begin again.”

Set in UK and Spain, the novel’s main focus is a colony of anarchists near Granada who want to live outside the system, and the connections and tensions that develop between a member of the group and a “solid, middle-class” English publisher who comes into contact with them.

“It’s a novel that’s about that’s about contemporary unrest and protest, which is very current, and I’m guessing that it struck a chord with the Board,” Dr Sornig said.

Dr Sornig said that it is one of the ironies of teaching creative writing is that it leaves little time for academics to practice the craft themselves.

“The only practical way for me to get a novel written is to have time away from the University,” Dr Sornig said.

“The grant gives me the chance to have a solid block of time.”

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — “Save our Sports” has been reduced to “Save Lacrosse,” and school officials think that isn’t far away.

In a news conference this morning, the Duval County Public Schools showed checks totaling more than $87,000, enough to save wrestling, JV soccer and slow-pitch softball.

The “Save our Sports” movement arose from budget cuts that threatened to eliminate sports programs from Duval County Public Schools.

“This is good news as far as community stepping up…longterm, still have some difficult decisions to make make,” said Superintendent Ed Pratt-Dannals.

Pratt-Dannals said that the effort has raised $470,000 since June.

“Everything is good,” Duval County Public Schools Athletic Director John Fox said Tuesday after looking at the numbers.

The effort to save lacrosse — the season begins in January — is close to the $30,000 goal, school spokesperson Jill Johnson said in a news release this morning.

Brett Godard, who was involved in Keep Lax in Jax, agreed.

“We are comfortable, not sweating,” said Godard.

Ive met a few people recently both locally in Bournemouth and at Conferences around the country and its been really great to put faces to names and avatars. But no one knows what I look like when were looking for each other in coffee shops or crowded conference rooms.

So, while I like my avatar it might be time I re-think my online presence and not hide (?) behind an avatar any longer. What do you think? As I have some trusted friends and acquaintances on various Social Networks I thought Id put a few suggestions out there and see what you think. There are a couple of variations on my existing avatar as well as a few new photos to choose from. This is also an opportunity to bring my various profiles into line with each other.

Come on then, what do you think? If you like my current avatar then please choose the first image/option, this is effectively the leave it alone, its fine answer.

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If you have another (polite) suggestion then please leave a comment.

PS. Yes, I must be mad to let you help me out, but why not, it is after all what you look at when you see my Twitter or Facebook updates!

PPS. If I dont like your choice, will I still honour it I dont know, lets see how we do eh?

Eagle eyed readers may have spotted that the resident Language Trainers blogger has recently changed. I’m Emma, and Im taking over from Wendy, who has been posting all the latest linguistics news for the past three years. Wendy has travelled all over the world and now lives in Shanghai, where she has the opportunity to practice her Mandarin skills every day. I’ve also travelled extensively, but am not multi-lingual. I am however currently (slowly) learning Latin American Spanish.

A bit about me: I’m British, and as we all know, we Brits are not well renowned for their language skills. I think this is part laziness (“hey, everyone speaks English, right?”) and part schooling (we don’t learn languages as part of the curriculum until secondary school, which is actually quite outrageous). This is, of course, a sweeping generalisation, I’m quite aware that there are some awesome British multi linguists out there.

I wasn’t brought up speaking other languages at home and also wasn’t taught the basics of my own language at school(!), however I pride myself on trying when I’m abroad. ‘Hello,’ ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ go a long way, and if you try even more, people are more willing to help you. This goes both ways – I’ve worked in the West End of London and had to deal with irate tourists with varying levels of English, and it’s infinitely easier to converse when there are some mutual language skills. I also travel a lot, so get to test this out quite a bit. I will of course be bringing you travel/language tales here on this very blog.

So, thanks Wendy, for all your informative language posts. I intend to carry on in Wendy’s footsteps, blogging about the latest language news, hints and tips and anecdotes and stories from my own language learning experiences. Please feel free to correct me, help me out, generally mock my language skills, and post some constructive comments once in a while!

Professor Judith Dwyer, who led a team of researchers from the Faculty of Health Sciences, said Aboriginal patients from rural and remote areas frequently face a complex set of barriers to effective treatment.

“For this group of patients, it’s almost inevitable that their patient journey is going to be complicated,” Professor Dwyer said.

“In addition to facing long journeys, these patients often speak English as a second language, are lacking in financial resources, are vulnerable because of a high burden of illness and also face the issues of being Aboriginal in a world that is largely non-Aboriginal.”

“While not every Aboriginal patient has all these problems, the health care system needs to anticipate and assume complexity, and prepare for it.”

The team identified and analysed more than 2,700 rural Aboriginal admissions to city hospitals over a two-year period and the researchers also undertook qualitative case-studies from both patient and carer perspectives.

“We found that there are lots of good people doing good things, but it’s in patches,” Professor Dwyer said.

“Often the initiatives have short-term ‘soft’ money – they only last as long as the project funding does.”

Funding, however, is not the primary barrier to improved treatment, Professor Dwyer said.

“South Australia already has high level policies that require these issues to be addressed, but we found that they haven’t been cascading down in a systematic way: what is lacking is operational policy,” she said.

“The units where it’s working well have co-ordinators who focus on managing the patient journey – they are part of the clinical team and they are in the wards, but they are also looking outwards, and know what needs to be done before, during and after admission.

“When that preparedness for complexity is brought in, everything goes so much more smoothly, and it’s actually a better use of resources, not only for the country people and the country health services that refer them, but for the metropolitan hospitals that receive them.”