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Australian fairy tales firmly fixed in the bush environment

In the bush near Olinda Creek Falls we are transported into the 1900s to recreate the atmosphere that inspired Ernst to place her fairies in the bush. This month the Women's History Network published a blog post from me that discussed the life and fairy tales of German national Beatrice Wilcken. Wilcken also set her stories in the bush in New South Wales. http://womenshistorynetwork.org/blog/?p=4829

Completion Seminar

What more can I say? This is the beginning of the end. Feeling nostalgic I thought I'd look back and read some of my blogs.... this one had a high number of hits. It was entitled H ow to do a PhD, work  full-time,  and still have a family life.  Obviously it resonated with PhDers out there. After six years I can say my 'small chunks' plan worked.  When I began my PhD my good friend R2 (that makes me R1 as in Scrabble) suggested twenty hours a week was the requirement for part-time PhD so that's what I do.  I kept a log for a while to make sure I was on track but as with all procrastination activities the excel spreadsheet eventually gave way to a similar  time waster .  Here's my grand plan. Not particularly innovative. Small chunks. Bit by bit. Nibble away. Concentrated effort at times of low work pressure; full-time for 50% of holidays and whatever-whenever for the rest. At least 4-5 hours on the weekend if full-time work is full-on and nothing can happ

Larrikins, bush tales and other great Australian stories

I have just finished Graham Seal's new book  Larrikins, bush tales and other great Australian stories. A comfortable 'read' after thesis tomes, full of interesting yarns, tall tales and intriguing details that come to life in a fascinating 'storyscape'. I'll admit I meandered through it with a coffee in hand, choosing chapters at will. I began with the chapter 'After the Kelly's' as it connected me to my own family story of my great grandmother who was given a lift to school by Ned himself. Blog Link to story  How many stories such as this are passed down through the generations and beg to be told. Seal has rescued some of them from obscurity. Seal's comments on Olga Ernst  in this book made a late entry into my thesis. His  labelling of Australian fairies as 'fairies in the paddock' had a resonance as I agreed that our fairies liked to live on the fringes of the towns, in the paddocks and the surrounding bush not far from human habi

Hans Ernst : The 'Kangaroo' plumber

This post is not about fairy tales but about one of the 'off ramps' of research that make it such a fabulous journey. I was fascinated by the achievements of Olga Ernst's younger brother and discovering a University prize in Melbourne named in his honour. This blog post thanks his grandchildren  Gail, Belinda, Jon and Alice and his niece Helen Dixon for assisting my research. HANS ERNST PRIZE  (RMIT, Melbourne)  Who was Hans Ernst? There were no babysitters in the small mountain town of Wandiligong where his mother Olga Ernst (nee Johanna Olga Straubel), a young widow of 34, was given a position as an Assistant Teacher in 1897. Consequently Hans began school earlier than most children grasping the opportunity to learn in his mother's schools. Keen to fly planes, Hans Ernst left in his 20s Australia working his passage over to the US on board a ship. Though his career in California began as a bicycle repairman his ability to see what needed to be improved was so

Adapting The Elves and the Shoemaker into a 21st Century fairy tale (In German)

T o celebrate another year of 'slowly' learning German here is my Christmas Post, as usual, in German. My research focuses on how the fairy tales Ernst wrote were shaped by the Australian landscape and her environment. I decided to adapt the plot and structure of a well-known Grimm fairytale '805_Wichtelmaenner' into a fairy tale that resonated with my life. So, if I had two little elves who would do my work while I slept I would hope they would finish the School Timetable with 20 classes, 4 specialist programs and numerous other events that change weekly. Frohe Weihnachten to all the readers of this blog. Die Elfen und die stellvertretende Schulleiterin   Es war einmal eine stellvertretende Schulleiterin von einer mittelgroßen Schule, die hart arbeitete und eine gute Lehrerin war: aber sie war nicht so gut in die Zeitpläne machen, so dass alle Schüler lernen, was sie wissen müssen. Am Abend bevor das Term begann, mussten die Zeitpläne fertig sein. Sie

100 Years of the Brighton Red Cross

 Alleyn Best and myself. I was delighted to attend the Launch of the book "Red Cross in Brighton: A History of the Brighton Unit of Red Cross (Victorian Division, Australia) 1914-2014 " by Alleyn Best. This is a  fascinating history of the contribution of Brighton's Red Cross members in their past century. With such a rich history it must have been a difficult task to decide what to include in the book, but Alleyn has managed to produce a succinct, readable volume illustrated with a wealth of photographs chosen from the archives. I enjoyed reading this riveting history, and am pleased to have been able contribute information about Olga Waller's (Ernst) role in the Brighton Unit. In the chapter devoted to the Junior Red Cross Olga is mentioned as an 'inspiring leader' (pp. 87-94) and there is a beautifully reproduced photo of Olga and the Brighton Junior Red Cross in 1949 (p. 88).  The book can be purchased from the Brighton Red Cross Unit's address 

Is a PhD like a HT bus?

Three weeks of being ill with some vague virus that has seen me hover between work and home trying to shake a rather persistent bug has seen some good. I have finally translated Til Kildrene! by Sebastian  Olden-Jørgensen  into English from Danish with the help of translating software, and when that doesn't seem to make sense a Danish dictionary.  I wanted to read what  Olden-Jørgensen  was presenting to his audience about source criticism and the use of artefacts. All I could find was wikipedia references from what looked like the same original source. In the Epilogue (page 84) I found this gem that I think relates not just to scientific research also to my PhD. I have taken a few stop-offs on the journey to explore other interesting research, and have at times been gripped by the feeling 'I may be on wrong bus' or worse, 'I shouldn't have got on!' Sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy the journey. A scientifi