Looking at the world through different lenses

Today I attended my first lecture so I can learn Te Reo Māori - The Māori language.

It is really not enough to simply say that Te Reo Māori is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand. New Zealand is made up of two islands and within each island there are different groups or tribes and then within those groups... Well I think if you do not know anything about New Zealand then you should find out. And maybe I should become more comfortable writing about it as well :-)

The paper or subject that I am doing is called Introduction to Conversational Māori. In the next couple of months I hope to introduce who I am and talk about myself in te reo Māori. Thinking about this has made me realise I have not really talked much about myself beyond my writing. What I write is heavily influences by who I am. The resources that I think are worth sharing are things that I have encountered because of what I do in my life. Therefore...

Hello, my name in Allison Brown. I am Australian and was born in a suburb in Melbourne, Australia. I moved to the state of Queensland when I was 3 years old and grew up in the area known as the Sunshine Coast. My mother's name is Cherry and my father's name was Ian. I have known all my grandparents and my mother's parents are still a part of my life. I also knew two of my great grandparents on my mother's side, one of which was born in England.

My ancestors began arriving in Australia as officers on the First Fleet. One of those ancestors John Shortland (1769-1810) spent a lot of his life in Australia but spent his last years back in England. My connection to New Zealand goes as far back as the nephews of John Shortland, Willoughby (1804–1869) and Edward (1812–1893), who played significant roles within New Zealand.

Even though I have ancestors from places like England and Scotland, I only feel a connection to Australia as I think most of my ancestoring is too far back to truly matter. The way I try to express this connection is through my poetry, especially in how I view the world.

I will post my introduction in te reo Māori towards the end of Semester so wish me luck. To make sure it is accurate I will ask a friend who is fluent to check :-)

Note (03-04-2010)

I successfully finished this paper but my goals from this well... Reality has well and truly set in and I accept not that this is beyond my abilities. I am also not sure that this is something I should do.