Kate Bagnall
@baibi
Currently: Exhausted by long COVID. Usually: Histories of migration, citizenship, family and the law. Australia, New Zealand and beyond. Senior Lecturer in Humanities at UTAS. Always: Missing south China and wishing my Cantonese was better.
Day 1. Selkie is 2 months old today, and she’s now an official member of the family here in Hobart 🐾 #selkie
It’s been lovely to be back in Canberra for a few days – I’ve caught up with friends and colleagues, given a keynote at the ACT & Region Heritage Symposium, and met some lovely new people passionate about history and heritage.
Meet Selkie! She will be joining our family in a couple of weeks. Be prepared for so much puppy spam.
For dinner tonight I made vegan minchee, Macau’s ‘national dish’, which I have never eaten in Macau because it’s usually made with ground meat! If I wasn’t feeding a vegan, I would add a fried egg. Yum!
Spent a great (long) weekend in Melbourne, staying in Chinatown, eating so much Chinese/Asian food (Supernormal, Shandong Mama, Tim Ho Wan, Biang! Biang!), seeing friends and my kids.
Lovely visit today to MOCA – the newly opened Museum of Chinese in Australia in the old Haymarket Library in Sydney. If you’re nearby, pop in and have a look at their taster exhibition, which features stories of families and businesses from Sydney’s Chinatown!
Glorious blue sky in Sydney this morning! Waiting at Town Hall for a friend, watching the tourists and listening to the bells of St Andrew’s
Hanging out in my old building at UOW for a bit today - visited a History Honours class today and am attending my PhD student’s Graduation tomorrow!
Delicious post-archives lunch today at my favourite Hobart yum cha place, Hometown Secret 家鄉味 – we were so full we had to take these daan taat home for afternoon tea. Nom nom nom.
Wishing all my friends health, happiness and prosperity in the Year of the Horse! 馬年到了，祝福各位朋友前程似錦，身體健康，幸福快樂！
There’s valuable information recorded in Chinese on Tasmania’s old Chinese headstones that is gradually disappearing, like on Claude Nam Shing’s headstone in Cornelian Bay Cemetery. I’ve worked out some of the characters, but not all of them. Any thoughts, clever people? 🗃️ #EverdayHeritage
Happy 6 years at UTAS to me! (And thank you to the colleague who saw that this job and I were suited)
Today I took custody of a box of historical materials that were purchased in a Launceston antique shop many years ago – I suspect they came out of the old Sun Hung Ack store. Among the treasures are a collection relating to the Tasmanian See Yip Club (which I knew existed but nothing more!)
Today was my last day of sick leave – on Monday I return to work (0.4FTE) after 4 months off. It was a happy day of errands, lunching with a munchkin and her mum, and chatting with my teenager. I don’t know how my return to work will go, but I’m hopeful that this time I can make it work🤞. #longCOVID
I spent the afternoon representing UTAS Family History at Convict Connections at the Cascades Female Factory, looking out these windows over the walls of the Female Factory to a snowy kunanyi. (It’s on again tomorrow if you want help with convict ancestors!) femalefactory.org.au/event/convic...
This week I’ve unexpectedly found myself in hospital. I’d hoped to be able to go home today, but it wasn’t to be. Meanwhile it’s naps, Netflix, and pain management.
I suspect most people I interact with on a day-to-day basis don’t know I’m unwell, or think that I’m all better – but for me and many, many others our lives and those of our families have been irreparably changed by COVID.