This morning I got notification from Facebook via a suggested post dated 20 January 2014 that told me that with a friend I had started the ‘Book Chat’ series of podcasts on that day, and at Twitter they told me that it was the anniversary of my joining their site. They made a tweet (“Do you remember when you joined Twitter? I do! #MyTwitterAnniversary”) for me to use that had a graphic on it with the figure “9”.
I remembered joining Twitter originally with a different name because a friend had suggested joining it to me. My current Twitter handle came later. But there were other things that had happened at this time of year, as well, I remembered. I had started this blog on 22 January 2006 at the same time I applied to study media in a postgraduate degree at the University of Sydney. I had just bought my new apartment in Campsie (December 2005) and I had had my employment status with the University of Sydney upgraded.
A lot of the poetry I wrote in the years 2013 and 2014 was written in the summer, as well. There was for example the sequence ‘Water Creature’ that started on Australia Day 2013 when Tropical Cyclone Oswald slowly tracked down the coast from Cape York to northern NSW. This sonnet in it, ‘An Australia Day welcome to new arrivals’, was written on 26 January of that year:
I remembered joining Twitter originally with a different name because a friend had suggested joining it to me. My current Twitter handle came later. But there were other things that had happened at this time of year, as well, I remembered. I had started this blog on 22 January 2006 at the same time I applied to study media in a postgraduate degree at the University of Sydney. I had just bought my new apartment in Campsie (December 2005) and I had had my employment status with the University of Sydney upgraded.
A lot of the poetry I wrote in the years 2013 and 2014 was written in the summer, as well. There was for example the sequence ‘Water Creature’ that started on Australia Day 2013 when Tropical Cyclone Oswald slowly tracked down the coast from Cape York to northern NSW. This sonnet in it, ‘An Australia Day welcome to new arrivals’, was written on 26 January of that year:
It’s when I hear you speak of what is fair –
who was born far from here – I intuit
your displeasure: our country might better
harness your talents because it’s merit
and not who you know that would count for more.
Tales about bad officials on the take
draw your fierce integrity to the fore
for the polity’s health is yours to make.
It’s you and the ones like you who define
perfectly the extent of what is good,
and your dreams alone are what justify
pride in guessing where our forefathers stood.
As the ocean roars, the rain’s airy spiresLots of big things have happened at this time of year, it turns out, even though I usually decline when it’s offered to me to settle on a New Year’s resolution. It turns out they are more like revolutions!
abate the authority of bushfires.
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