My name is Elanor and now I feel pretty weird. Even though disparate prattle is our aim, and even though we have deemed this blog a success by its very existence, I'm beginning to realise how completely this place is committed to the word and the idea of 'symposiasts'. The title is a big deal, and I'm wondering if this poses a problem. Is this word an annoying and insupportable oddity? I cannot be sure yet. All I can say is that this word is a teeterer, and is too new for me to have formed a considered judgment about its wank/wink proportions. I cannot declare absolutely on which side of that divide it errs. Nor can I have objectivity in the matter, because now, I am a symposiast. I am the blog and the blog is me. Previously, it would never have occurred to me to answer the question "How would you describe yourself?" with the reply, "Oh, that’s easy. I can reduce myself to one adjective (adjectives describe nouns right? And I am a noun?); I am a symposiast". It troubles me a little that, because of a whim yesterday, I could say exactly that. In all honesty, I could hardly stop myself from saying it now that the word is so immediately associated with myself. Seriously. And yet, the word doesn't hold great meaning for me. It has never been my title. I was an 'interlocutor' once, and I was certain that that would be the most extravagant meaningless title I would ever be saddled with. I say meaningless just because such words purport grandeur yet deliver only, well…ummm…a name for people who talk. And everybody talks. So, these are not exclusive titles. But still, we chose this one. It reflects on us.

Perhaps I’m only so focussed on symposiast at the moment because it is so new to me. I mean, I am certain that I have never heard this word, let alone used it or referred with it to myself. I am only guessing at the pronunciation. I certainly have never entertained the secret desire that someday, somehow, someone would look right into my soul and say, 'Elanor. I see the real you. It's incontrovertible. You are a symposiast. It is what you were made for. Go...go, and embrace your destiny'. Nope. I never yearned despairingly for that, nor gained sporadic bursts of strength and hope from any tiny scraps of evidence which could herald the coming of such moment of glorious revelation. No, not me. So, symposiast is a completely nebulous addition to my life, yet it seems like such a solid thing because there is no great store of other adjectives with which to divert myself from 'symposiast... symposiast... SYMPOSIAST'. It has the ring of a taunt.

But I digress. The reason I am posting this now is just to provide a little autobiographical information about myself, in order to reveal the perspective from which I will be forming the ill-conceived notions that may yet appear here. Blah blah, everything is subjective. Yeah yeah, the undeclared is the insidious. You know the disclaimer. Therefore, I humbly lay before you the roots by which the tree of my agenda gains succour. I live in Melbourne. I am twenty-one. I am a girl. I hope this information helps you to make an informed decision about the relative veracity of any of my statements, have you ever the need to weigh them against the opinions of others.