Now

Where I am

I live in Montréal and work remotely from home—sometimes from a home remote from home.

Daily focus

I’m a few months into my role at Runway and loving the challenge. I enjoy learning about new domains and this one was no different. My brain has been stretched. My map of the world made that much richer with new connections and concepts.

I’m also one uni course done, since taking a break for almost a decade. It was simultaneously humbling and energizing—the same could be said for onboarding at Runway. I have a newfound curiousity for rhetoric and theories in communication. I’m looking forward to my next course in the coming term.

I said this in Autumn but I’m leaving it here because it still feels true: My life feels rich right now. It’s full of activities that inspire and motivate me. And each of these activities gives me new ideas in the others.

Alongside work and school, I’m still swimming and creating small bits of art for the love of it.

Hobbies and side projects

Walnut (beta)

Introducing Walnut, a calendar for visualization not optimization.

Walnut's lightweight drawing tools and calendar canvas help you get a sense of the shape of plans, for yourself or with others. When you want to sketch out a timeline but not create calendar events, Walnut is for you.

Walnut is based on a practice I’ve had for planning trips home over the last years, trying to visualize time spent with many people. I built this with (a lot of) support from my partner, Quinn. We’re still fine-tuning many details. If you play with it, please feel free to send us feedback!

Back to school

Last Autumn I returned to school, albeit in a small way. I’m taking a class at a time. Last term and the coming term I’ve focused on Rhetoric. It’s been a new and enjoyable discovery.

Why school? I enjoy learning. I’m more energized when I’m expanding my understanding of the world and it inspires new solutions in the work I do. But I find self-directed learning via books and blogs a struggle. I like the format of the classroom, where I can engage with an expert directly and discuss new (to me) ideas in real time. As well, I like that this format opens up my world to sources and perspectives I might not have otherwise come across.

As a side benefit—to me, a keener—I love that I get access to journals and all the papers I could want to read.

My book

The gist: I’m working on a book based on an onboarding resource that I created back in 2018. You can read more about the project here.

Writing at this length is new to me and so I’m working more slowly than I expected. To be honest, more often than I’d like to admit I find myself doing “productive procrastination” by changing the scope and format of the project. That said, it’s helpful to hear people are interested in this resource. If that’s you, let me know, I’m happy to share what I can with others.

This website

I think this project will be listed on this page for a long time. The main motivation behind each effort I put into it changes by the week as I—and others—need different things from this space. And so, the efforts will be neverending, at least not for the foreseeable future.

I plan to share more of the journey one day, when it feels more complete (but never will be, I expect, not truly).

Sport

Last summer I finished a 14km swim in Lago d’Orta, Italy. It was months in the making and I’m happy to report all went well! So well in fact that I’m itching to do more events like it.

But for now I’m swimming for the love of swimming. I’m working on my technique and speed, yes, but my main focus is on returning to the meditative side of it that I love.

I need to call out my coach, Matthias, from Gorillas & Butterfliesfor this support in last summer’s race. He was an amazing support, training me for the event and talking me through my anxiety. If you find yourself in Berlin and want to try triathlon, I highly recommend this club.

Art

Since I started the practice of creating everyday, I’ve dabbled in a few mediums over the last months.

The ones I spend the most time with lately include sketching portraits, sashiko embroidery, doodling with embroidery, and drawing landscapes.