What craft means when making gets easier
Around May this year, I started using dictation for my journal entries. Instead of typing, I’d open Superwhisper and just talk without worrying about how I sounded or whether I was making sense. I’d just started a big project at work with a lot of ambiguity and back and forth, and the entries became daily notes to myself: what I’d been through, what I was thinking, what to try next. This was also useful when traveling, when I wanted to capture an experience while its details were still fresh…
There’s a pattern I’ve been noticing in myself for a while now. I can be happy with how things are and still want something different. I can look forward to a trip, have a wonderful time, and still find myself missing home before it’s over. I have a love-hate relationship with idle time. Too much of it and I get antsy, too little and I get cranky…
Another year, another toolkit update. I’ve been doing these annual snapshots since 2019, and this one feels more like the 2023 and 2024 editions than last year’s: an overhaul rather than a few swaps. There are new tools across writing, coding, and personal design work, and much more of my day now runs through AI…
Dhrumil’s Toronto Core made me want to write my own Saigon list. I’ve been back since 2020, so I think it’s overdue. Every district has its own vibe and somehow they all add up to a uniquely Saigon one, this list is my attempt at pinning that down. (I realize that about half of these are food, and that’s exactly why I love this city)…
In 2019 I sold all of my camera gear: a mirrorless camera and three lenses, a little point-and-shoot I carried alongside it, and a GoPro. The whole kit had been sitting in a drawer for almost a year by then because I had broken into digital design the year before and there was so much to learn and not enough hours for it, so photography took a backseat and the backseat became a drawer. It was a deliberate choice, and I didn’t feel like I was losing anything so much as making room for the thing I wanted more…
At this point in my career, I’ve been the interviewer far more often than I’ve been the interviewee, and that kind of puts things in perspective. It wasn’t a milestone I or anyone marked for me, I just noticed one day that I’m the one opening the call, setting the tone, and carrying a decision that affects someone else’s career…
I love traveling and I’m quite boring about it
I love traveling. I’m just not very adventurous about it like I used to be. What some people might call a boring way to travel is just how I enjoy it most…
