Now

Where I am

A few months ago I said, “The rest of the year is going to be chaos.” Since then my partner and I got married, packed up our lives, visited home, and moved to a new city.

Today I would say most of the chaos is over. We’ve moved from a rolling boil to a steady simmer. Daily life is relatively stable, but there are some unanswered questions and incompleted tasks tumbling around beneath the surface.

Daily focus

These days, I’m looking for work in product design, either in-house or in a consulting role. My daily activities are a mix of either directly or indirectly related to finding a job.

The “directly related” are exactly what one would expect from a designer (refining my portfolio, reviewing job ads, etc) and not worth rehashing here.

Indirectly related, I’m using this time to return to writing, including my book about onboardingand other shorter pieces on design. I’ve also been using this time to refresh my coding skills and practice on some small ideas.

Hobbies and side projects

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.

I recently realized how perfect it is to work on a book about being new when you’re starting fresh in a new (to you) city. We’ve been in Montréal for about a month now and routines are just starting to solidify. I’m seeing a lot of parallels in the feeling of finding your way when everything is simultaneously familiar and yet not quite the same as it used to be. It’s put me in a nice (and, unsurprisingly, new) headspace for returning to this project after a few months away.

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

I’m currently training for a 14km swim in Lago d’Orta, Italy, in June 2025. Am I terrified? Yup. Am I excited? Yup!

To train for it, I’m swimming with the triathlon club at McGill University as well as working with my coach from Gorillas & Butterflies. With challenging workouts and a welcoming group, I’m enjoying myself and the race anxiety is delayed for the time being. I also simply feel more like myself when I have a swimming routine, so race or no race, I’m happy to be in the pool.

Art

Recently (October 2024) I’ve set out to draw once per day, in an attempt to find my way to creating for myself again. I’m learning a lot along the way and it’s changing how I think about drawing.

The latest and biggest lesson has been that when you create something new everyday, each individual “thing” becomes less precious. It’s not less meaningful or valuable, but there’s less of an urge to see it as one-of-a-kind and irreproducible. My ability to come up with ideas for subjects or methods to try isn’t going to disappear at sundown. Tomorrow, I’ll do something new, just like I did today.