hobbies.
I write code from 9 to 5 (okay, 9 to 2 AM). Here's what I do with the other hours.
keys & reeds
I play piano and tenor saxophone — two instruments that have almost nothing in common except that they both sound terrible when you're learning and incredible once you're not.
Piano came first. It's how I think about harmony and structure — chords, voicings, the math underneath the music. Tenor sax came later and taught me something different: how to breathe, how to phrase, how to make one note say more than twenty.
I love all genres of music — Jazz, Rock, Indie Pop, Rap, Hip-Hop, R&B, Soul, and Classical. Some favourites: Matt Maltese, The 1975, Radiohead, Sade, and MF Doom.
Piano: 15 years and counting · Sax: 3 years and counting
and here are some not so perfect tunes.
ink & paint
I do oil painting and pencil/ink sketching. Oil painting is slow and deliberate — mixing colors, building layers, waiting for things to dry. Sketching is the opposite — fast, instinctive, just a pen and whatever comes out.
I like having both.
light & frame
Photography is how I practice seeing. It's the same muscle as design — noticing composition, contrast, the way light falls on ordinary things and makes them worth a second look.
I shoot anything and everything that I cherish. That can be a beautiful sunset, a busy street, or a loved one.
smash & clear
I play badminton competitively. And by "competitively" I mean I will absolutely celebrate a good smash like I just won the Olympics, even if it's a casual game at the rec center.
It's the fastest racquet sport in the world — shuttlecocks can travel over 300 mph off a professional's racket. Mine are... somewhat slower. But the footwork, the reflexes, the split-second decisions — it's the closest thing to a real-time algorithm I've found outside of code.
I have played for about 7 years — I have competed provincially in Ontario (I won gold for doubles!), and I now play recreationally.