Week 8, 2026 — hello Claude

I went to see the exhibition L’empire du sommeil at Musée Marmottan Monet, which had some nice pieces but felt like an unserious attempt at tackling a rich theme like sleep. It didn’t explore dreams, day dreams or napping at all. And there were a few too many pieces that were “man/god looking at nude, sleeping female“ to which I had a heightened awareness of, as our visit was the same day that former prince Andrew was arrested. Still, a museum visit and light dinner afterwards is such a wonderful way to spend a weekday evening and I’m determined to repeat it soon.

A big week for Emotions at Work, as we kickoff a multi-month engagement with a new client. I was reminded yet again how energizing it is to spend time with open-hearted clients that seek partnership to make a dent in their aspirations.

•

I finally took a proper plunge into vibe coding, and got from point A - hey here’s an idea to point B - hey here’s the URL of my app, try it out. Yes, I got as far as hooking up a Github repo, Vercel, and Supabase so that I can deploy web apps with a database backend. It’s been a lot of fun and I’m liking the learning curve. I think I can become much better, very quickly, and then see how useful that is…!

I worked on two apps:

• An learning app that helps increase fluency with a Gestalt framework that I’ve been having retention issues with—I generated exercises, and designed a chatbot that acts as a teacher. It’s laser focused on helping you learn the material, and doesn’t try to analyze you or “support” you, which is an issue with a generic LLM experience. My goal is to make a couple of single-purpose learning apps under the umbrella of Gestalter for me and my peers. This is a very good start!

• A whiteboard tool for a workshop activity that we often run at Emotions at Work, for which I have not been able to find a sufficient workaround for in Miro or Figma. There are still technical challenges to be overcome but I’m more and more optimistic that I can build something we can use ourselves. Once I’m there, we’ll explore the possibility of releasing it as a paid service. This is a much more ambitious app than a Claude API wrapper, and I’m mindblown at how far I got just sitting on my couch on the weekend.

Week 7, 2026 — mostly I read books at home

I had three outings, so not in complete cave mode, but close to it. Mostly I did what was needed for work, and then just read book after book.

• Kaho Nashiki’s “The Witch of the West is Dead”. It’s a short novel of a troubled young girl who goes to live with her grandmother in the forest for a while, where she learns the ways of a witch, gaining fluency in plants and animals and attunement to self. It was a delightful, easy read, with lots of lovely phrases. There was a bonus short story after the novel—a few scenes of the main character in a period that was not covered in the book, splitting perspectives with another character who was only mentioned in passing in the main story. So you get a sense of what happened in between chapters of the main story, delivered just in that moment when you’re mourning a bit that the story has concluded. An unexpected cherry on top that I would dearly love to see more authors do!

• I skimmed Takashi Saito’s non-fiction book “The place where only book readers can arrive”. Saito is a well-known educator and prolific author. But I was put off by the cold and condescending tone and ended up skipping over large swaths of it.

• I read Daisuke Kishida’s “Textbook on business for the ‘new’ wealthy“ for work.

• Shigeru Mizuki’s “Mizuki-san’s Happiness Theory“ was a wonderful read. The first half was his thesis on happiness, and the second half was a series of autobiographical essays about his life and career. I know Mizuki as a hugely successful and beloved manga artist, and was sucked into reading his accounts on his experience as a conscripted foot soldier in WW2 and decades of struggle as a starving artist.

• Keisuke Hada’s novel “Phantom” was a strange one. The set-up is promising—the main character, a 32yo salaried worker obsessed with FIRE and the stock market, has to decide what to do about her boyfriend, who looks down her priorities, gets pulled into a cult that rejects the monetary economy. The story attempts to question what happiness lies beyond the pursuit of financial independence but the cult storyline felt forced and distracting. I was disappointed.

• Looking for something casual and entertaining, I read Hisato Watanabe’s “I did an in-depth report on a historic ballet company on the verge of going under—and it was intense.” based on his experience as a hired gun producing YouTube videos for said ballet company. The ballet company takes an incredible risk ‘letting‘ this producer set the editorial direction, as he follows his nose on what’s interesting, and gets into the personal lives of the dancers and handles taboo topics like how much money they make. Their courage and open-mindedness to try something new, because clearly the existing ways are not working, is humbling. There is no promise of success, and indeed, they get tons of criticism. But against the odds, they start selling out shows and building a new audience that had never been interested in ballet before. Incredible.

Week 6, 2026 — cat-sitting, singing and writing to think and understand

It was my first week back in Paris, but fragmented as I was catsitting for friends, and spent considerable time going back and forth between my home and theirs. I have completed this mission, though, and I look forward to re-building my daily routines. Really need to get back in the gym, it’s been almost two months.

•

I prototyped an essay series to introduce some of the thinking I do with the Japanese books I’m reading, in terms of how it shapes my perspectives on design, systems and relationships. The process laid bare the gap between thinking about, which I experience as enjoyable consumption, and thinking with, for which I need rigorous training. This was a daunting realization. But after tinkering with it for an afternoon, I feel energized by the challenge. It is a worthwhile mountain to climb, and it feels like I’m starting a new chapter on my journey with books.

•

On Saturday afternoon, I joined a workshop on resonant singing and social presencing theater practices. The singing is more like vocalizing in different group configurations, which I find a lot of fun. It’s literally about learning how to use your voice, in a playful, experimental way where there is no yardstick for good or bad singing. In the last five years, I’ve had sporadic chances to workshop SPT, this type of singing, contract improv etc. Wonder how I can make it happen more often?

•

My reading highlight this week was Mari Yonehara’s novel “Olga Morisovna's Rhetorical Question”, an incredible detective tale that takes the main character (a middle-aged Japanese woman) to Moscow after the fall of the Soviet Union, to unravel mysteries of the life of her Russian dance teacher (Olga Morisovna) from whom she studied under in Prague as a child. It runs the gamut of the 1930s at the height of Stalin’s power to the 1960s when those years start getting re-examined and re-constructed through public retrospection. It’s a 500 page novel that I read on my Kindle, and I’m not sure I would even have picked up if I’d realized the length beforehand. The list of Russian characters introduced at the beginning of the book was almost enough to put me off. After finishing the book, I looked at that list again and was very pleased to find that I had a sense of each character’s physicality and energy—and wished I could spend more time with them. Yonehara, who had a big career as a Japanese-Russian interpretor as well as writing novels and providing news commentary on Russian affairs, passed away from cancer in 2006 at age 56. I can’t help but mourn the role she may have played in helping the public understand present-day developments.

Week 5, 2026 — a big week

• Monday: Morning hike in Kirstenboch with M, an afternoon of journaling, and a last dinner with M and K

• Tuesday: Cable car up to Table Mountain for a meandering walk, picked up a bunch of South African novels at an indie bookstore, sent a Postcard

• Wednesday: Up at 5am to get back to Paris, a 12hr flight. Read Wisani Mushwana’s “Soft Landing” and Damon Galgut’s “The Promise”

• Thursday: Back to work

• Friday: Some work, Korean resto dinner with M and early night in

• Saturday: Did loads of laundry and cleaned my apartment. Read Kopano Matlwa’s “Bosadi” and Sayaka Murata’s “Convenience Store Woman“. Started a week of cat sitting for friends

• Sunday: Read some of the zines I’d picked up in Tokyo. Hang out with A and the cat

I’m very glad I bit the bullet and upgraded my phone before going to South Africa! What an incredible country. Wonder how I can get back?

Week 4, 2026 — vibrant bubble

A crazy intense week where I barely blinked. It’s Sunday and my training is officially finished. We learned about resistance, conflict, and dyadic systems—and by learn I mean, we practiced with and on each other in different configurations, and with organizational clients. On two nights I stayed till the end of dinner parties, an on two other nights I crashed without any dinner at all. I got a light bout of gastro and handled it well. I celebrated my birthday with my peers, feeling bashful and pleased. I had a joyous reunion with a friend for the first time in-person, after five years of Zoom connections. She and her daughter drove me to the Cape of Good Hope and introduced me to views all along the coast. I visited Robben Island, most know as the place where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 17 years, but also for keeping many other political prisoners and leprosy patients in isolation.

Yesterday I saw this sign painted on the back of a bus: “too blessed to be stressed”. Feeling a bit like that!

Week 3, 2026 — arrived in Capetown

I needed to be in South Africa on Saturday and I’d decided to spend a few days in Paris first, to re-pack and re-connect. It was wonderful to be home and hard to leave. Sometimes I wonder how much I really love travelling. I can’t imagine not doing it but I’m also a huge homebody.

•

I read Ryo Asai’s novel “In the Mega-church” from Tokyo to Paris. It’s an intricate story of three characters that criss-cross into a finale—a divorced salaryman desperate for relevance who gets an opportunity to help market an idol group, his socially isolated university student daughter who gets sucked into this fandom unbeknownst to him, and a financially precarious 35 yo woman whose world collapses when her favorite idol commits suicide. Their three stories advanced in leaps and bounds bigger than I anticipated, by which I mean, their lives deteriorated at a speed which is horrifying and at the same time, feels like a logical sequence for what happens when one loses their place in community and latches onto something that isolates them even further. Asai is know for his ability to capture the zeitgeist with surgical precision of the inner experience of different players on that scene. It’s suffocating and relentless and you can’t look away.

On my way from Paris to Capetown I read Asako Yuzuki’s novel, “Butter”. (In the original Japanese, having learned from “Before the coffee gets cold”). I’d actually heard about this book from an Australian friend, before realizing that it’d been a bestseller in the UK. Translated contemporary novels are having a moment in the English book market, it seems. I was blown away by the prose in this book… there were sentences that felt so rich, so savory. Now that I know what happens, I can re-read it more slowly in the future to savor the nuances and turn of phrases. This book has some beautiful friendships, which was like a salve after In the Mega-Church. I also related to the impulses of many of the female characters—finding my own experiences and inner monologue articulated in a crisp manner that provided validation that I hadn’t even realized I hadn’t given to my own thoughts. I finished Butter while having breakfast on my Airbnb patio in the sun (see photo!) which felt like a grand luxury. I’m curious to read some English reviews but want to enjoy cocooning in my high-context Japanese experience a while longer.

In my jet lagged mornings in between, I read Gabrielle Zevin’s novel, “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”. This was also a great book, on friendship, the world of gaming and creative processes. I’m still coming down from the heat of Butter to say more but I enjoyed this book a lot and will prob re-read it in the future, too.

•

Other things happened this week, too, some wonderful conversations that will form creative projects in the near future. And I’m in South Africa, a place I’ve had little exposure to in the past. But let’s be honest, it was the books that made my week..!

Week 2, 2025 — sliding door

I kicked off work on Tuesday, starting with a nice team lunch and commuting to the office every day. It’s a run of what my life may have looked like if I hadn’t moved away, which I always find to be a marvelous, confusing mix of bittersweetness, nostalgia and gratitude.

Fun things that happened:

• went to the largest zine shop in Tokyo and then a zine festival the next day — lots of wonderful finds!

• lunch with peers and friends visiting from Singapore

• coffee with a fellow UXR who is great about making sure we meet :)

• meals at three restaurants that manage to evade or repel tourists

• two conveyor belt sushi dinners who do not

• Friday izakaya drinking party with childhood friends

• got a tattoo! I have a few weeks left in my milestone birthday year to do it and pretty happy with the result

• last round of shopping (clothes, food, cosmetics) before flying back to Tokyo

• a last hang with baby niece, even babysitting solo for a while and successfully putting her down for a nap

Week 1, 2026 — HNY

It’s Week 1 but half 2025 and half 2026, which makes the numbering compatible with the days of the week, but it’s not very elegant. I sent a Postcard from wintery Yatsugatake on the 30th, a cap on the feather of some very nice reflection time, then spent a few days with family. We made three trips to the onsen hot spring bath, which might be a record in one week! It was super nice in Yatsugatake as usual, and I’m already looking forward to coming back in July for early summer hiking and a creative project or two.

I gave a few tries to intention-setting for 2026 but didn’t get very far—2025 was pretty nice, all things considered, and I oscillate between wanting a continuation vs wondering if there’s a grander challenge that I’m missing out on. To be continued to ponder over, as things start to pick up.

Week 52, 2025 — Hurling towards the end of the year

Solid last week at work, wrapping up client work, lunch with a client that I hadn’t met in person before, office cleaning and evenings out with colleagues. I’d wanted to make progress on personal projects but decided to end the work week and meet friends from high school instead. It was a bit of a reunion moment, and I’m so glad for this reconnect. I’ve missed so much of their lives, and I would like them to be part of mine again. It also gives me an experience of Tokyo (and myself) that I’d let fade away, through many years of prioritizing work and family on these trips to Japan.

•

Weaved throughout was lots of family time, with three sisters, two brothers-in-law and a baby niece coming and going while the parents stayed put at home.

•

On Saturday I caught an evening train to Yatsugatake for a few days of quiet time and prepare the property for family to spend the new year. Clear blue skies, lots of bright stars at night and fab views of Mt Fuji, the Japan Alps and the Yatsugatake range. My grocery run ended up taking two hours as I chased the views, and the bike battery gave up towards the end. I’ll ride in a different direction tomorrow.

•

Japanese books: I read Ryo Asai’s novel “(Ab)Normal Desire” and Kaho Miyake’s “The skill to put words to things you like” and enjoyed both. I started reading Namiko Kubo’s “The science of oshi” a book that looks at stan culture through the lens of projection theory. Miyake’s book is also rooted in “oshi” i.e. stan culture—it’s about how to speak or write about the things you’re a fan of, in a way that lands with other people. She advocates for noticing what you’re noticing (how Gestalt!) and then jotting them down before you expose yourself to other people’s opinions. Oshi culture is important for me to be able to articulate for my UX research work, and I’ll prob pick up a few more books next year.

English books: I read Liann Zhang’s very readable “Julie Chan is Dead” and started leafing through The Fax Club Experiment. Not sure if I’ll finish the latter. I also made a dent in Gabor Mate’s “The Myth of Normal” which I’d picked up a while back.

•

I’ve kept up these weeknotes for the full second half of 2025, and the habit been critical for re-building my reading and writing practices. My attention is coming back. A new relationship with discipline is emerging. I’ve had a good year (reflection in progress, aiming to send out a Postcard tomorrow) but these quiet changes might be my favorite parts of 2025.

Week 51, 2025 — Arrive in Tokyo

I cleaned my flat, took care of some visa admin (long story) and flew out to Tokyo on Thursday, arriving Friday night. Usually I go into the office the next morning so getting a restful weekend first felt very relaxed.

•

I finished listening to Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar’s “You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism” which was funny-not-funny and Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s “Before the Coffee gets Cold” which I regret not reading in the original Japanese.

Speaking of Japanese books, I finally sorted out how to get Amazon.co.jp on my Kindle. Yes! I’m banging my head against the wall for letting a decade pass without looking into it properly. What I needed was a new Amazon account, since my previous .co.jp account was transferred to the .fr account, registering my Wise card so that I don’t get crazy exchange rates, and assigning my Kindle to the new account. (I now have a Japanese Kindle and an English ebook tablet, which is excessive but unavoidable.) Now that I’ve worked on my attention span the last six months and able to read books again, I’m really keen on reading new Japanese releases.

Looking forward to a fun three weeks in Tokyo.