What I'm doing now

Last update was 2026-05-24.

I'm in Porto, Portugal.

Working as a Software Engineer at KPMG.

Learning Japanese

Continuing a course at FLUP.

Occasionally advancing on reading Death Note in Japanese. Images and a story that's known to me allow me to focus on analyzing sentence structure and grammar points. Before I'd been reading YotsubaTo but after several volumes and more than a year of it, it became a bit boring. Death Note while familiar presents itself as an interesting alternative.

Listening to a common Japanese conversation podcast while commuting: 日本語おしゃべりラジオ - Real Japanese conversation radio. This is really just two friends having a conversation with a mic on. They talk about all sorts of things: from vacation trips, weddings, using AI as a language partner, maru-hara, ...

Trying to just write

But failing to do it.

I'm trying to understand what is it that in my mind blocks me from taking the step to write. If it's fear of shame, fear of a misaligned goal, a mix of those, or something else entirely.

Appreciating creators and creations more and more

Be them artists, writers, musicians,... Sometimes not even a specific artist, but a product of art and all the work and artists that worked on it.

Arcane is a stark example for me. Arcane: Bridging the Rift (a behind the scenes) had in me as much impact as the series itself.

I'm constantly motivated by such work and people.

I'm trying to start interacting with strangers

Motivated by the project Model Strangers by Christopher Ward. This was the one that I first stumbled upon: DO IT SCARED! The Beauty of Talking To Strangers. But you can watch any one. In fact the variety of life experiences, paths, and perspectives is one of the aspects that make this project so amazing to me. How so many people that you cross on the street but don't even spare a glance at can hold such amazing stories is something that I want to try to not miss out on. Or rather, that I want to try to tap into.

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Trying to stop pretending.