Hobbies
Engineering occupies most of my waking hours — but the mind needs more than equations. Here's what fills the rest.
Nowadays, when I have to pay money to kayak, I miss the times when me and my friends were
struggling to complete our 4km expeditions — sprints after sprints, salty seawater entering
the eyes, breathing in splashes instead of air, soaked from head to toe. Tired, but fun
nonetheless.
Swimming and running are how I decompress and stay cardiovascularly fit. I've somehow learnt
how to turn my brain off into "sleep mode" when I swim or run long distance — my legs or arms
being the only thing carrying me through kilometres of steady breathing.
Fiction shaped my imagination long before engineering shaped my thinking. The books that hit the hardest tend to share a common trait: they ask "what if?" at a civilisational scale — and don't flinch from the answer. I read non-fiction too, mostly climate, energy, and how systems actually change.
There are plenty of older classics I grew up with that aren't listed here — Roald Dahl alone filled many afternoons. Matilda and The BFG remain personal favourites.
Engineering and creativity aren't opposites — both are about building something that didn't exist before. I've been writing fiction, drawing maps, and building worlds in Minecraft since secondary school. These days I have less time for them, but the instinct never goes away.