notes app, dec - a commitment to do two posts per week
still figuring out whether I want to be a harvard business review journalist or tumblr-bound, lowercase-ensnared internet poet
Hola!
Sav here.
I’ve decided that the most challenging yet approaching way to do Substack is to publish two posts per week.
One post in the vein of ‘proper writing’. That is, say, a segment of literary fiction or creative non-fiction, an unstuck-your-life listicle that you’d find on a self-improvement YouTube channel, an oh-so-professional opinion piece for the Harvard Business Review, or perhaps something that reignites the 15-year-old, tumblr-bound lowercase poet in me who believes he is experiencing feelings utterly unique to him.
Commercially speaking, these are articles intended to tick one or more of the 4Es of content: Educate, Entertain, Engage or Empower. They’re the pieces I would share in a group setting when I say that I like to write, and someone will naturally ask if they can see something I’ve written. Bit by bit, I’ll build my personalised content library.
The second genre of post is the ‘life update’, more akin to a blog post that nobody but my dog would read (I don’t have a dog), a social media post to my 100 or so acquaintances or sending a rant to the primordial void that is Twitter/X. What has been on my mind this past week? Have there been any cool events? Any highs (trying out a new restaurant, hitting a personal record), lows (messing something up at work, getting into a fight) or big bumbling buffaloes (running into the Prime Minister during my morning run)?
The high-low-buffalo was introduced to me by Annie in her podcast heart2hearts. Lowkey, it was a massive surprise to find out she wasn’t a big creator - she’s got great production value, great topics and an overall lovely vibe.
These posts will centre on documentation, and boy I care for documentation. Personally speaking, Journaling in Public is founded on being authentic and vulnerable; thinking more deeply about the life that unravels around me and nudging it in the direction I see fit. For now, I will be labelling them as notes app.
No word count goals. No engagement goals. No quality goals.
Though, your support would be very much appreciated.
Over 2025, I want to publish 100 posts on Substack and two posts per week is just enough to do that. Two posts per week will help me approach life with more:
Intentionality, that is, choosing activities and events that I deem worth writing about.
Sentimentality, that is, attaching greater thoughtfulness and appreciation between the cracks of the mundane.
More highs. More lows. More big boisterous buffaloes.
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What’s cooking, chef?
🎨 Having a hand at watercolour!
To fight the status quo of adult life and succumbing to easy habits, my girlfriend and I have agreed to do something new at least every fortnight. This week it was watercolour painting with a kit we bought from Ellen Walsh Designs during our foray at the Carriageworks Markets. Art is not my forte but I like to believe we gave it a solid shot. Whatever we make next will be undoubtedly better.
🍎 Consumerism has got the best of me…
I bought an Apple Watch and AirPods this last week. Uh-oh! I only recently switched to iPhone after a couple years of Android and already I’m being inducted into their ecosystem. In my defence, they were on Black Friday discount and by that I mean they were permanently moving to a lower price point because Black Friday is an artificial holiday, purposefully designed to incite unnecessary spending. You’ll never catch me buying a MacBook though. I’m a top one MacBook hater.
🎵 The statistician in me utterly despises Spotify Wrapped
My Spotify Wrapped released and I am once again mildly disappointed at it. It’s not representative of the songs I search for but instead the second song that tends to come up, which in my case is Paragraphs by Luke Chiang (good song, mind you, but I have never actively searched for it). I call it the Espresso effect: For a time, if you played a song from any remotely popular artist, there’s a 95% chance that Espresso would auto-play next, bloating Sabrina Carpenter’s ranking on everyone’s Spotify statistics.
Sorry Sabrina, there’s only one room for one carpenter in my life and it’s He who died on the cross can I get an Amen???
🍩 The immaculate vibes that come with junk food in the middle of the night
One of the most immaculate vibes to come out of Western culture is having junk food during times you’re not really meant to. I had the utmost privilege of catching up with some old friends at the Krispy Kreme by Sydney Airport followed by a literally 45 second drive to the McDonalds next door to reset our parking timer. These sweet moments don’t happen to often, but perhaps these sparks of childhood and simpler times are what I need to shatter the status quo of working life; where our biggest problem was scraping together the pocket money to afford a box of donuts and the logistics of getting parental permission.
👨🎓 Aha, yes, that’s me. Pricing actuary. Yeah.
I’m in this peculiar spot of having ‘senior’ in my job title yet zero actuarial qualifications and it’s a gap I should ideally amend - alas, I sent my exemption application to my university and the Actuaries Institute and found that I’ve only got 2 of the 6 exemptions necessary to become a foundation level actuary. This is highkey kinda embarrassing considering most people finish uni with 4-5 of them. Alas, I’ll probably be spending the next two years catching up on these qualifications, starting with CS1 Actuarial Statistics - I’ll probably chat on my journey in balancing work and studies here.
📚 Currently reading: Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
I’ve been stuck on this book for weeks now and it’s not because it’s boring but I just haven’t had the time, or more particularly energy, to read it. I really want to speed through it though. I’ll pick a more approachable, light-hearted fantasy next.
