Now [en]

This page tells you what I’m up to now. An idea by David Sivers discovered through Patricia BT. Now is 03.11.2023.

I’m still living in Lausanne, in the same flat I moved in after my year in India, in 2000. I still have a coworking space two floors below, though it’s quite empty since covid (plan: get it up and running again).

I work for the SBB in the field of energy maintenance, near Bern. It’s been a bit over a year, now. My role, in short, is some variety of internal business development: what changes (organisational or otherwise) do we need to make to our department so that we remain capable of providing the same quality of maintenance services in 5, 10, 15 years, given everything that is changing around us (in the field of maintenance, the industry, the company, the place of work in society, etc…) – a significant part of my work is in German.

I’ve been running a large volunteer support group for diabetic cats (well, their owners) since early 2018. About 5000 members, a team of 20 moderators, a huge amount of documentation (written and video), and a sister community of about 2000 veterinarians. See it either as my “hobby” or as my superhero job (“I work for the railway company during the day, and at night I save diabetic cats”).

I started singing in a choir again in 2020, which is something I’d really missed. I’m doing judo as regularly as I can, and after losing 10kg in 2022 (on purpose, with a nutritionist) I’ve been hiking much more, and picked up via ferrata this year. My plan next year is to buy the gear for it. I had a good ski season last winter and plan on doing the same this coming one. Haven’t gone sailing as much as I’d have liked.

In 2021 I was diagnosed with ADHD and I’ve been on medication since then. It has changed my life, literally. The years pre-diagnosis were really difficult as I was struggling with life in general and had no idea why. I now find it much easier to do what I’ve decided to do, and have a new-found ability to make plans for my future.

I have one cat, Oscar. He’s an old three-legged rescue with a bunch of health problems, but we get along well. Erica died in February this year, and Quintus in December 2020. I’m not planning on adopting another cat as long as Oscar is around.

I’ve made my way through pretty much all of Star Trek these last years. I’m not reading much (I tend to either watch series or read, I’ve discovered) but I’m still listening to lots of podcasts. I’m trying to write more and am doing quite a lot of photography.

I’m writing this from Nawalgarh in Rajasthan, my first trip to India since 2018.