Hi, my name is Tomomi.

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.

• 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?

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!

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..!

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

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.

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.

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.

I had a light-ish work load, a few catch-up calls with friends, and a beautiful Emotions at Work alumni session on emotional regulation. Otherwise stayed home, mostly in bed with a weird, stomach upset. Back at 90% as of Sunday, thankfully.

I dipped in to a few chapters of Peter Block’s “ The Answer to How Is Yes ”, which I reach for from time to time. And listening to Amber Ruffin and her sister Lacey Lamar’s “ You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism ”.

I spent most of the week north of Barcelona, co-working with friends. Daily sunshine, a view of the sea and the full moon! It was great to have a break from the grey drizzle of Paris. Maybe it’s time to consider a longer stay in Spain…

I finished Brene Brown’s new book, Strong Ground. It’s kind of a taxonomy walkthrough of mindsets and skill sets that she sees are critical for leadership in this day and age, with lots of personal stories, snippets from her past books, podcast interviews and other people’s books, as well as lessons from her experience with leadership training. I enjoyed it alot as a long-time follower of her work. I also read Bonnie Tsai’s On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters. It was one of the books quoted in Strong Ground , a collection of different perspectives on muscle from the fields of anatomy, sports, culture etc. tied together by the author’s stories about her father.

I went to a Ryoji Ikeda show at the Philharmonie, probably the first time I experienced his work live, after seeing plenty of installations and video pieces in Tokyo and Paris. There were three sets of musicians—100 cymbals, a choir and an organ—for what felt like very different sonic experiences. There was a quiet stream of bored? people getting up to leave in the last half-hour, which was a bit tough. I wonder if it was a mismatch with the venue, which tends to be more about classic orchestra music. Pity.

Bonus photo of a bouquet I got for a friend who hosted lunch.