There is that person who draws admiring eyes to them, exuding comfort, confidence, style – without even wearing anything expensive, necessarily. There is also the opposite. That person who wears things by the book. Their shirt, pants, shoes are in line with what’s fashionable and “approved” by others. Yet, something doesn’t fit. They can’t carry it. It just doesn’t work. What makes someone the former? I think it comes down to internalizing who you are, what you like, and confidently telling t...

There is that person who draws admiring eyes to them, exuding comfort, confidence, style – without even wearing anything expensive, necessarily. There is also the opposite. That person who wears things by the book. Their shirt, pants, shoes are in line with what’s fashionable and “approved” by others. Yet, something doesn’t fit. They can’t carry it. It just doesn’t work. What makes someone the former? I think it comes down to internalizing who you are, what you like, and confidently telling t...

For the last few years, I’ve selected a theme for each new year based on where I am in life. 2021 was about relief and play, coming after an extremely challenging 2020 dominated by the pandemic, a loved one’s battle with cancer, and an extremely demanding and stressful job. In 2021, the vaccines showed us that life with the pandemic could be managed. The loved one finished her treatment with incredible results. I changed my job after 3.5 long, grueling years. It was a year to celebrate. For 2...

For the last few years, I’ve selected a theme for each new year based on where I am in life. 2021 was about relief and play, coming after an extremely challenging 2020 dominated by the pandemic, a loved one’s battle with cancer, and an extremely demanding and stressful job. In 2021, the vaccines showed us that life with the pandemic could be managed. The loved one finished her treatment with incredible results. I changed my job after 3.5 long, grueling years. It was a year to celebrate. For 2...

Kitchen is written simply and lovingly. It’s a story of two young people whose families die and whose lives become interconnected. It’s about dealing with grief, friendship, and the small rituals that make you feel connected and whole. There are parts of this book that left me wanting more. We read about characters making major life decisions with small context. Things simply happen because they seem to click. I need a little more backstory to resonate with this “click” moment. Such as, why d...

Kitchen is written simply and lovingly. It’s a story of two young people whose families die and whose lives become interconnected. It’s about dealing with grief, friendship, and the small rituals that make you feel connected and whole. There are parts of this book that left me wanting more. We read about characters making major life decisions with small context. Things simply happen because they seem to click. I need a little more backstory to resonate with this “click” moment. Such as, why d...

In late December 2022, I got the news that my mom had an aneurysm. Most people don’t even make it to the hospital. She did. She had four life-and-death brain surgeries. Doctors made speeches with sentences sounding like “We could lose your mother’s life because of …” My mom made it. We came home. Not even two weeks after she came home, my home country Turkey was rocked by some of the most powerful earthquakes in its history. In a systematically organized and prepared country like Japan, an ea...

In late December 2022, I got the news that my mom had an aneurysm. Most people don’t even make it to the hospital. She did. She had four life-and-death brain surgeries. Doctors made speeches with sentences sounding like “We could lose your mother’s life because of …” My mom made it. We came home. Not even two weeks after she came home, my home country Turkey was rocked by some of the most powerful earthquakes in its history. In a systematically organized and prepared country like Japan, an ea...

I used to wait for a “perfect time” to get things done. Regardless of the activity, everything was supposed to have its perfect time that just felt right. I would know how to respond to a text when the moment came. I would have the perfect peace of mind to make that call. One day, I would have an uninterrupted stretch of two or three hours, and I would sit down and write beautifully and with inspiration. I would know exactly what to write about. I would sit down and read all about personal fi...

I used to wait for a “perfect time” to get things done. Regardless of the activity, everything was supposed to have its perfect time that just felt right. I would know how to respond to a text when the moment came. I would have the perfect peace of mind to make that call. One day, I would have an uninterrupted stretch of two or three hours, and I would sit down and write beautifully and with inspiration. I would know exactly what to write about. I would sit down and read all about personal fi...

A year into learning about crypto, I am still very much a noob. Mirror is one of the projects that made me want to move beyond the theoretical and superficial, to putting myself out there. For someone who has always loved to write, and always been scared to express herself fully, it provides a new way to share, crystallize, and clarify my thoughts. I am moved by the magic in the day-to-day. I would like to use Mirror to absorb and document moments worth living through words. Moments worth cap...

A year into learning about crypto, I am still very much a noob. Mirror is one of the projects that made me want to move beyond the theoretical and superficial, to putting myself out there. For someone who has always loved to write, and always been scared to express herself fully, it provides a new way to share, crystallize, and clarify my thoughts. I am moved by the magic in the day-to-day. I would like to use Mirror to absorb and document moments worth living through words. Moments worth cap...

My best friend, who was spending a few weeks working from Puerto Rico with her husband, invited me and my boyfriend to join them for a weekend. Boyfriend and I always operate with the assumption that if we don’t do something now, it might never happen. We brought our tickets on a Saturday and arrived in San Juan the following Thursday, on a very humid night at a very late hour. The landscape was veiled in the dark night, with spears of palm trees shooting towards the sky on the side of the ro...

My best friend, who was spending a few weeks working from Puerto Rico with her husband, invited me and my boyfriend to join them for a weekend. Boyfriend and I always operate with the assumption that if we don’t do something now, it might never happen. We brought our tickets on a Saturday and arrived in San Juan the following Thursday, on a very humid night at a very late hour. The landscape was veiled in the dark night, with spears of palm trees shooting towards the sky on the side of the ro...

The most recent book I finished is Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, in which an elderly Briton couple leave their village to visit a son who they have not seen in years. This is a perilous journey in post-Roman Britain, where distances are yet unconquered by advanced transportation, and where people are frail. Still, the story hints that the couple is strong for their age yet, and devoted to each other. There is one quirk: the couple is missing their memories, owing to a dragon’s spell cast...

The most recent book I finished is Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant, in which an elderly Briton couple leave their village to visit a son who they have not seen in years. This is a perilous journey in post-Roman Britain, where distances are yet unconquered by advanced transportation, and where people are frail. Still, the story hints that the couple is strong for their age yet, and devoted to each other. There is one quirk: the couple is missing their memories, owing to a dragon’s spell cast...

After my mother’s aneurysm, it seems as if I have become more sensitive to the pieces of my life that weren’t quite right. It was puzzling to me, for example, that I could stay calm when my mother’s surgeon told my brother and I that we could lose my mother’s life because of a serious complication, and disintegrate so utterly at the thought of being a weak, ineffectual, scared person at work who couldn’t drive anything or influence anyone. I probed deeper into that thought. A colleague once t...

After my mother’s aneurysm, it seems as if I have become more sensitive to the pieces of my life that weren’t quite right. It was puzzling to me, for example, that I could stay calm when my mother’s surgeon told my brother and I that we could lose my mother’s life because of a serious complication, and disintegrate so utterly at the thought of being a weak, ineffectual, scared person at work who couldn’t drive anything or influence anyone. I probed deeper into that thought. A colleague once t...

It’s funny how a place you grow up can fit you like a well-worn article of clothing, even more than a decade after you’ve discarded it. The imprints find their way back exactly as you left them, from the memory of tastes and smells to the shrill tone you adopt arguing with your parents. Istanbul for me is finding my way back to these imprints. In the summer, it smells like honeysuckle and jasmin and sea salt and exhaust. It looks like the shimmers emanating from the Bosphorus in the heat of t...

It’s funny how a place you grow up can fit you like a well-worn article of clothing, even more than a decade after you’ve discarded it. The imprints find their way back exactly as you left them, from the memory of tastes and smells to the shrill tone you adopt arguing with your parents. Istanbul for me is finding my way back to these imprints. In the summer, it smells like honeysuckle and jasmin and sea salt and exhaust. It looks like the shimmers emanating from the Bosphorus in the heat of t...