My brain has been fairly creatively fulfilled and challenged lately. The team I get to work with is really coming together. The static noise that has filled my brain and prevented me from doing anything other than being paralyzed by existential doom is finally getting redirected into taking action or doing special interest things again. This is the energy I hope to carry through 2026.
I’m feeling a bit of … something like survivor’s guilt, at being in an upswing despite it promising to be another incredibly difficult year. More processing required on this. I had taken a break from therapy over the holidays and there’s definitely a backlog of things to discuss with Alex.
Conferences, Unconferences, Participatory Policy Making
The biggest development this past week is committing putting on a bit of a small scale experimental event using a participatory action research methodology called “Pro Action Cafe” in the form of GovActionCafe2026. Save the Date for GovActionCafe 2026 has the full details, including how to register. Pre-pandemic there had been a lot more forums for public servants motivated toward public sector innovation and transformation to gather on a more “grassroots” basis. OneTeamGov, for example, use to run regular unconferences, which I had never had the opportunity to attend. My hope with getting this up and running is not that it will turn into anything more than it is, but inspire others to put on similar events.
I have felt, particularly as various budget cuts have begun to be implemented, a bit uninspired by the public sector-related conference circuit with the endless panels that never really said anything new or challenging to the status quo while talking about changing the status quo. With all training budgets becoming more and more limited, I included almost no conferences, except CSPS ones, on my development plan this last year.
Even if I attended, I have not gotten much out of the agendas and spend the entire time talking. I’m better off planning regular pub nights and networking events to bring people together instead of paying or using taxpayer dollars to pay the sometimes thousands of dollars it costs to go to these things.
I am begging: please can we go beyond these surface level discussions about the current and impending impact of artificial intelligence on insert whatever topic here or how important being digitally or data literate is going to be in the AI age. It’s boring.
Just a lot of shouting to be heard while getting overstimulated by artificial lighting, poor sound design, and constantly moving to avoid being cornered by vendors who are feeling the crunch from the updated guidance on using contracted services.
Frankly, I am starting the question the intellectual potential of anyone who says with a straight face that they rely on genAI to produce work or has never seen better work out of an employee. That sounds like a failure of imagination, competency, or leadership.
Hold on… Is publishing this weeknote a career limiting move?
:shrug:
The Philosopher Cats Update
I have a lot of tattoos at this point. I had initially gotten tattoos from a variety of artists whose styles I liked, but never really could commit to one style. Plus it gave me an excuse to travel to see artists I really loved. However, as I have become more settled in who I am, I feel like I’m now more inspired by doing pieces with specific artists who are equally excited about the concept.
In the last 3 years, I’ve been working with Natasha on a “Philosopher Cats” leg sleeve. The first one was in 2024, Hannah Arendt1 as a Tuxedo cat.
Last week, I got the next in the series. Plato as a Siberian Cat and Aristotle as an orange tabby, based on their representation in the painting, The School of Athens.
There are currently 2 more that I had chosen when we did the initial consult, but I think there’s going to be room for a few more that are as yet undecided.
- Paulo Freire2 as depicted in a mural3 of him at the Prof. Milton de Almeida Santos Centre for Training, Technology and Educational Research. As a Persian cat.
- Socrates as depicted in The Death of Socrates4 by Jacques Louis David, the moment he chose to die by drinking poison hemlock as a final lesson to his pupil rather than renounce his beliefs and fleeing. I honestly cannot remember the kind of cat we talked about for this one.
Other possibilities include: Carrie Jenkins5 and Audre Lorde6.
The Hobby Update
Like I said, I basically have taken joy in very few things and I have been blocked on knitting for almost 2 years. I use to make about a sweater a month. Thus it felt quite momentum that I was finally able to wear the knitted dress7 I’ve been working on this weekend to attend my recently restarted crafting group.
This latest iteration of the crafting meetup is called Placemaking Ottawa. The goal is to bring together community minded folks on a regular basis to connect, build community, and conspire to make the city better.
This has definitely been huge to restart my knitting again. Not only because I have to show up with a project to work on for 2 hours every Saturday, but also or more because I am getting to be around really creative and interesting people regularly.
Relatedly, JD who has been coming for a few weeks has recently been working on writing jokes after previously doing a Stand Up class and open mics. This has planted the idea into my head of maybe taking this Stand-Up Comedy Class: All levels (Monday Nights), Absolute Comedy Ottawa, 16 February to 24 March. Not sure I have time for the one starting in a few weeks, but soon for sure.
I really love stand up. It’s a lot of what I watch in the evenings to wind down. It has been on my mind for a few month because my previous manager, CS, had spent a few years in the UK comedy scene out of which came many of my favourite comedians. Although at the moment, Josh Johnson is my favourite for this meandering storytelling style that sometimes dispenses with jokes to make serious points about the state of the world.
It’s just a very specific and precise area of writing craft that I wish I could be more intentional about. I feel like I like making people laugh and being more conscious about how to craft jokes, has become one of the most effective facilitation tool. Which is not to say I land it a lot of the time. I feel like I have spent more time using humour to deflect attention or fill space where I am uncomfortable, rather than having true mastery over the tension in an audience of people. I would love to be able to do that latter, I think it would make me feel more at ease and less self conscious about speaking in front a group.
Footnotes
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my introduction to her was through Miracles in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt and Refugees as ‘Vanguard’ ↩
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Sister Outsider was my introduction to her ↩
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Pattern used is Ravelry: Up And Down Dress pattern by Eunji Jang ↩