“Intentionally Unexpected” is the name of this blog, and a bit of a life motto. I believe in gut feelings and surprising turns. I’ve never been one to wait for the perfect time or a neatly packaged plan. When I doubt, I move. Movement creates information. It changes your angle and opens doors you didn’t even know were there. I guess you could call it an action bias: I tend to make my mistakes by doing, not by sitting still.
I started my first blog back in 2007. Before that, I was a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology. I wrote academic papers, research proposals, and lived deep inside theory. I never finished the degree, but in exchange, I got something far better: the chance to replace academic study with real-life, on-the-ground observation and exploration. How lucky was that? Instead of studying human behaviour from a distance, I got to live amongst it all – to watch, ask, listen, and be in the messy, beautiful middle of new cultures, new interactions and even culture clashes.
I was always writing something –blogs, articles, essays, the occasional late-night ramble in a notebook. I love playing with language, mixing unlikely ideas, and connecting dots that don’t usually get to meet. I don’t believe in doing important things out of habit. I like to push, test, and ask: What if we did it just a little differently?
Outside of work and writing, I’m into art, culture, beautiful questions, podcasts that make you pause mid-sentence, and travel that doesn’t follow the tourist maps. I’m the person who always has five books on the go, a trip half-planned in my head, and a notebook full of thoughts that might just become something.
I’ve also always loved learning languages. Over the years I’ve studied English, Russian, Spanish, Italian, and French. These days, I mostly use two, but the dream is still alive: to rekindle the long-forgotten fragments of the other languages and, one day, put them to good use. Language, after all, is another way of seeing and noticing things, and I’ve never stopped wanting to see more clearly, and from more angles.
Right now, my pet project is this very space. I’ve challenged myself to write 30 blog posts in 90 days. Partly to stretch my thinking, partly to clear out the creative cobwebs, and mostly to share ideas I care about.
I’m also diving into something that’s reshaping how we work, create, and think: AI. I’m experimenting and learning about it on as many levels as I can: from playful tools to deeper questions around ethics, creativity, and what it means to be human in a tech-saturated world.
It feels like another new language to explore, and I love the mix of disruption, possibility, and creative tension that comes with it.
So, welcome to Intentionally Unexpected. This space is a mix of reflections, ideas, experiments, and small stories from a life in motion. Written with love, curiosity, and (occasionally) too much coffee.
I hope it makes you feel something, think differently, or simply smile.
Thanks for being here.
Email: hello@intentionallyunexpected.com
