The Soon-to-be Monad Nomad
Hi, I’m the (soon-to-be) Monad Nomad! This publication is going to be a place for me to reflect on my travels, and a way for people to keep tabs on what I’m up to abroad.
I haven’t left yet; I’m waiting for February for a couple of practical reasons. I thought that it would be good to talk a little bit about who I am, why I’m going to be travelling, and what’s up with the publication’s title.
Digital Nomad
For several years, I’ve been trying to live a more minimal lifestyle. Of course, things creep into your life, but generally pared down most of my physical possessions, and went pretty digital. I’m a computer programmer by trade, so this isn’t such a huge leap.
I’ve put myself in a position where I’m just as comfortable working out of a café as from home, and vastly prefer those environments to an office. I’m far more productive working this way, and recently took a job that is fully remote to help optimize my output and freedom.
A lot of people think that travelling the world with nothing but a small bag is simply insane. My mother, for instance, would much prefer that I put a downpayment on a house and “settle down”. I’m going to be travelling to countries where I don’t speak the language, and as a queer woman travelling alone to boot. Vancouver is pretty safe for someone like me, but this may not be the case everywhere I go.
So, why leave? Basically, YOLO. How often in life do you get this chance? A lot of people are racing to get a house, kids, pets, cars, and so on. None of that interests me. I don’t want to restrict my travels to frantic 10-day bursts running from landmark to landmark. I want to see what it’s like to actually live somewhere else. My expectation is that there will be more similarities than differences, but there’s only one way to find out, right?
What I’m going to miss out on in Vancouver
I’ve lived in Vancouver since 2006, but only started to get established here over the last couple of years. I’ve been involved with activism, mentoring, and lecturing at UBC. I also live in a great apartment with an awesome roommate, the landlord is a friend, and have a nearly unimpeded northern view of the ocean and mountains.
I run three meetups: Code & Coffee (ccYVR), Vancouver Functional Programmers (VanFP), and the Vancouver Erlang & Elixir Meeup (VanEE). My pet project is VanFP, where I currently do a substantial portion of the organizing and event running. While I can help coordinate remotely, I won’t be able to actually run the events. I need to figure something out before I leave, and have a few candidates in mind to help actually keep things on schedule, make announcements, and so on.
The coffee in the part of town where I live (Gastown) is pretty much second to none. Most cities have at least a handful of good cafés, and I can lean on resources like Workfrom to help discover the good ones. I may end up wandering about looking for WiFi, or even someplace to sit at all.
I plan to come back to Vancouver for the summers (spring and summer in Vancouver are fantastic). Vancouver has a pretty limited housing market so hopefully I can find a place to live here during those months.
Robot Overlord Inc.
A few (incredible) friends and I recently incorporated a consultancy, Robot Overlord, which focuses on data science, functional programming, UX, and artificial intelligence. You should check out our publication here on Medium!
I’m not sure how being physically away from my fledgeling company will go. On one hand, it’s not like I need to be in every meeting, and I can get dialled in, communicate via Slack and hangouts, and so on. On the other hand, new companies always feel fragile, and the need to micromanage its start is not uncommon. This is almost certainly an irrational concern, but it’s still in the back of my mind.
Who knows, maybe I’ll get introduced to more people on the road, make connections, and we’ll do even better than if I stayed in Vancouver.
I am also very lucky to work for a remote-friendly company for my day job. I honestly feel extremely privileged to work with such a high caliber team, so I really have nothing to complain about, no matter what happens :)
Functional Programming (FP)
As you can probably tell from the title that I’m a huge fan of functional programming, especially Haskell. It’s really nice to see FP have a renaissance lately. Don’t know what functional programming is? Check out my intro post over at Making Internets.
The publication’s title is really just a play on words. I really love wordplay, and have a bad habit of swapping letters when typing, so “monad” becomes “nomad” on a semi-regular basis. Maybe it’s something subconscious? I also find it totally bizarre how monad-obsessed people are when talking about FP, especially Haskell. You can’t have an FP thing without talking about monads and burritos, so it fits!
I’ve also been teaching Clojure to my cofounders at Robot Overlord, and writing a little common category library for Elixir called Witchcraft. I should start developing my teaching-fp repo again, so maybe that would be good project to pick up again while on the road.
With any luck, I’ll be able to drop in on some FP meetups in my travels. Who knows, maybe I’ll even speak at some of them, too!
Entertainment
I rely on Rdio for most of my music needs. I’m going to download some high rotation music to my phone (mostly classical and 1970s progressive rock).
For long flights, a good movie is essential. I watch a lot of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Back to the Future Part I & II, and Amadeus. I can probably only fit one or two on a device at any given time, so I’m going to have to give it some thought. When I have WiFi, Netflix is going to be my best friend.
I am also fortunate to have a PS Vita for all of my retro gaming needs. I have a love of old-school JRPGs, and have a backlog that I’m going to work though. I’m taking my 3DS along, too, just in case Nintendo decides to release another Zelda while I’m abroad ;)
I also have a collection of digital formatted literature that I’m (slowly) working through. White papers, ebooks, comic books, and audiobooks should keep me pretty busy!
Equipment
I’m planning on living relatively sparsely. Here is my tentative shortlist:
- Backpack
- Laptop, phone, PS Vita, Nintendo 3DS, and noise cancelling headphones
- Waterproof jacket
- Three convertible tops
- One pair of jeans, one set of yoga pants, one set of shorts
- One pair of flats, one pair of running shoes
Yes, I have a more detailed list with chargers and ID and stuff. I might go into that in a later post, but the above is really what I’m going to be relying on day-to-day.
Tentative Route: Winter to Summer 2016
- Victoria, BC
- Seattle, WA
- Portland, OR
- San Francisco, CA
- Halfmoon Bay, CA
- Honolulu, HI
- Osaka, Japan
- Kyoto, Japan
- Tokyo, Japan
Wrap up
So, that is my rambling introduction to who I am, where I’m going, and roughly the plan of action. I’ll keep writing posts as I get my gear together, run my little nomad-esque experiments prior to leaving, and more. Stay tuned!
