A couple of weekends ago, our friends Nadia and Ryan invited Tom and I on a double date at Paris Cat Jazz Club. This intimate, underground venue is the perfect place to enjoy live jazz in the city. I left with a feeling that I couldn't wait to return.
Last weekend, I joined my friend Clarissa at a cabaret show at Spiegel Haus. The Blanc de Blanc Encore performance was a blend of jaw-dropping acrobatics, sultry burlesque, and outrageous humor, all set to a pulsing soundtrack of vintage jazz and contemporary beats.
The ocean temperature has been hovering around 15°C (59°F). I've enjoyed some magical swims this month—calm and quiet, with water like glass—made even better by seal and dolphin sightings. There have also been some very cold and foggy mornings, when it's "warmer in than out." As I become more entrenched in the ocean swimming community, I'm constantly learning new things about the ocean. For example, every winter, the Australian Giant Spider Crabs march into the shallows of the bay for the largest known crab migration on the planet!
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| Underwater photos by Peter from the SwimWell quad |
For a variety of reasons, I didn't make the most of the ocean this summer, so I find myself once again cautiously optimistic to swim through the winter. Winter ocean swimming is special, and the water quality is often better than in summer; the tradeoff for me is that I feel less free when I'm bundled up.
At work, we celebrated a recent win at Animal-Free Science Advocacy. For decades, the nonprofit has been advocating to phase out animal research in Australia in favor of modern non-animal technologies. In the year and a half I've worked there, I've made countless submissions to relevant government consultations to advocate for this. Historically, this has been met with silence as the status quo continues—despite progressive policy and funding changes in North America and Europe to advance non-animal research methods.
This changed with the release of the National Health and Medical Research Strategy 2026–2036, which proposes a National Collaborative Platform for Non-animal Technologies. This is the first time in Australian history that non-animal research methods have been recognized as a national priority. Of course, this is just a strategy that requires funding to be realized. However, it's a major win for advocates. Now we can point to our own national strategy that explicitly recognizes non-animal technologies as a priority, rather than relying on examples from overseas to make the case.
Since leaving behind a high-paying and respected profession to pursue advocacy work three years ago, I still sometimes feel insecure about my decision. Was this a good choice? Am I making a difference? Advocacy work is hard, but moments like these make it worth it. It's impossible to know exactly how much any one organization contributed to this outcome. What I do know is that I'm grateful to be part of a movement working toward a future I deeply believe in.
