Hello!
I'm Sav (short for Salvatore) -- a Chinese-Indonesian data analyst, account manager, newsletter writer, Nintendo fan, brunch-place enthusiast, occasional gym-goer, brother/son/boyfriend/ally, based in Sydney, Australia; settling into the ludicrous shared experience we call 'navigating our twenties'.
I feel like the vast majority of people who try to DIY their own website is a software developer/engineer of some capacity but that is, for better or worse, not the case for me!
While I’m a numbers guy by trade, my heart has always belonged to words and stories.
I've always found solace in writing, in the transformation of jumbled thoughts and incoherent plotlines into actionable steps, unusual revelations, and compelling narratives that make you cry/laugh/ponder. It's great for developing appreciation, solidifying learning, and approaching life with more intentionality.
I started Journaling in Public in late 2024, a newsletter where I share stories and strategies on career, relationships, mindset, and all the joys and challenges of navigating our twenties. This year, I've challenged myself to publish 104 essays (two per week) over the course of a year. You can check out my progress here.
So uh, what's this site meant to be?
This site that you're visiting is a side project to my side project, designed to explore a different approach to writing and a nifty reason to learn some basic web development skills.
It acts as a digital garden, a concept that I learnt about on rahim.li's blog and further explored in this Maggie Appleton essay. Here, I can curate planetlets that constitute me, write columns about my life from the third-person, and share little updates that don't constitute a Substack essay or Instagram post but would like more permanence than an Instagram Story.
It is also a corner of the internet that exists independent of social media, shrouded by awkwardly-placed backlinks and poor SEO, owned and controlled solely by me and my dingy, recycled laptop. I find it the digital equivalent of owning a rickety little house vs renting an apartment from Big Zuck.
I'm not sure how long I'll main this site given my primary side project is building Journaling in Public, but I'm keen to see where this one lands and if it's something I can enjoy :)