About

Hi, I'm Firda (she/they), a 50-something, old-timey blogger. Welcome to my little home on the Internet!

I live on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Neutral (Attawandaron) peoples, in a small, artsy, Southwestern Ontario city in Canada. I'm happily married to the love of my life and we are child-free.

I used to be a librarian, a web designer, and a photographer. Now I'm just me. I kind of enjoy being me, boring as it may sound.

I'm Indonesian by birth and Canadian by choice and citizenship. I moved to Canada from Indonesia in 2004 and became a full-fledged, card-carrying¹ Canadian citizen in 2011.

English is not my first language so please excuse my weird phrasing and such. Even after 20+ years of living in Canada, I still need to translate words from my native language to English in my head, either when I'm in a face-to-face conversation or in writing. It can get quite tiring at times, and, as I get older, this process seems to take more time.

I have been online since 1996 and have had a personal homepage since 1997. I had a blog before it was even called a blog in my first homepage, where I'd post wacky news articles from Indonesia, copied verbatim, letter by letter, by hand, from a local English language newspaper.² Big effort, zero audience.

In early 2000, I started a blog called Weblog Wannabe where I'd post links to interesting websites that I found while scouring the Internet. Much to my surprise, it became fairly popular, and even managed to collect a few awards!³

I have a lot of interests, but most of them are the come-and-go type of interests. When I get interested in something, I'd try to learn everything about it until I get bored and move on to another thing.⁴ Two things that seem to stick are travel and photography.

When it comes to travel, I'm especially interested in Iceland. I've been to Iceland half a dozen times. If I had my way, I would visit Iceland every year. Unfortunately, my spouse is not a fan of that idea so I have to go and see other parts of the world as well. Curses.

A couple of decades ago, I dabbled in semi-professional photography by doing a few wedding and editorial assignments, but it didn't last. I found that making money out of photography took all the fun out of it. Since then, I've been taking photos just for the joy of it.

Blogging and web design are two of my interests that seem to go hand-in-hand. When I'm happy with my blog design, I'd blog regularly. When I'm tired of the design, I'd stop blogging until I come up with a new design that I'm happy with. I mentioned this just so that you know the most likely reason if I suddenly stop updating this website.

I love cold weather and hate summer. I love food, but I'm not a foodie. I love baking but hate cooking.⁵ I can be really particular about things but—unless I'm really hangry⁶—I try not to be so difficult.

I don't drink alcohol or coffee. I only drink decaf tea. Water is my drink of choice, though I do love the occasional (non-alcoholic) ginger beer/ale and lemonade.

I love dogs but I'm a bit afraid of them. I love cats but I'm allergic to them. I'm not a birder but I love birdwatching. My favourite birds are the Atlantic puffins and the Northern gannets. I hate mosquitoes. Unfortunately, I'm one of those mosquito magnets.

I love gardening, at least until it gets way too hot to be doing anything outside and the mosquitoes are all out. Luckily, my garden doesn't need a lot of tending. Of course it gets weedy but I've already admitted defeat. The weeds are not going to go away no matter how much weeding we do.

I love how my garden is so full of flowers in the summer.

In case you haven't guessed already, I named this website after my own messy garden; my personal source of both joy and frustration.

I do actually have a Canadian government-issued citizenship card with my name on it! ↩
Print copy, natch. ↩
Ever heard of the Bloggies? No? I don't blame you. It was a long time ago. ↩
I heard it's an ADHD trait? ↩
I'm a decent cook. I just don't like cooking! ↩
You wouldn't like me when I'm hangry. ↩