Welcome to the Not Mad Yet Newsletter v3.0

— thank you for being here /\

In case you're new here (or it's been so long that you forgot), my name is Mika, and I’m a process.

This process has included so far:

• a Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Mathematics from Universidade de Brasília, a Ph.D. from Rutgers University-New Brunswick, and two years of research as a postdoc at the University of Copenhagen — this made me a mathematician;

• a series of months long, independent, overland travel experiments cycle touring, hiking, or hitchhiking in Europe and South America; having lived in Brazil, the US, Denmark, Serbia, and Ukraine; having climbed mountains, trees, and rocks in those and many other places around the world — this made me a nomad and adventurer;

Left: climbing "Mt. Fuji," my favorite tree in Sweden (2017). Middle: cycle touring in Ukraine (2020). Right: watching the sunrise at Pico da Bandeira (Brazil 2022).

• learning, writing, and giving presentations and interviews about opportunity and compromise since 2016; graduating from the YNAB (You Need a Budget)

  ¹
  Certified Coaching Program in 2022; teaching the method and developing my own practice integrating that with my experience all those years chasing my dreams — this makes me a budgeting coach.

These are the three threads I want to develop in the mid-term and what this newsletter will be about.

You may read a more detailed version of this proto-autobiographical narrative on my about page, where I will also keep its most current revision.

What’s cooking

• I'm developing a budgeting coaching practice to direct people’s best possible resources and efforts (especially time and money) toward their own priorities and dreams.

• I'm tutoring mathematics to college students and hobbyists.

• I'm climbing trees, rocks, and mountains around Campinas, where I’m currently stationed.

• I'm setting up and maintaining this newsletter to document my progress.

• I'm practicing intermittent fasting and working to include more movement and live foods in my daily routine.

• I'm keeping my Giving What We Can Pledge and (currently) donating 10% of my gross income to GiveDirectly.

The most up-to-date public account of what I'm up to will always be live on my now page.

Thank you so much for being here

My deepest gratitude goes to those of you who've reached out, encouraged, and supported me during this challenging past year.

If you'd like to talk to me, please go to my contact page for instructions on setting up a live call — seriously, this is my preferred medium these days! On my contact page, you will also find a couple other ways you're invited to spend time with me.

If you want to give feedback on a post, you're kindly invited to follow the prompts and write a public comment so that other subscribers may also join the conversation ;-)

If you must give feedback privately, you can reply to this or any other email from me — I'll read all of it and reply whenever I can :-)

“Each moment I feel as if I've just been born
Into an endlessly new world”

Alberto Caeiro

1. You Need a Budget is a zero-based (digital) envelope budgeting method and software.