As a kid, my favourite game on road trips was making eye contact and smiling at strangers in the cars next to us. A few decades later, and that's still an apt image to describe something of the essence of who I am: someone who feels most alive in moments of human connection, however brief and fleeting they may be. It is therefore not surprising that I immediately felt at home when I found CJI—a place so deeply committed to cultivating and embodying community, compassion, and genuine curiosity. Since taking my first training with CJI in 2020, I have experienced the organization from many angles: as a volunteer group facilitator and mediator, a Revive summer student, and a Masters intern with VORP. Prior to CJI, I was profoundly inspired by my experiences as an organizer and facilitator with the Authentic Relating community, as well by various volunteer experiences, including as assistant course leader with the prison nonprofit Realness Project, and crisis line responder with Toronto Distress Centres. My formal education includes a Master of Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Waterloo, graduate certificate in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy from OISE, and a BA in Psychology from York University. Wherever I am, I find immense joy in sunshine, cookie dough, poetry and paradoxes.