One June 1^st, 2025, I landed in Europe (specifically, London’s Heathrow Airport) for the first time in my entire life! Though I didn’t even have 24 hours between landing in London and beginning my work with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, I spend the first day getting my bearings in the neighbourhood I was staying in – Acton, a somewhat quiet area in West London. London, I’ve found, is only a touch colder than Toronto, where I’m originally from. Given the heat waves we’ve had in Toronto this summer, this change was welcome to me, allowing me to finally wear my favourite sweater vests.

On my first day at the ISD, I found myself extremely lucky to be matched with a team of people who each had generous amounts of expertise and friendliness. Most of my first week was spent getting settled in the ISD as a whole – I finally met my supervisor in person, set up a work email for secure communications, and got through many onboarding videos. Broadly, my LiA task at the ISD was to contribute to their work in studying and creating policy recommendations surrounding the role of gender and masculinity in extremist politics, especially in the online sphere. By the end of the week, I knew who I needed to talk to when I developed my ideas for my LiA project more concretely, made friends with some people closer to my age in London, and knew a bit more about my little neighbourhood.