Ynda Jas

Current things

I go by Ynda Jas, pronounced in-duh jass, and they/she pronouns.
I work as a senior developer at dxw.
I play a lot of tennis.
I've lived in Bristol since March 2024.
I've been on oestrogen since February 2021.
I've been vegan since early 2013, not knowingly eaten meat since 2010, and recently gotten back into experimenting in the kitchen.
I've got long hair again, which I had when I was a teenager.
I mostly listen to a mixture of hip hop, jazz, neo-soul, Afrobeat, Brazilian music (various styles), Japanese city pop, and the occasional pop banger: lots of bright and dynamic sounds.
I'm on Instagram, Mastodon (low output), Letterboxd, and GitHub.

A square watercolour painting with intersecting diagonal white lines running parallel from top right to bottom left and in a gradually distanced pattern from bottom right (where they're close to each other) to top left (where they aren't). The lines intersect to create blocks of colours in shades of blue, orange, pink, and purple. The image is dithered, making the colour palette artistically muted

Things that I'd like to be more current

I'd like to explore ethical non-monogamy a little more, after a long break from actively dating.
I'd like to spend more time learning and making music things, but music takes up space.
I'd like to read all the books on my shelf, but I rarely read on paper or anything in long form.
I'd like to explore other forms of sport and exercise, like climbing.
I'd like to be more active in anti-capitalist work, but I'm not sure how to separate the fruitful from the indulgent.

Two photos of me side by side. On the left, a photo taken in a park of me sat down, smiling naturally, and looking to the camera. In the photo, I'm white, slim-ish, and have long light brown hair falling halfway between my shoulders and my armpits. I'm wearing a sheer top which is brown and light-coloured with some kind of patterning. Not too far behind me is a tree, and about twice or thrice as far is a whole wall of trees. There are yellow flowers on the grass. The other image, on the right, is of me stood on a tennis court smiling to my off-camera opponents. My hair is tied back, excluding my fringe. I'm wearing a light blue tennis top with wavy green and yellow stripes - the green ones are more prominent. The images are dithered, making the colour palette artistically muted

Sometimes things

I play a few video games, and 'hunt' trophies.
I've come to enjoy board games quite a bit, and visit London every few months to play with old friends.
I like to study Japanese.
I like writing, when I have something worth writing about.
I don't love proofreading (most of the time), but I'm pretty good at it.

A rectangular watercolour painting with intesecting diagonal white lines, which are in the form of adjacent isosceles trapeziums intersecting horizontally and vertically. The lines intersect to create more irregular trapeziums/quadrilaterals which are blocks of colour in shades of blue, green, orange, pink, purple, and yellow. The image is dithered, making the colour palette artistically muted

Things that once were

I scored my first full-time developer job at the UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre. The length of the name is a nice icebreaker.
I started Non-binary London and York LGBTQ+ History Month.
I had colourful hair for a few years, mostly shaved on the sides, often with patterns, symbols or words.
I was a DJ at Bar Wotever at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern for a few years, and coordinator of the DJs for most of that time.
I was a PhD student for two and a half years, looking at non-binary linguistics. I stepped away in 2019 with mixed emotions, but it was the right choice. Before that, I did an MA in Sociolingistics, a PGCert in Diversity Management, and a BA in Film and Television Production.
I felt and made a lot of things in (and maybe around) 2018, the two feeding off each other. I went through a breakup, went to North America twice for academic conferences, wrote a lot of poetry, saw some of my favourite jazz artists in New York, made a lot of music, and modelled once or twice.
I've had a lot of higher education jobs in different departments: registry/academic quality, planning/research, careers, and so on.
I've done a lot of shorter, overlapping spells of activism in mostly queer and lefty circles.
I lived in Leeds from 2023, London from 2016, York from 2009, Yorkshire from 1996, and Sussex from 1991, if you discount time in the womb. My extended family are from none of these places.
I watched quite a lot of tennis until doing so got unreasonably expensive.
I used to be on Twitter.

A group of people in a park on a bright day hold up a freshly painted Non-binary London banner. I'm on the right. In the image, I'm white, slim, and blonde-haired. I'm wearing brown cat ears, a black t-shirt with text on the front (not readable), light pink short shorts, and some slip-on floral print Vans shoes. Four other people are visible, but mostly only the legs are visible on three of them. The image is dithered, making the colour palette artistically muted

Things that are trival

Someone once thought my name was an "into jazz" pun, which I wish was intentional.
I'm distantly related to Jim Broadbent.