A peak into my life:
My name is Daniel Kisenko and I am a 2nd year Computer Engineering student at the University of Ottawa with a focus on Software Development. I was raised in Hamilton ON, Canada.
This website is a combination of a portfolio that displays my learning journey in Computer Engineering, and a personal website, with pages that range from past projects, and video journaling which I’m passionate about. Feel free to browse my work and contact me if you have any questions.
A terminal-based graphing CLI inspired by Desmos, built for developers and math enthusiasts who want to visualize equations directly in their terminal. It supports both explicit and implicit functions, point evaluations, and inline annotations, all rendered beautifully with ASCII characters. (Link to the repository)
uOttaHack is Ottawa's premier student-run hackathon, hosted annually by the University of Ottawa. It's a 36-hour event where students from various backgrounds collaborate on coding projects, develop innovative software or hardware solutions, and compete for prizes. The event aims to foster creativity, collaboration, and the development of real-world problem-solving skills in a fun and engaging environment.
My role on the team is Logistics Coordinator, and I manage the logistics of the whole event alongside my great team. Through my time with them, I have learned many soft-skills such as professional email-writing, negotiating with wholesalers, setting up catering services and much more. I love what I do here and it’s truly been an experience
(work in progress)
After my first year of university, it has definitely been a massive shift from my life before, as with everyone. During high school, I played lots of video games, didn’t pay attention too much in my studies, and only really started trying in my final year to get into a good university. I didn’t do many extracurriculars that would relate to my career, and the only exposure I had beforehand was building my own computers and the CS courses I took in high school.
Predictably, from my habits in high school, I fell behind very quickly in my first year of university, specifically in my first semester. Everyone had to readjust to the faster pace of the curriculum, but I felt as if I was much slower than most and it really hit my grades hard. I have gone through lots of improvement, realizing how important the path I’m going on is. I have gone through trial and error finding different workflows and the one that works the best for me.
I don’t wish that I had been better prepared, or that I was more serious about my work during my high school career, and although the grades in my first year will stay with me forever, it is a reminder to how quickly I adapted to my environment, despite how drastic the effects were. If I didn’t go through the downs of the past, then I wouldn’t be anywhere near the ups that I experience now, so I don’t want it any other way.
Video journalling is an outlet I recently developed during my first semester of university that has really helped me clear my mind and immortalize my thoughts for future reference. The reason why I turn to video journaling instead of analog journaling such as writing, I have found that I really enjoy talking in front of an audience, and that whenever there was a chance for public speaking, I would always take it. I attribute this to the kind of media that I consumed as a kid, which was mainly YouTube “Let’s Plays” and similar media. I didn’t read much as a kid, so naturally I shied away from writing, and then that’s when I realized that video journaling would be just the thing for me, and although most of what I create is private and only for myself, I do occasionally post some videos publicly, hoping that others would share or could give me feedback on my views relating to certain topics I talk about.
You can find my YouTube channel @danielkisenko, and feel free if you would like to reach out to me through email!
I talk about all sorts of topics, relating to school, my job search, and struggles that many other people may face, and the way that I deal with them on my own.
My workflow is heavily inspired by the YouTuber “James Scholz”, and his main focus is analog documentation, and using the non-digital form whenever possible.
It starts with my pocket notebooks:
I carry two notebooks around with me literally everywhere, each with a separate purpose. The purple one in this case is designed for my everyday planner, most of the time planning down to the hour of my day. I always think about how everyone in my generation is feeling so anxious all the time, and to me, anxiety stems from a lack of certainty, and this daily planner helps greatly. The green notebook is more so of a general To-Do list, tasks that I can’t finish in one day and goals that are an over-time effort. I also include any thoughts that I’d like to immortalize so that I don’t forget them in the future, or at least it stays in my memory more since I wrote it down.
The importance of using a notebook and physically writing down my plans and goals despite far more efficient digital systems, comes from my practice of Digital Minimalism. I try to decentralize all of the tasks my phone can do, into smaller, more intentional mediums, that gives me a reason to use my phone less and less. I recently also started using a flip-phone (TCL Flip 2), however I faced some challenges that make it impractical in the long-run, such as things like QR codes at restaurants and what-not. I keep these notebooks in my pocket, in the same pocket that I keep my phone, so that instead of instinctively reaching for my phone, I can instead reach for my notebook, and in most cases, I didn’t need my phone and whatever I wanted to do can be solved without using it.
I also use a physical pomodoro timer with a 60min interval, to further encourage decentralizing my phone and relying instead on physical mediums.
As for my Digital tools, I use Linux on my laptops, where I do most of my work, my e-ink tablet (Boox Note Air 3), and NeoVim (LazyVim) as my text editor.
I love incense and as many other things I did in my first year of university, I also picked this up. I bought my starter sticks off of amazon, about 300 of them, and once I finish them all, I would like to invest in some better quality sticks, which I’ll update here.
Camera: Canon Rebel T5
I'll post them here once I get a good collection.
Certified on Aug 2025
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This is superscript text and this is subscript text.
This is underlined and this is code: for (;;) { ... }. Finally, this is a link.
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i = 0;
while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
print 'Iteration ' + i;
deck.shuffle();
i++;
}
print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';| Name | Description | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Item One | Ante turpis integer aliquet porttitor. | 29.99 |
| Item Two | Vis ac commodo adipiscing arcu aliquet. | 19.99 |
| Item Three | Morbi faucibus arcu accumsan lorem. | 29.99 |
| Item Four | Vitae integer tempus condimentum. | 19.99 |
| Item Five | Ante turpis integer aliquet porttitor. | 29.99 |
| 100.00 | ||
| Name | Description | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Item One | Ante turpis integer aliquet porttitor. | 29.99 |
| Item Two | Vis ac commodo adipiscing arcu aliquet. | 19.99 |
| Item Three | Morbi faucibus arcu accumsan lorem. | 29.99 |
| Item Four | Vitae integer tempus condimentum. | 19.99 |
| Item Five | Ante turpis integer aliquet porttitor. | 29.99 |
| 100.00 | ||