I’m Pauline Bakhtiari (née Narvas), but online I’ve always been Pawlean.

I’m a community builder, DevX writer, and very online human documenting what it means to live loudly, learn in public, and build a life that feels like mine. You can follow the career thread through my work archive and the internet thread through my story.

I grew up online

Before posting became strategy, I was updating websites through FileZilla, tweeting since 2009, and finding community in the old blogosphere.

I wrote because I wanted somewhere to put the things I was learning, feeling, building, and becoming. Pawlean is the latest version of that living archive: part diary, part playground, part proof that the internet can still be a home if you make it yours.

Somehow, 38K+ people follow along.

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Home has never been one place

It’s Manila, where the sun still feels like something I’m always trying to return to. It’s Sheffield, the small green city that made me northern and gave me my ‘ey up, luv.’ It’s the cities I passed through with a 40L backpack, learning that home could be temporary. It’s Athens, where I learned another language, another rhythm, and another way to live. And now it’s Brighton: by the sea, creative and unfamiliar, where I’m still figuring out what home means with my husband beside me.

Maybe that’s why my accent keeps people guessing. I’ve never belonged to just one place. I’ve been shaped by all of them. 💜

If we met for coffee...

You’d notice the purple sapphire engagement ring my husband got me. Or even if you don’t immediately... you will.

I’d probably tell you that I have a Biomedical Sciences degree I mostly use for sharing random scientific facts, and that my life feels better when I beat PRs at the gym, curate Spotify playlists that explain every emotion, have philosophical conversations and when I can share the story about that time I accidentally ended up in a movie.

I write both privately and publicly. Some things become polished blog posts. Some things are endless scribbles in my journal. All of it helps me understand who I am becoming.

You may also be surprised that I’m over 6ft... in personality.