If you aint Dutch..

Golden oldy! (I must watch this in German)

.. is reason enough for me to return..

How you doin'?

Special AZN for you

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I'm writing this blog entry because I feel that someone might benefit from it. Maybe only a little, yet this would already be worth it. It's a very personal story, but I have no problem sharing it. I've overcome and do not feel shame nor anger...


These days I come across as an educated and hard working nerd. When I tell someone I do not have a high school diploma, they shockingly reply: "You?!" quickly followed by: "I did not expect that at all!" They immedietly assume I was some sort of troublemaker. It was not like that. I was a nice guy, always have been and always will be.

Let me start at the beginning and try to keep a somewhat chronical pace. My parents had their share of childhood problems: my dad lost his parents at a very young age and was forced to take care of himself; my mom had the worst mother possible. Her situation saddens me the most, but I do not wish to go into painful details. Unfortunately, neither of them dealt with it properly. Instead, they rushed into kids and marriage at a young age, trying to push their mental issues away. On top of that my mother had a miscarriage and lost a daughter, my sister, at the age of 1. She is still devastated ‘cause of it; she never quite recovered.

The combination of a bad relationship, lacking any form of communication, and a compulsary intrinsic feeling to not make the same mistakes their parents made, led to horrible situations. My mom always tried too hard and my dad didn’t try at all; he gave up trying to establish a form of communication with my mother; he gave up trying to participate in the supposed great event of raising his kids. Eventually both my mom and dad cracked. My mom once let the gas running in the house. My dad had his suicide letters written and everything planned out. Both of them suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome for many years and what-not.

I've always been a sensitive person and I can relate to peoples problems well. A dangerous combination for someone stuck in such a home. All these factors combined made me focus me onto the more serious side of life at a young age, neglecting school. I did fine in Elementary School though. I was surely one of the brighter kid in the class, quite dreamy and perhaps not as hard-working as one should be. In Holland we have a different system than overseas: in America you segregate after High School, we already do this after Elementary school. To aid this decision there is a national test, for which you can get 550 points. I scored 546, which is good.

I never did anything in High School and I started getting addicted to the net. Sitting in my room felt a lot better than being under constant stress downstairs. I tried to help other people with their problems as much as I could, both on- and offline. I actually counsilled the parents of a friend of mine how to deal with their kids at the age of 13. Quite strange if I think back at it. I’ve always had a certain ‘gift’ in helping others. I just know how many things should be done, theoretically. Eventually I flunked a year and then dropped out. I could have easilly finished High School if I put a little work into it. I’m smart enough. Thankfully my mother and mentor agreed for me to be pulled out of HS at the age of 16. I was still obligated to go to school, but my mentor realized the situation I was in and that I had to focus on other things first. Thus he reported me sick for the rest of the year. I recently thanked him for that: I am still thoroughly grateful. He still remembered me well and was happy to hear from me.

I have four sisters, and neither of them ever felt safe at home. I can merely concur. I’m the only one who hasn’t had any real therapy. Instead, I counsilled myself after dropping out of High School. I taught myself social skills and dealt with the personal issues I had. I did “nothing” for a year, spending all this time focussing on my mental state. A bit later I got a job as a mailman and continued trying to heal myself.

In the meantime my parents divorced. I moved in with my dad. My mother moved to a new home and got a job working with mentally handicapped people. Quite impressive, having no education at all. I’m still so proud of what she did. Most people would not be so brave as to make that move, losing all certainty at the age of 45 after over 25 years of bad marriage. My dad got really depressed, but recovered eventually. This was for the best, for them and for me. I still remember my mother asking me: How would you feel if I divorced your father? I calmly replied: You should have done this many years ago.

After eighteen months passed, I wanted to go back to school. Not High School, for I had seen enough of that. All the useless things they teach you there. “How am I going to save a life with that?” Instead, I chose a carreer path on a lower educational level. For three years I studied to be an activity guider, working 20 hours a week with mentally handicapped and demented old people. This did me well. I made a difference, learned a trade, and kept on working on myself. It actually took me four years to complete, because I took a sabbatical year to 'complete myself'. I started working out at the gym and tried to make new friends.

I wasn’t necessarily proud of myself upon completing it. The educational level was low, and with all due respect – my fellow classmates were not on my level, which annoyed me to no end. In the meantime I finally found intrinsic motivation to study. For this I have to thank my good friend Jay. He studies Medicine and showed me enough to also want a piece of that life. Thus I decided to try another education, on a higher level. For a year I studied at the elementary teacher education, just like two of my sisters. My grades were good and I passed my first year easily; I never had to redo a test and I scored a 93 and 85 for the two supposed toughest tests of the year. This may have been the highest average, but I’m unsure. I was class president and part of the student counsil. Everything I taught myself, everything I learned, came out during this year. I’m very proud of myself: I set a goal, worked hard, and achieved it.

For the past couple of years my dad has given me a stable home. We live together and finally he has become my father, giving me the opportunity to study. He cooks, cleans, and we get along well. My mother lives a couple of miles away and I still visit her regularly. She still cries whenever I leave her place, but she’s doing well if you compare it to the old days.

As for me? Tomorrow I’m starting another education, hopefully my last. Psychology at the best university for it in the country. Scaringly enough the same University that Strafe goes to. I feel so proud to have made it so far, even if I’ll be significantly older than most of the others in my year. I’m happy and ready to work extraordinarily hard. I have a job next to it which I enjoy, and I’m planning to move out in 6 months. Life is good, but sometimes it takes some hard work. I hope that by studying Psychology I will enable myself to make a difference in the life of others. For that is what I desire most, as futile as it may be on the larger scale.

Do I feel unfortunate? No. Do I feel resentment towards my parents? No. Should anyone experience what I experienced? No. Every child deserves a stable home with loving parents. Do I feel fortunate? YES! All that I had to experience taught me so much and enabled me to become the person that I am today: a caring friendly person who helps others. I even have a group of close friends from High School - we still talk to eachother on a daily basis. If I ever have the tendency to feel sad for myself, I think of all those people stuck in Africa without basic needs. They got it hard. I think of the people who fight in wars and see death firsthand. They got it hard. Not me, not us.

I know many others on the internet and on TeamLiquid have similar experiences. Where life isn’t easy, where one suffers from low self esteem. Work hard and you overcome – I hope that my story helps someone, even if it's only a little.

Vincent

It's been a while since I actively posted on TL. I'm still around and am surely far from gone. I'm just pretty busy with other things: preparing for uni, working my new job, and being angry at the female species.

I have a couple of things to say though:

1. For those unknowing: Dota rocks and dotapickup is the method keeping it fun.

2. If you wish to create confusion using your mobile phone, may I suggest the following ringtone: RUN TO THE CENTRE. Girls dig it. from:
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And you thought your education was stupid....

After finishing an education where I worked with old demented folk, mentally handicapped old geezers, and mentally handicapped adults, I decided it was time for a new path. For the schoolyear 2006-2007 I had the brilliant plan to become an elementary teacher. I'm currently studying at the Pabo Thomas More in Rotterdam.

Kids are fun, at times. The internships are nothing short of wonderful. I love kids, and I love guiding them. Kids love me, and teachers love guiding me. But I quickly found out that this education is nothing short of ridiculous. The crap they make you do. I'll give you an example. Or maybe several.

Example #1: The Snake
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"I wish I was a pile of socks again" -Snake

"I'm sad, depressed, and suck at this" -Beyonder

"You must be a really good draw artist?" -Girl from another class [blonde]

"What's that red thing?" -Teachers

"Yours is definitely one of the best, if not the best." -Teacher

Dear blog reader,

My last blog contained a high level of poop. Some noticed the contained message, others could not crawl through the brown crevasse. This time I will warn you: the topic of this blog is more poop and the goatseman. Readers with a delicate electronic stomache, get out.

(If you're not German)

The time is 10:30 and I just woke up. A friend of my dad called me awake. Bitch. I walk downstairs, open the toilet door and sit down. The toilet seat is brown and made of wood- It sits comfortably. The rest of the object is grey and dull, but it completes the scenery in this sanctity. It's designed not to waste time in. My dad and I simply are no 'Al Bundy types'; we do not bring news papers and other toys along the ride. We poo and get out.

I don't plan to spend a good fifteen minutes on that thing, but it still happens. The crapping part goes by fast. I rejoice the days of not having to put too much effort into forcing it out. I've heared horror stories of people spending ten times more time in the hole than what I'm used to. Phew.

I grab some toilet paper, three pieces to be exact. I hold them in the air and prepare to casually stroke my rear, hoping to clean it up in rapid time. I have the (bad) habit to look at the toilet paper before and after I wipe. This time I notice something strange: the toilet paper contains a bear-pattern. There's several cute bears residing in the three-layered greatness of paper. New toilet paper, it must have been on sale. And my dad has a weakness for bears.

You know society is advanced when you require your buttocks to be wiped with three-layered paper. One to catch unnecessary fluid, and - correct me if I'm wrong - two for firmness. You don't want to make a mistake and end up with poo all over your hands, do you? Our ancestors wiped with nothing but pretty green leaves, if they did so at all. They still use this nifty trick in a lot of poor countries, and it seems to work fine for them. However, true poor people rarely crap at all, because they have no food.

I'm sitting on the toilet, still holding three pieces of the bear-patterned three-layered toilet paper I wipe my ass with. My mind starts to wander. Yesterday my schedule for 'University' contained Physical Education (PE). For the record: I'm studying to be an Elementary School Teacher and for this I need to be able to teach toddlers PE. Something special was planned: 40 loud and excited toddlers visited our gym. We had 6 activities: balancing, climbing, rolling, tossing balloons, jumping and some game where you had to steal little sacks and run a lot.

Before the kids arrived, we were divided into six groups. My group consisted of three males and two females. This setup is rare to say the least, because the male-female ratio is no better than 1:10. Our teacher gathers the 40 toddlers and tags 9 of them. The six guys and three girls stand up and group together. Five out of the six guys are blacker than the darkness and seemingly out of control. I feel it coming, they are appointed to our group under the notion, let the male teachers take care of the renegade guys. Great. The kids walk towards us and one of my classmates makes them sit down, desperately trying to stop them from talking.

A few minutes later our teacher arrives to give us obvious necessary background information. Two of the males, brothers, are from Sierra Leone – a small country in West Africa - and only speak a tiny bit of English. They are nine years old, yet look too small for that age. They fled their home country a while ago, which has suffered from civil war since the dawn of time, and found refuge in the Netherlands. We don’t get any specific details, but questions wandered through my mind nonetheless. The strangest thing was their height. Though they were quite muscular and energetic, both guys were too small to be nine years old. I ask the teacher about this and she concurs. They were heavily underfed in Sierra Leone which stopped their development. Poor guys.

I snap back to reality. Five minutes have passed and I am still holding the piece of paper. The room is beginning to smell a little. Poo does not like to wait. I think about the two boys from Sierra Leone, probably acustomed to using leaves. What was their first experience with true toilet paper and who explained it to them? How do you explain someone so poor that we, the western world, wipe our anus with such delicacy? That we have three layers, pretty little icons, and what not? It seems ludicrous that we are this fortunate yet still manage to complain and be unhappy.

I ignore my thoughts, gently widen my asscheeks, move the paper in position and start the (often) necessary cleaning proces. Instinctively I hold the bear up in the sky. No poop on it. I rejoice another day of clean poo.

- Beyonder