Happy birthday to… ME!

Today just a short and quick note as today is my birthday! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

I was born on 6 July 1984, which makes me a whooping 30 years old. Yikes, I’m getting old! Or like a good friend of mine decided to put it when she turned 30: I’m 29.95 including shipping & handling. Luckily for me, most people think I’m a lot younger so I can still get away with doing silly things. Because when push comes to shove, I’m still young at heart.

And to celebrate the fact that I’ve been on this planet for 30 years, here’s 30 random fact about me. One for each year of my life. Enjoy your day!

1. I spent the first year of my life bald and unable to walk. I was late with almost everything haha. I did move house when I was 9 months old, but obviously I don’t remember that.
2. My brother was born!
3. Earliest memory: believing I could run, jump into the air and fly. Kids have such wild imagination.
4. First song I remember liking was Jackie Wilson’s Reet Petite. Oh and I was afraid of the Young Ones.
5. Nothing too specific pops up, apart from the fact that my mom cut my hair short just before my 5th birthday.
6. My love for dresses started at an early age. I wore a tulip printed dress on my 6th birthday. My mom made it for me and I remember loving every minute of it, as long as I got to twirl around in circles.
7. I spent my childhood summers going mostly on day trips with my family. One summer entailed going to the zoo, an amusement part and a visit to the beach. Best memories ever.
8. The year I became a ‘dansmarieke’ (type of cheerleader) for the local Carnaval society.
9. When I was 9, my parents bought a house on the other side of town. I changed schools and still remember painting parts of the house and picking out what wallpaper would go onto my wall.
10. The first time I attended a wedding which I actually remember. Oh and I had a major performance with my dance school where everyone was taught the same Rock N Roll themed routine.
11. Thinking I was super hip and cool while sporting black shorts, a black gilet with a colored shirt and wearing my hair in pony tails off the side of my head. Fashion has always been a thing.
12. Start of high school and my love for all things Backstreet Boys. I also distinctly remember going to see Michael Jackson with my mom and liking to paint my nails in all colors of the rainbow.
13. Because I changed schools when I was 9, I also ended up changing dance schools when I went to high school. It was part of the gymnastics club and they had a yearly summer camp. I went for years on a row and have especially fond memories of the times I went in my early teens.
14. Getting braces. I was born with a huge overbite due to a small, narrow jaw. I ended up needing surgery 2x and 5 different braces to fix my teeth. And I cut my hair short.
15. Seeing Backstreet Boys live for the second time in the Amsterdam Arena. 50,000 screaming girls and I was one of them. Nuff said.
16. Meeting my best friend in Biology class.
17. The start of my clubbing days and my first forays into make up. I still have a Bourjois eyeshadow from those days. Ah the memories.
18. Moving to Leiden, 2 hours away from everything and everyone I had ever known to start university. The first couple of days were rough, but I quickly met some people, joined a student society and had the time of my life.
19. Going on vacation for the first time by myself. I went to London with my mom the year before, but I found another lull in my student schedule, saved up and got on a plane to New York in January 2004.
20. A year later I would spend one semester at College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia as an exchange student. I lived my life in US college dorms, ate at cafeterias, made tons of new friends and visited Chicago, Monticello (Thomas Jefferson’s house), Norfolk, Washington DC, other places closer to where I stayed and ended up going to New York again.
21. I got my first teaching job teaching NT2 at Direct Dutch in The Hague and wrote articles for the university paper. By now I’ve been a teacher for 8.5 years.
22. Having made tons of friends through the online Backstreet Boys community, I spent some time visiting Paris, Munich and other random places to see them. Plenty of people also came over to stay at my place.
23. I took courses in journalism, did an internship at a Dutch TV station, graduated for my Master’s degree in English language & culture, started my teaching degree and took on a teaching job at a secondary school.
24. Graduated for my teaching degree, fell in and out of love, went on a round trip of the US and had my first burn out. Started immunotherapy to help with my allergies.
25. Landed a job in higher education and took my time reading books and taking it easy. Enjoying my working life.
26. Got bored and so I started a Research Master’s degree in Communication & Information sciences. Started this blog!
27. Focused on combining my studies with my job while still maintaining a social life. I became more serious about working out and sticking to a healthy diet.
28. I got let go at my job and found a job as a teacher trainer education in Amsterdam. Found out I’m wheat intolerant.
29. Graduated for the Communication & Information sciences degree. Enter burn out no. 2.
30. I’m starting my 30th year of living with an uncertain job situation (my contract is not being renewed and I may have something lined up yet when my contract ends later this month, but nothing is set in stone yet.), but with a tremendously rich experience in my pocket (as we speak I’m on a 3 week solo train trip across Europe).