They always do, visibly and tangibly.

I am an HSP (highly sensitive person) so emotions tend to run away with me unless I keep them firmly in check, which I don't always want to. Happy emotions make me glow. My husband loves that - he loves the light in my eyes when I am content and happy.

Negative emotions equally have their physical impact on me. I can look grey when I'm not happy. Headaches, stomach aches, acne, you name it.

The first thing that springs to my mind is wikipedia :D
What I usually do when something interests me, and that can be anything, from something I hear on the radio, see on the television, something new that comes up in conversations with people - I grab my laptop and try to find information on it on the net. Usually on Wikipedia, but a simple google is good enough. It's also how I came to this site - I read a blog where someone mentioned it in passing, it caught my attention, so I looked it up et voila.

I like expanding my interests. I'm not sure whether I value knowing a little bit of everything above specializing on a certain subject. Both have it's merits, and I guess when something really interests me I delve into it by ordering books on the subject or following classes and courses, and talking to kindred spirits. As a matter of fact, I am on the verge of ordering some beginners books on Buddhism and Zen - it's about high time!

The internet is a strange thing. Even though it is vast it so easily yields just those things you are looking for.

There aren't many people in my direct environment who share the same beliefs and thoughts I do. In fact, many of the friends I do have (apart from those I met through my husband) I found via online communities. It's so much easier to reach out and find people with similar interests on the net, because it is a specified search. In real life, people don't come tagged ;)

On the other hand, connecting with people in real life, with people who have vastly different interests, can be refreshing and broadening. I would never give up real life community and contact over online. But I am happy that both co-exist in my life. Whenever I feel down, or have a question, I can go online, visit my communities and find instant recognition by people from all over the world. Online communities have made the world at once smaller and larger for me - smaller in the sense that people very far away are now easily accessible, and larger in the sense that there are so many more different ideas and thoughst and opinions than I ever thought possible.

I neglected this community for far too long ....

After graduation I had no idea what I wanted to do. I'd always been a dreamer, as I thought of it then: liked to playact, draw, read, sing, dance, so for a while I thought that I might want to persue yet another studies like acting school or maybe an art academy. But I'd been raised a practical child: a creative career would in all likelihood not bring any food to the table (boy, was I wrong in hindsight ...), so I did what anyone did who had graduated and didn't know what to persue careerwise: I jumped into the IT fray.

My boyfriend at the time was an electrical engineer and had many friends in the IT branche, so I guess it kind of rubbed off on me. I started out working for PinkRoccade as a helpdesk employee and quickly went with the flow, which landed me in the land of consultancy. I wrote reports, talked to people, charted workflows and processes. It was a job I could do, and became passionate about, but only really because my private life wasn't going so well. My boyfriend was the kind of guy who never really thought about the future and what he wanted out of it - marriage maybe? Children? Buy a place instead of renting one? Together we had a pretty large income, but we never did anything with it. We lived together, but over the years slid into a rut and became more roommates than lovers, roommates who actually didn't particularly like one another.

I never stood up to him, even if he called me dumb. I'd never experienced a long term relationship before and thought I couldn't really do any better. At work, I also was timid, but at the same time a perfectionist. That didn't work very well - at a certain point I landed an assignment as a manager of a small team of IT employees, which was something I was too inexperienced for and thusly couldn't handle. I tried to make it work, which in the end resulted in me sitting at home with RSI feeling sorry for myself.

Looking back I want to slap the girl I was then. So insecure, so convinced there was something wrong with me. So locked into her own shell. That all changed when I met someone online who convinced me that there were guys out there who treated women differently. That I deserved better. That I was in a situation that was not to my own benefit. Luckily, I believed him. Over the course of a couple of months I left my boyfriend, bought my own place, had two cats and was partying with abandon.

Of course that couldn't last - I payed the price with a week-long mental breakdown after three months. Still, I'd set the first steps on the road to where I am now. I changed jobs to provide a more steady income, and found myself in a new relationship with a collegue from PinkRoccade. Best thing I ever did - this guy never stopped saying "I believe in you" - which made me believe in myself. Now that I had a satisfying private life, I found I had time to look critically at what I was doing businesswise. I found that I didn't like my line of work at all. It didn't suit me. I wasn't cut out to be a manager (and it gave me a HARD time to finally admit to myself that there was something in life I coulnd't do). My worklife was stressful, not only because of the nature of the job but also because I felt incompetent at it, which added stress. I constantly fought with my boss, and at a certain point I just quit without really having another job. Time to reassess and think about what I REALLY wanted to do.

I fell back to my roots. Drawing, creating. I'd schooled myself in building websites over the years, just as a hobby, and decided to persue this as a career. My next job was a technical consultant job for a company that built websites. Suddenly I found myself helping out clients, building new things, creating layouts, advising people in the way of the web. I loved it. They loved me. I travelled all through the country, making long days, loving the job, dreading the time on the road. Yet another step: I'd found what I was good at and liked. Too bad the commute became virtually impossible after a while. Two years into the job I decided something had to change, because I came home listless and very tired. My private life started to suffer.

It was difficult to say goodbye to the company - I felt I was dropping something I really loved to do. In the meantime I'd registered my own business, just to make sure I had something to fall back on - and it payed off. I could continue the line of work I had been in and loved, but this time on my own terms. I've been in this situation ever since, and it was the last thing in my life I felt needed improvement. I'm now happily married to a husband I adore, and who respects me and lifts me up. I am in a line of business I really love, and work on my own terms. I have a good social life and time enough to spend with friends, loved ones and occasionally alone. My self-esteem has vastly improved by chasing my dreams and eventually catching up with them.

I don't consider myself to be an activist. Awareness - I try to live as organically as I can. Here in the Netherlands we have access to organic food in moderate quantities, so when I can, I buy the organic substitute for the ingredient I want to use.

I think awareness should start with the self: if YOU don't do it, how can you convince another to do it? So my husband and I eat organic, we separate our waste, and we try to buy as many products as we can without a plastic wrapper.

How did I get here? How did I end up in this particular pocket of life?

It's strange to look back and see how much I've changed over the last decade - going from your twenties to your thirties is apparently a lifechanging journey. At least, it was for me.

I was raised in the belief that everyone had their own little corner in life. That I was ordinary. Yes, I had a good head on my shoulders, but in my family no one had ever gone to study, no one had ever really stuck their head out above anyone else. We were living, quiet, peaceful, into the margins lives and I never thought to question any of that. My family was in essence a family of workmen, of carpenters and shipbuilders - who did things with their hands, did physical jobs, married secretaries and administrators and housewives.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. Don't get me wrong. You can have a quiet job but have a very rich personal life. And they all have that. But the ambition level was never very high and the motto was (this is a Dutch proverb): being normal is crazy enough.

I went through my middle- and highschool years without being very adventurous. I got nicely high grades, was the typical goodie two shoes who diligently studies, who's sheltered from the big bad world by two loving parents who chose to have just one child to give that one child everything they could give it (and not only material stuff). In short - at seventeen I had no idea what the world could be, what my options were and what I wanted. I never had had to think about it. I was provided for. My dad and mom brought me to every party I wanted to go to and picked me up again too. I was taught to be polite to others, to not be sharp with others, and as a consequence I was not very good in fending for myself.

After highschool I needed to find a studies. I chose English Grammar and Literature at one of the Universities close to home. I was an early student, only 17, when I started out at Uni. I didn't feel confident enough to move out and indulge in the studentlife, so I became a commuting student. I didn't particularly like these studying years. In hindsight I know I should have moved out. It would have been healthier for me and my parents. I didn't however, which lead again to me not being self sufficient. My study was paid for me, except the studybooks. I had little jobs on the side to earn money to be able to buy them.

Not a very difficult life.
Except I'd been bullied in middleschool and highschool. My self esteem wasn't very high. It took me all my guts to actually go to university and meet all these new and scary people. I didn't really thrive at uni - what should have been a fun experience was a scary one for me. I didn't live in the city, commuted every day. I didn't partake in any real student activities. I just wish I would have been a little bit bolder but then again, I was very young. I was easily three years younger than any of my peers there.

After five years of studying (one failed year because I had mono) I graduated with the feeling I was not ready for society at all. I'd met the guy I'd spend the next seven years with by then, and in the beginning, he gave me the boost and the courage to stand up for myself, get out there, and get a job.


----- to be continued

Hah - I actually find myself in that situation right now (forgot to pay the television bill *hangs head in shame*).

Aaaaaanyhow - be creative is what springs to mind. Write, draw, sing, dance, excercise, engage in communication, be online, play games, be interactive! That's what I do at the moment. Thing is, I thought I didn't watch that much tv. Now that we don't have if for a sec, it turns out that I do miss it, if only as a kind of background companion. You know, the thing you turn on when you're doing something else but you need some kind of distraction or visual input. I find myself watching my entire DVD collection these days.

And, I'm writing. And listening to music. It's nice, doing something else for a change.

When I fire up Flock or Mozilla, it default takes me to my personal blog page, but usually that is not what I peruse first. I always jump to gmail to see if there are any messages for me. After that I surf to my Nu.nl (dutch news) to see what''s happening in the world. And after that, I fire up either google reader or click "My World" in Flock to check whether my friends have written anything on their journals.

After that, I usually check fora, like the XSS forum (the guild I play World of Warcraft with). Zaadz or Popomundo, a turn based online game I play.

My ideal homepage? Not necessary. I know where I can find what I need, it's just a question of clicking a few links and I'm there ;)

Jeez, what a question. I don't know if I could bear to know that I would loose my eyesight tomorrow night. I am a very visual person - I wouldn't know what to do. The thought I would never see my fiance's face again, the faces of my parents again, my cats, my garden, the fragility of nature ... I wouldn't be able to do my job anymore (I'm amongst others a graphical designer) ... my whole world would fall apart.

I cannot answer this question :(

I probably would call it "Connect". Cause that's what it's all about, right?