Howdy, well, this is me (the weirdo in the middle of the picture above), and if you're reading this you managed to find the more or less hidden link. This part of the site is not about essays, instead, it is about me. Just a little something about who I am and what interests I have.

My full name, to start with the boring details, is Maarten Gerrit de Bruin, I was born on Oct. 9^th 1978, in the city of Utrecht, which lies in the province of Utrecht, The Netherlands. I grew up in the town of Maarssen, where I received my secondary education at the Niftarlake College. People sometimes wonder why I chose to study English when they hear that the courses I did for my finals were: Dutch, English, Business Economics, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and Calculus, don't worry, I wonder about that at times, too.
Anywayz, after finishing up on High School in 1997 (I was 18 at the time), I went to the U.S. for a year, I spent that year with a host family in Twin Falls, Idaho, and, since not doing anything would have seriously pissed off my parents, I followed a number of courses at the College of Southern Idaho, locally known as CSI. After coming back to The Netherlands (I refuse to name it 'Holland', by the way, there are two provinces, North and South Holland, that go by that name, not the entire country, I am that way about things sometimes), I quickly moved to the tiny city of Wageningen where I plunged myself headlong into Dutch student life, on the side I tried out studying biology at the university there, too. That study, regretfully, didn't really agree with me and, after only half a year, I had to make the difficult decision of stopping it and moving, not to Maarssen, this time, but to Leidschendam, where my father and his second wife live. I spent the next six months working, trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, and applying for an education as airline pilot at the KLS, the aviation school owned by the KLM, to take a shot at a childhood dream. After the last application round the KLS turned me down and I decided not to persue that avenue for the time being, not long after that I had a talk with my stepmom (no nasty mirrors here, or mean tricks with cinders!) and she pointed out to me that I am really into the meanings of words, arguing, reading, and that I am rather proficient in English. That was the point where I first considered to go and study English. As a day or two passed the idea totally grew on me and after checking the curriculum a number of universities offered I choose for the University of Leiden (I'm sure you can find the link to it somewhere around here!!:P). I applied there for the study English Linguistics and Literature in the nick of time, actually managed to get myself a room in Leiden before the college year started and pretty soon I discovered that I actually liked what I was doing, and quite a lot, too.

So, I guess that's about as much about my past as anybody can stomach, now for my interests. First and foremost I should mention music, I am really into music, I turn on some tunes as soon as I wake up and don't turn them off until I go to bed. I won't mention tunes first, though; first I will mention my friends. Which brings us to the picture above: the guy on the left is Dennis, the guy on the right is Marco. There are some other people I want to mention here as well; they are (in no particular order, by the way), Sander, Peter, Sarah, Geja, and Elize. Though I know a great many people whose presence I greatly appreciate, these are the few people I have had the good fortune to get to know really well over the years, they regularly ask me why I was never put in the asylum and I suspect them of knowing me better than I do myself. I won't embarrass them any further, I simply extend my humble thanks. Second, there's music, I am really into music, I turn on some tunes as soon as I wake up and don't turn them off until I go to bed (I think I mentioned that earlier :]). I like a lot of different styles of music but my preference goes out to a subgenre of the metal-scene, doom-metal; what this is about and what it sounds like is impossible to explain with mere words but the FAQ you can find on the site behind the last link does a very good job. (Doom-)metal bands I listen a lot to are: Opeth, Katatonia, Skyclad, Anathema(beware the pop–ups!), Autumn Tears, Left Hand Solution, Amorphis, Iron Maiden, Novembers Doom, My Insanity, My Dying Bride, Elend, and Ulver. Other bands I am really into include: The Dubliners (most Irish Folk, for that matter), The Golden Earring, The Eagles, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Boudewijn de Groot, Simon and Garfunkel, Dead Can Dance, and various composers of classical music.

Ok, there's more where that came from, sometimes I think that there are simply too many things that I'm into, that, and too few of me running around to do it all, never mind, whole different story there. Anyway, the next thing I'm really into has a lot to do with music as well, and that's ballroom and Latin-American dancing. I can hear some people thinking: "a metal-head/doom-junkie that's into civilized music?", yeah, weirder things have happened, you know. I first started ballroom dancing when I was 17 years old, my parents had, at times, hinted that they would like it if I went ballroom dancing, but somehow, that wasn't enough of an incentive, what was, though, was the girl that asked me if I wanted to enter a ballroom dancing course with her. Strange how things like that go with 17-year old boys, don't you think? Well, then I started with the big adventure of balroom dancing, at first I didn't even know how to keep track of the beat! After I figured that out, though, things started to go a bit better, so much better, even, that my dancing partner and I got asked if we wanted to try going to a contest one time, well, we did and we won a prize that very first time, which amazed me to no end. Apparently we made an impression on our teacher as well, since he asked us to join the group of enthusiasts that trained for competitions, we both liked to dance a lot and so we said yes. This started our training which was rather intense (up to 20 hours of training a week) but definitely worth the trouble, we did well in the competitions we entered, got a chance to teach the people who attended the regular courses how to improve on their dancing, and had a lot of fun as well, since the group that trained for contests was a very friendly bunch, I still see some of them every now and again, a couple of years after I stopped dancing there. Anywayz, I graduated from high school and left for the U.S.A. and that forced me to stop dancing, somehow, I never started again until a friend of mine was telling me about how her dancing partner was not really interested in dancing anymore, she asked me if I was interested in picking it up again, I decided to go and see how I liked it and I was hooked after the first lesson, this all happened in February of 2000, I still enjoy it a lot and try to go dancing twice a week. Updating the page after millenia seem to have passed, still dancing, just picked up a salsa course next to my regular ball–room dancing.

Reading is another one of my hobbies, or rather, it is impossible for me not to read, it's just way too much fun. I am mostly into reading fantasy, and as far as fantasy goes my absolute favorite is J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings I know that many people will not agree with me but that's what taste is all about, I guess. I have one writer that definitely comes right behind J.R.R. Tolkien, and that is Glen Cook, his Black Company series is absolutely marvelous. Cook provides a fantasy world with a sorcerous war all related in what has been called a worm's eye view; the main characters of the series form a band of mercenaries and really are the grunts in the field, they are the best at what they do, but the odds they face are so overwhelming that they hardly ever come through a confrontation without some casualties. The series at the moment encompasses some ten books, follows the Company through half a world and tracks their well and woe for three decades of war and strife. The series offer a gritty kind of realism and a deviation from the usual happy-go-lucky of most fantasy that really appeals to me. This is basically where my list ends, the rest of the writers I really like are kind of piled up on a heap. I'll just name them without comment.

• C.S. Friedmann.
• Robin Hobb.
• Tad Williams.
• David and Leigh Eddings.
• Terry Goodkind.