MEL
AROUND THE
WORLD
ABOUT ME
Thank you for your intrest in my blog. You came to the right spot if you'd like to find out who I am. If you'd like to know why I am traveling, then please visit this page.
In 2005 one of my classmates had very big news, he was moving to Japan for a year. Immediately I was interested and I tried to figure out how he made this possible. After Googling www.yfu.be and checking out what “going on exchange” meant, I decided this was something I needed to do. I started filling out the paper work and several months later I went on exchange to Finland.
The years 2005-2006 were going to change my life forever. I ended up in this most amazing hostfamily ever, made crazy friends at school and got to know the Finnish culture.
After this gap year I started university at which I got my masters degree in interior design & scenography. I always knew I wanted to teach, so I became an art-teacher. After a few years of teaching, and having a hard time finding an art-teaching opportunity, my dad suggested subscribing in a safety course… and so I did. I became a health and safety consultant and that’s what I’ve been up to the last 2 years.
I know, my career looks like a tornado. But doing all of these things I figured out so much about myself.
I now know that…
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I’m creative
I’m, as a matter of fact, creative in many ways. I love drawing and designing houses/furniture but I also love begin creative in solving problems. I like to solve my colleges’ excel- and Access-problems (I guess, I’ve got that from you, daddy). I believe these situations need a little creativity from time to time to be solved.
I’m also a dreamer (point 3) which makes it much more easy to be creative.
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I’m a perfectionist
When going to university and studying interior architecture, I learned that every millimeter is important and that the client cares about every detail. That’s what you get paid for, thus you need to have figured it out on time.
Being a perfectionist is good if you don’t overdo. I admit that I find it hard to let go when something isn’t as good as it could be :-)
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I’m a dreamer
I love dreaming about everything. I can be quit naive when I’m in my dreamers-mood. I’d love to think the world could become a perfect place, without war and food shortage. I really really really hope that one day this place could become perfect for everybody and everything.
Because of this (and being a perfectionist) I’m really good at my job (health and safety consultant). In my job I need to keep on believing that one day everything can be safe for everybody. I need to keep on begin naive forever. It’s great when you can be who you are in your job, right? :-)
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Compromise
Being a perfectionist and realizing that the world is in fact not (yet, haha) the expected “wonderworld” for everybody, I try to find the best compromise for everybody all the time. I believe there’s always an –in between- if two people want something. At least I try to find as many –in betweens- as humanly possible :-)
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I’m the queen of questions.
As I’m a dreamer I’m quite often wondering how things could be like/what things could look like if X of Y were different.
When I was about 7 years old I started firing thons of questions to my dad: Daddy, why is the moon flying in space? Daddy, could a star turn into a planet with water? Daddy, how does a fly breathe? …
I always asked my daddy because he seemed to have the answer to everything. But one day he said: Honey, when you’re older, I’ll explain this to you again. I only asked him why humans were not living on “Pluto”. It seemed like an easy question at the time.
My brother often tells me that I should have become a journalist. That way I could ask everybody all the questions in the world.
But on the other hand, dear daddy and brother, asking questions is a very good thing in my job as a health and safety consultant (as when I was a teacher). I have to keep asking myself the same thing all over: Is this safe enough? What If I had to escape, where would I run to? Does everybody understand this icon? …
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I’m very good at making lists.
Because I’m questioning everything and everyone all the time, I have a lot of things on my to-do list. I’m also a perfectionist, remember? So I like to have things done on time. To make sure I’m not forgetting anything, I have a permanent to-do list. It can be quite exhausting. That’s when I go back to point 3; Dream
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I fell in love with my 2CV
In 2011 I started rebuilding and old 2CV (Bella) with my dad. The car was getting rusty and could really use a bit of paint. We took apart every little bit of the car and made it look brand-new again. I made a trip, with my friend Margot, to Spain and the next year with Jorien, Alissa and my brother to the south of France. Yes, 4 people and camping-gear in a 2cv. Awesome, right?
During the summer in 2016 we made another trip! 3 people, 3800km, 10 countries, 10 days. Loved it!
Nowadays my friends know me and my 2cv. If you see one, you see the other. In summer at least :-)
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I love traveling
I love to see different architectural buildings and to eat "strange" food. I love to meet people from other cultures and get to know different perspectives on all kinds of topics. I love learning other languages. I'm very curious, all the time, to get to know more about all the differences in the world.
So if I’m having this perfect life, great colleagues and crazy car... than why am I traveling?
