About Me
Hello dear visitor, I cincerely hope you enjoy reading my blog, and maybe you want to know more about the person behind this blog. Or, if you already know me, want to know some more about me, especially when you keep forgetting those little details about me, and are embarrassed when I for the tenth time correcting you 
So let me start…
My name is Tim de Jong and I was born in the lovely town of Heerlen, Netherlands, which some people think to be a city. I was born on the (according to my parents, I can’t remember) snowy morning of the 11th of December, 1981. Ever since, I have been living in the little town of Landgraaf, which is next to Heerlen; for the more knowledgable amongst you, I live in subpart called Schaesberg. After completing the primary school which was only 100m from the place I formerly lived, I went to the Bernardinus college in Heerlen, where I met most of my current friends and had a nice time alltogether. In June 2000 I finished the Atheneum there and went on to the University in Maastricht, where I studied something called knowledge engineering, which is just a posh name for a combination of computer science and mathematics (probably my former teachers won’t agree, but what the heck). I really enjoyed my time in Maastricht, which is a great city, and that maybe also explains why it took five years for me to finish my studies there 
In May 2005, I graduated and started looking for a job, which wasn’t really successful at first. Mainly because I already knew that I wanted to be a PhD student and did not find any spot that I found interesting or the spots that were interesting were already taken by others. So after a seven month period at home, also due to some personal circumstances, I started searching for different jobs and finally found one at the CBS (the Dutch government statistics agency) as a software engineer. Two months later, the Open University of the Netherlands(OUNL) e-mailed me with a request for a job application there. As it turned out, one of my application letters had made it back into the circuit and now they were interested in me. To make a long boring story of job applications short, suffice it to say I started at OUNL April 2006, and am still working there as a PhD student. So one of my big wishes was fulfilled and hopefully I will also able to finish the PhD trajectory there.
Anyway, enough of my job life… more than my job I love my hobbies, which also sometimes help me to forget my job when necessary ;). My biggest hobby is hanging out with some friends, drinking beer, plainly enjoying life, which I try to do as much as possible. I also like meeting new people, making new friends, and I am generally very curious about other cultures and habits. Luckily my current job allows me to meet more people than ever, which is one of the biggest reasons I love my job.
This first hobby is shortly followed by my passion for music. Not only do I like to listen to all kinds of music, from metal to folk, country to pop, and recently even opera, I also like making music myself, playing the guitar, the mandoline and singing too. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether you would run or not when I start singing. Making music is also related to my first hobby; while I do enjoy making music on my own, I really love to play together with some friends. Some of you might remember the illustrious trio called Shagwell, that played almost everywhere for free beer.
Next to music, also photography is becoming a very big hobby of mine. After being dissapointed with my photographing capabilities on my travel to Scotland in October 2006, I decided to buy a decent singe lense reflex camera and really try to improve my skills, which I’m still busy doing. Some of my pictures are already available via my flickr site for your enjoyment. I must say I’m really not satisfied with my current abilities and also I spend more time figuring out to operate the camera than anything else; however, that’s part of the challenge, isn’t it?
Last but not least, I enjoy reading a lot. Like I said am I a very curious person and by reading I can at least satisfy that curiousity to some extend. I like reading about history, mythology and far destinations that I hope to see one day. Currently, I’m also reading a lot about photography, to try and improve. Furthermore, I also like reading fiction, mostly also with some historical or mythology background, that’s probably why I also adore Tolkien’s novels…
So, that’s a bit about me, probably there’s a lot I forgot… so finally, I want to ask you, if you know me a bit, to post a short statement about me in the comment section here. After all, almost no one believes a bloke bragging about himself. So by asking, you, my readers to post something about me, people can get a more subjective, maybe even less boring view, about me