Start of Blog! The Past of DD and other stuff!

This is DD, C(ookie)monster, Dallas-Dakota, Beriothien, Maxx or however you net peoples know(I'l be forced to sniper you if you met me in RL first and then discovered this blog, so that RL will not invade my life here on the nets) me reporting. Woohoo! Long first sentences.

First of all, I would like to be stupid and link people straight away to another blog, thus destracting people from reading mine(if any). Who's is that, you may ask? It is Bor's blog, or you may know him as either Rob Meadows or Bor the Barbarian Monk. He is a good friend of mine, he struggles with poverty and ilnesses both mental and physical.

Now. About me :
I live in the Netherlands(That lil' country west of Germany, north of France and east of the UK, which has Rotterdam and Amsterdam for the ignorant). I'm 15 years old, to be 16 in June. I'm in my last year of high school(if all go's well) I'm currently applying to the International Media Design Course, on the Grafische Lyceum (graphics school) in Rotterdam. More on that later.

I've grown up in a normal elementary school, once doing a year twice. I was recommended both HAVO and Gymnasium. I could do Gymnasium, but I'd have to work hard for it.
For all of you non-dutch people, who don't know the dutch schooling system. There are seven levels of dutch high school. From left to right, highest to lowest, hardest to easiest.
VWO, which consists of Gymnasium and Atheneum. HAVO, which is just HAVO. And then you have VMBO. VMBO has four levels. And there we go again! TL - GL - PL - BG.

And so I started out at a 'small school'(around 800 students) which hosted to only Gymnasium. As my parents thought it best I was at a small school. All went fine, except French and Latin. I horribly failed at that, sadly. It was the best school I've ever been at. Or maybe thats because it was mainly before a lot of my problems started. So I failed on French and Latin. I could go and do a year over. But that was not adviced, and ickle little me followed the advice.
I also had started to get troubles reading the teachers writings. Sitting practically always in the back of the class. My head started to hurt slowly, but eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore, I after a month orso, maybe two months went to a opticien(eye people!) and they told me I needed glasses for far reading. I got the classes, and occasionaly wore them when I was sitting at the back of the class. I forgot them a lot.

In the summer vacation it would be my anniversary. What? DD has a girlfriend? Why Didn't he tell anybody? Seriously?
Nope, it was my third year anniversary of going to therapists. Why did DD go to therapists? Because his parents ordered(DD sure was tired of therapy) him to. He'd been around 5 different therapists, all with their own methods and therapies. None had worked to solve the problem within DD that he had with his parents.(Apperently a once-ocurring genetic problem, since my brother shares it) We just argue, a lot. Sure, we occasionaly have good times. But we argue much. There's even been a summer holiday once where it was cancelled(We ALWAYS go on summer holiday, practically always went) because of problems between my brother(sided with him, 'course) and my parents because they wanted to send him part-time to a instition or something therapy blabla. I apparently had a few symptons, so they labelled me with Authism, PDDNOS. The rest-group.

I went to go and do HAVO. I applied to one of the two remaining high schools in the city. They said they were full. I didn't apply to the other one, I didn't apply to because my parents said it gave me way to much independence and that wouldn't work for me. So I applied to a school in the neighbouring city/town(they say city, we say town).

Great, this'l work! Nope, I horribly failed at French and German(You only get latin at the Gymnasium, you start at german in your second year), and some other grades too because stress got me down. Stress caused me being ill a lot and migraines. Which in turn caused more stress to not fail classes. Somewhere, I can't remember where in that year, my doctor referred me to the neurologist, whom I visited a couple of times and he gave me the diagnosis of Chronic Migraine. And he gave me a prescription of Naproxen with it. Around this year, somewhere, I had also gotten sleeping problems. The doctor prescribed Melatonine, which my brother is also on and works fine for him. It works fine for me too. I just have the nasty habbit of waking up once or twice a night. Lucky if I don't wake up in the middle of the night.

Nope. No schools that'l work for you left now. We recommend you go to ...Hold your breath people! Special education! Gotta love how they designed it. There's practically anything to do with the mind, therapies etc. But not special education. And the closest one was so far that I had to take the train every day. The joys. Well there was one, I met a old classmate, who also had to take the same train I did everyday. Woohooo! Somebody I could get along with, dare I say ...friend?

Now special education people, is basically what my parents were all against after my first year. You do EVERYTHING on your own. You're lucky if you're told your assignments before they're due. You have to ask people for work and they might give it to you in a couple of weeks. Why? Because I'm at a small school with around (40-50 students(Somehow we need around 10 teachers). Most of the students in the upper years are either smokers, drugs junkies or WoW players, or a mix of them. Most of the lower years just have something severely wrong with their head. And my school can't hold exams(Hey, its their first year at exams too! Wonderfull) because they're too small. Now the bigger school, with who we're doing exams with, and examine the tests don't have too actually return the tests for it to go to the goverment and thus being fine. To this day, I still don't know some of my grades from my last test week ( some three weeks ago)

DD! DD! Cmon! Where's the artistry you promised? Huh? In the title!

Ah yes. I was told by my art teacher(crayons and pencils only, the rest is tooooo dangerous!) that I was friggen' fantastic. My somehow still naive mind had vaguely believed that. The only previous things with art that I have done was being horrible at writing and drawing in elementary(Even to go so far that back when I was in my third or fourth year of elementary that I got some kinda therapy or whatsitcalled in english to help me properly move my chorocraphy or something) and drawing in OOTS style. Now OOTS style, I drawn in Inkscape. A vector-based program. Thus being not really artistic. But I had started drawing IRL. And as they say, it came true. I became better with practice. I still suck, but I'm better now.

I've done some cartographing, drawing maps IRL and got one or two assignments still standing.
With a teacher at the International Design Course saying he didn't know wether I should be placed in first or second year, I signed up. Note, I signed up for photography first, which has been a hobby of mine for about 3/4 years now, but they said it was full ater more then a month of waiting(lovely). Now there's a few spots left, I got my application form and test coming in somewhere around the tenth and a application interview the 27th.

Now, on gitp. The forums that come along with the Order of the Stick webcomic. Despite the downs that it sometimes gets from the massive viewing of the comics(It also hosts erfworld)/forums. It's community is bloody fantastic. Here is where I met Bor, he had founded the 'depression' thread there, to help people with their problems. We've had our many downs and a few little ups, less then I'd like. We've told eachother about them, adviced eachother, supported eachother. And despite the age difference(Bor is in his early 40's), he and I have become very good friends. The commmunity and Bor have kept me alive through these years. I've had depressions, a broken heart, rejections from schools and lots of things. But they are there for me. And I am there for me. And I want to hug them to death. And more recently, Goober, who I met via-via from gitp mass msn chats.

Also, for my new and original name.
Gamer = I'm a gamer, while I may not game as much as some, I'm a strategy, platform and hack 'n slash player. The game I most play is Diablo II Lord of Destruction. No. I do not play WoW.
Hippie = I have a big fondness of peace(not the same as pacifism!), I've been told on multiple times that I look stoned and/or high.
Death = I'm close to it, I love the darkness and love the colour black.

Now this is the conclusion, I've had some severely sucking years, but gitp pulled me through. Future entries will be shorter.