Me, myself and I --- Blatant Narcism

Picture by Katja Schade

A few years ago, around 2000 I guess, I decided take some acting classes. I went to the Utrecht cultural center for students, and found out that the elementary acting classes were fully booked. Not let down, I decided that improvisation-acting was also fun, and signed up for that class.

These classes were held on Thursday evenings in Parnassos, the Utrecht Cultural Center for Students, in a big classroom. During a class, the teacher first lets you do warm up excercises, and then you form couples and practice improvisation on different themes. At the end of the evening, every couple performs a scene, and the rest of the class acts as public. One Thursday evening me and my mate for the evening had to do the last scene. We improvised a play, and finally the teacher called it a day.

The students stood up and went to get their coats when I was still standing in that classroom. A large mirror was hanging on the wall, and I happened to stand in front of it. I checked myself, and admired my own athletic shape (no, really!)--but suddenly I noticed that I was really the only one doing this. At this realization, a sudden anxiousness came over me. Was this OK, was this healthy? I got a nagging paranoia that I might really have some psychiatric disorder.

Determined to find out more, I went home, and seated myself behind my computer. I fired up my browser and went to my trusty search engine, Google, entered

The top result looked vaguely familiar, but without thinking I clicked it. I had the shock of my life. Of over 1 billion webpages, Google deemed my home page (this page, really) the best description of narcism. Ouch.

Only later I found out that the Dutch "narcisme" is spelled "narcissism" in english. I just found back my own spelling errors with the search engine.

Today (2005), this page still hovers near the top for narcism, dancing up and down between between 5 and 25, at least

Ontopic

This page is supposed to be about me, so enough with the funny stories.

I cut off my long hairs a few years ago. I don't have that many pictures without them, but here I am with Jan and Herbert while relaxing in the alps.

Also, with my esteemed colleagues of the VU-Orchestra.

This is me as photographed by Katja Schade in 2001. Pensive, looking into the camera , vaguely. I tried photography myself too, with the Indycam. Or perhaps you prefer an action picture . (The girl on the right is Antigone, my fiancee. She dies in the end, in the play, at least).

Brothers in feet

I am the guy with the yellow fleece, bare feet and long hair. Jan is the guy with the yellow fleece, bare feet and long hair.

Siamese foobars

I am the guy with the jeans, black foobar shirt and the long hair. Jan is the guy with the jeans, black foobar shirt and long hair .

We are the Knights that say GNU

In The Genderhorst (March 1997). The only picture featuring Cornelius Nicholson known to date.