Hello. My name is Amaranth, maybe not the name I was born with, but this
name means as much to me, or maybe more.
I was born in 1970 in Utrecht, but have lived in a small town near there
from my second to my eighteenth year. I did not like highschool and have
never felt comfortable with those of my own age. As a child I used to prefer
older people and now I seem to prefer younger people. I kind of drifted through
school though, getting ok grades and doing not badly.
After highschool I started doing teacher's school. That was not such a
success since I seem to have a major problem with keeping order. But at
least I was able to finish it and gain my diploma, and officially I"m a
history and mathematics teacher. It will work out if I find students motivated
enough.
During my studying time I got involved in roleplaying and the SCA. Both
helped me to develop my imagination and my creativity, and though I"m less
active at both of them, I still enjoy them a lot. Most of my best work
on this site is related to either. Roleplaying is a way of doing kind of improvised
drama combined with fantasy literature themes where you take the role of
a hero or in my case often anti hero or reluctant hero, to try and reach
your goals in interaction with other players. This can be done only in your
imagination, with a group around a table, using only words, or with costumes
and props. The SCA is a medieval society where we try to re enact the middle
ages as we would have liked them to be, creatively, and with a lot of fun.
Because the middle ages had by then caught my imagination I decided to
study Medieval Studies after I finished teacher's school. I've really found
it very interesting, and the better courses did catch my imagination. Unfortunately
I often don't have the patience for the true scientific method. Because
of healthproblems I have unfortunately not been ab le to completely finish
these studies, though I have finished most of the courses that did interest
me.
Unfortunately at the end of my studies my health started deteriorating
pretty badly. At first I got really bad asthma, several attacks a day. I
was working to earn a little next to my studies and soon I had to give up
both work and study. Then when I got that a little more under control, and
I tried working again, within months I was felled with this chronic disease
that is called ME in the Netherlands and CFS in the USA. More on this you
can read here.
Since I got ill I have not written that much, most of my work here is between
7 and 2 years old, some older, some newer. I am not recovered but I try
to deal with it all as well as I can, and have found a job from home by
now that can barely support me. Luckily I still have time to write and make
webpages like this one..