To set the scene: it is the nineteenth of May 1993. It’s seven thirty in the morning. I’m lying in bed, luxuriating in the golden sunlight pouring through my open curtains. I am at that blissful stage, halfway between slumber and consciousness, where dreams are at their most vivid and comfort reaches its highest peak.
Unfortunately, the realisation is gradually dawning that I have roughly fifteen seconds before my room-mate bursts through my bedroom door to tell me to get my lazy arse out of bed or she won’t be giving me a ride to Uni. today. I moan, and roll over onto my front, burying my head into my pillow as I try to sum up the mental strength necessary to get me out of the warm environs of my bed. Wait, hold up…5,4,3-
“Mornin’ Kel! Get your lazy arse out of bed or I won’t be giving you a ride to Uni. today!”
Damn, she’s early. That was Claire, by the way, Claire Robertson. She’s my ridiculously-perky-first-thing-in-the-morning roommate. Actually, she’s perky pretty much any time of the day; one of those people who never has a bad day. It can be her best trait: I can count on her to liven up any situation and drag me, kicking and screaming, out of any foul mood. However, as she proves routinely every morning, it can also be her worst.
I guess I should introduce myself as well. I’m Kelly van ‘t Heuvel. My Christian name is English, as is my Mum. My surname is Dutch, from my Dad. It means ‘of the hill’, which I always thought was kind of odd, because there aren’t any hills in The Netherlands. But there aren’t many clogs or girls with silly pointy plaits either, yet the stereotypes form the perception that we all walk round our windmills with odd hairstyles and clumpy wooden shoes. So I like to believe that my name is just another challenge to the established beliefs of the gullible public. And stuff like that.
I was born in the Juliana Kinderziekenhuis in Den Haag (that’s in The Netherlands, folks) on the twenty-fourth of February, 1973. That makes me a twenty year old Pisces. Which in turn makes me creative, thoughtful, shy and an incurable romantic. Allegedly. It’s a good job that I don’t believe in all that star sign bullshit (ever the cynic, me) because that would not be a good description of myself. You’ll have to take my word for it for the time being.
But back to my history. Bear with me or scroll down, I don’t mind either way. I moved to England aged one, where I lived in the Midlands for eight years (for the uneducated or unintelligent, the Midlands is in the middle of the land). I lived in a village, in the middle of nowhere, that at best could be described as ‘pretty’. It was okay to be a toddler in, but I would have gone stir-crazy if I had been between the ages of ten and seventeen-and-a-half (by which time I would have been able to drive myself the hell away from there). Then I lived in London for a couple of years. That was the epitome of suburbia. English suburbia anyway, which meant adultery scandal spread by nosy neighbours, divorces because of adultery scandals spread by nosy neighbours, and incessant rain.
Next I moved back to The Netherlands. Being half-Dutch, I spoke the language, but I was put into an English school, because my parents thought the British education system was better. I enjoyed The Netherlands. With the loose laws surrounding drugs, drink and well, everything, you could be forgiven for expecting my parents to be really strict. In fact, in comparison with the average equivalent teenager in England, me and my friends had all the freedom in the world. So guess what? I loved Den Haag. I had a great time living there: it was safe and clean and fun. Sorry if I busted anyone’s stereotypes again.
In the end, I stayed there too long: seven years in total. The school I was in isolated us from both the other international schools and the Dutch community, making my final years exceptionally claustrophobic. There were sixty kids in my grade, but these were the only people I knew of my age, and out of the sixty, I only was friends with fifteen or twenty. This in itself was frustrating, but bearing in mind there were fifty-nine other teenagers feeling the same way, and the situation became unbearable.
Luckily, university loomed large. Bringing us, finally, to the present.
When I first introduce myself to people, I see them try to stereotype me fairly quickly. They inevitably fail to do this successfully. This is because I am studying medicine at the University of Leeds.
First stereotype: the medic. As a medical student, I am incredibly intelligent (not true, I have been blessed with enough brains to be considered the smart side of average, but I have had to do a hell of a lot of work to get where I am today), exceptionally confident when in a white coat (the rest of the world sees the confidence, I admit, but I know it as a façade. Well admit it, you’d be terrified too if you were the key to someone’s wellbeing and health), and introverted and shy when out of scrubs and living in the everyday world (yeah right…do I sound like the silent, serious type?).
Second stereotype: the university student. I am therefore broke (I work three nights a week at a flash restaurant with well-tipping clients in the city centre), permanently drunk/stoned/high (as a medic, I a) know what that shit can do to you, and b) remember, am the serious and introspective type, and we hard-working and well-balanced individuals wouldn’t do anything that foolish), and finally I must be lazy (wait! I can’t be lazy, I’m a medic!).
Third stereotype: (ominous shudder) Leeds. I’m not sure what it is about Leeds that has people quaking in their boots. I would assume it is the hard northern bitch perception (although I lived in that well-known northern city of London) and the theory that Leeds is the centre for drug-pushing, club-going, man-eating sluts (excuse me, I’m a medic! I have a reputation as boring to uphold!).
It’s kind of understandable why in reality I confound people’s perceptions. I am a contradiction in terms: in relation to the stereotypes that exist, I am a confusing muddle. How can I be a hard-working medical student but go to university and live a life of excess? (Although to me, the more valid question is: how could I be a hard-working medical student and not go to university?). How dare I be a lazy university junkie – sorry, student – and be incredibly intelligent, as all medics must be?
Ironic, then, that by confounding people’s expectations by combining three incompatible elements, they are able to classify me most easily, by merely confusing themselves. You see, I can best be described as confusing: a muddle of character traits that seem to define incongruity.
I like to think of myself as ‘interesting’. I could try to explain, but it would probably be easier (for me) and seem more plausible (to you), if you form your own opinions about the kind of person I am and the type of character I have.
So having now confused you fully, do you want a physical description? Well tough, you’re getting one. I’m six foot tall (I know you want to say it: bloody hell), and average build, with (permanently) jaw-length hair that is (currently) dark blond in colour. I have blue eyes. I used to think my eyes were my best feature; they are a funky colour, with specks of grey, green and even this weird orange-y shade, and framed by long dark eyelashes. As I said, they used to be my favourite feature, until a friend (or rather, the friend: you know the type I’m talking about; the one everyone thinks is gorgeous, and funny, and smart) told me that I had the perfect nose. I’d never noticed anything special about it: at best, I’d considered it long enough to decide that it was the type of nose you might describe as a button nose. But, my most ‘perfect’ friend preferred it to hers. This revelation that she aspired to something of mine floored me. It convinced me that maybe she was actually just as normal as we earthly beings whose world she was temporarily inhabiting before she moved on to better things.
Anyway, do you feel fulfilled? You now know my life history and the
story behind my current affinity for my nose.
Links to other sites on the Web
Get your own Free Home Page