Hello there! Hallo! Bonjour! Guten Tag! That’s ‘hi’ in the four languages I speak well enough to have a, somewhat humbling, conversation. My name is John as you probably noticed, I was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (well actually Amstelveen), and have lived in various places around the world. Currently, I am a 16-year old American student in the 11th grade (5e klas), planning to study architecture and enjoying life wherever I’m at!
In the midst of everything, I’m making an attempt to get an awesome website with this blog up and running, but not just like any other. No, I like doing things different. And yes, up to a certain extent you can call that ‘hipster’, but I will address its paradox later... Back on topic; there’s a list of about twenty blog ideas, other ideas, thoughts, endless amounts of photos and mind-boggling statements that I can’t wait to share or maybe even describe in a book. Anyway, that just means there’s lots of goodness I’m hoping to publish and feed to those interested.
But why?
Now wait a second, let me tell you what it is I’m actually doing here with the site you’re looking at. Weird enough, my heritage has a lot to do with exactly that (well, of course!). I’ll try to outline the situation I’m in: my parents are American (citizens), by law meaning I also have to be a US citizen, even though I’m born, raised, educated in Holland, and have never lived[1] in the States. I have two smaller sisters of 13 and 10, who therefore also have American passports, while being ‘Dutch’. Our extended family (besides some from Germany[2]), come from the United States just like my parents. That brings me to a highly relevant, frequently asked question: why’d they come to the Netherlands? You see, I live in a Christian family setting, and my dad, after various experiences decided to work and live in Amsterdam with his wife, as a missionary! That’s where I come in. I am a missionary kid (MK), and these type of multicultural, children of missionaries are sparsely scattered across the globe. I happen to be one of them, and am extremely grateful for the experiences and lifestyle that have come with it. They are known to have lived in lots of different places, and travel a lot. Out of that comes great flexibility, knowledge of many cultures, tons of connections, an earlier (possibly smarty-pants,) understanding of faith and a different view on daily life, to name a few. I of course don’t want to claim to be this kind of ‘Uomo universale’, but I would like to say that this unusual life is a big reason why I’m expanding myself to blogs. And I hope that it’s interesting and worthwhile enough for you to read.
Social media’s influence
That brings me to my final discussion topic, where all this online ‘theJohnDkid’ commotion came from in the first place: social media and a smartphone. To keep it short(er); a long time ago, I got the idea to market myself separately, as an artist would do that e.g. on YouTube. I never liked Google’s way of getting all over the place, also just then on Android with a required Gmail account. So, like I said, I came up with ‘theJohnDkid’ as something I, in the future could use for anything like YouTube, Instagram, SoundCloud, etc. to keep it more distant from one’s personal life. That way I was also able to access the upcoming phone technology all around me.
The only phone I had since I turned 13 was the popular Samsung Star (up ‘n coming touch screens). So until late 2012 I had been very patient, hoping Apple would have some great new holographic phone of some sort… but to my disappointment the new iPhone had in my opinion, minor updates as usual[3] to serve their yearly revenue needs, and luckily the Note II came out soon after, with all the capabilities I could have dreamed of. With the social media network at my finger tips, I set out as ‘theJohnDkid’ and created a name for myself, which I intend on making an overview for, on these pages. I gave in to the seemingly time-consuming social networks such as Twitter, to gain interest from the public and explore the web, just like anyone else... and now I’m here, representing theJohnDkid!
Feel free to comment on anything I write/post, I’d love to hear your opinion, and also the first big ‘Thank you’ for reading this introduction!
[1] Read: we have been there, on vacation for example
[2] My family, German relations and such will be explained and talked about later
[3] Not saying it’s a bad phone, compared to other providers, I think it’s just for a money mindset. http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=8819758&pid=8819123