Teaching.

De achtste mei duizend negenhonderd achtenzeventig, te 11.15 uur, is door Mij, ondergetekende, Petrus Ludovicus De Rooy, Burgemeester en Ambtenaar van de Burgelijke Stand der gemeente KAPELLEN, arrondissement en provincie ANTWERPEN, aanstonds na vaststelling, ten Gemeentehuize in dubbel opgemaakt de AKTE VAN GEBOORTE van W o u t e r, van het mannelijk geslacht, op ZES MEI van dit jaar te 13.20 uur, alhier geboren in de kraamkliniek Sint-Jozef, Kerkstraat 5, zoon van Jozef Leopold Maria V e r h e l s t, electricien, geboren teTEssenderlo provincie Limburg op vier oktober duizend negenhonderd zesenveertig en van zijn echtgenote Judith Martha Elise R o o s e n, verpleegassistente, geboren te Kuringen provincie Limburg op twintig augustus duizend negenhonderd zevenenveertig, beiden wonende te Ekeren provincie Antwerpen Bund 45.
Volgens de aangifte aan mij gedaan door gemelde vader in het bijzijn van Ludovicus Vanhoof, directeur ziekenhuis, veertig jaar oud, wonende te Ekeren provincie Antwerpen Pinksterbloemlaan 15 en van Jean-Marie De Munck, bediende, drieëndertig jaar oud, wonende te Ekeren, hoogpadlaan 103.

Na voorlezing dezer akte, hebben de comparanten benevens Mij getekend

<signatures>

The above is the literal text of my birth certificate, including the one spelling error it contains ("teTEssenderlo" should've been "te Tessenderlo"). In Belgium, the law requires (or required? it might've been changed, not too sure) that when a child is born, this is announced within three days at the municipal administration of the municipality where the child is born, together with two "witnesses". It isn't strictly the father's job to do this, but since mothers usually stay in the hospital for a few days after giving birth, in practice this is the father's job.

The text basically says that I was born may 6th, 1978, at 13:20, and that my father went to the municipal offices two days later at 11:15; it says when and where my parents where born, what their professions are, where they live, and the age and identity of both witnesses. One of them is Ludovicus (known as Louis) Vanhoof, then the manager of the hospital where I was born—but as it happens, also my uncle and godfather. I don't know the other witness; no doubt this is some guy who was waiting at that office for a young father so that he could be the "witness"—and then enjoy the beer that the father would no doubt offer him to celebrate the newly-born child. It wouldn't be the first time; it's actually uncommon that my father did have a real witness.

If you want to see this text, you need to go to the municipality where you were born, and ask them to make a photocopy of it. They'll go in their archives, pick out the right page, copy the thing, and charge you a rather high amount of money for that. But not if you need it because you're teaching.

Yes, I've just started a second job as a teacher. I've been a co-owner of NixSys for about two years now, and while things aren't going all that bad, they're not going perfect either; we earn enough money to pay off our company's costs, and perhaps a slight bit more, but most certainly not enough to live off of it. As a result, I was getting myself into quite some debts, and this was slowly becoming a rather dramatic problem. Thus, I started looking for a part-time job, one that I could easily do part-time while still being somewhat related to IT. As it turns out, that isn't all that easy to find; IT specialists are rarely if ever hired part-time.

Except in education. As of yesterday, I'm officially a "praktijklector" at the Karel de Grote-Hogeschool in Antwerp, teaching IT to future IT teachers (call it "meta-teaching" if you like); those who will teach about IT to people between the ages of 12 and 16 (IIRC).

The pay check isn't high enough to pay off all my debts all at once, but at least I won't have to worry too much about money anymore. Which is good.

But, boy. Do they need paperwork! On monday and tuesday I've prepared ~10 different documents, including my birth certificate. Most of those documents I could acquire free of charge, but some — like a doctor's testimony that I won't be a medical risk to the students, and a "proof of nationality" — required a bit of money. I also didn't care about most of them (rather boring stuff), except for that birth certificate, which is pretty cute. But as it turns out that still isn't enough. Grmbl. Does the word "Bureaucracy" mean something here?

Anyway.

Does this mean that I'm leaving NixSys? No, not at all. On the contrary, actually; since this is a part-time job, I can now continue to work for NixSys (albeit no longer full-time), and can be sure I'll be able to pay stuff that needs to be payed; the alternative would've been to go do some interim job for a few months, like I did last year, in which case I'd have left NixSys for those months. I prefer it this way...