I was born November 3 1967 in Helmond (though I usually say "in the vicinity of Eindhoven"), Netherlands, and I am still alive. According to the death clock, I've got until August 15 2041.
After studying English at Utrecht University, I stuck my big toe in the pool of regular secondary education, left it after a mere six months and then rolled into what is known as the IT business. Initially I started out as a teacher of Microsoft "Office" application for end users, but I quickly worked my way up to teaching "Visual Basic" and "Visual Basic for Applications" in any version of "Office" you'd care to throw at me. I also did some consulting in that area. In mid 2002, in the wake of the economic, um, downheavals in the IT business, I sought (and found) a little more security in profession-oriented secondary education ("MBO/HBO" in Dutch), and from that went on to become a full-time teacher of English at a secondary school. I am having one hell of a good time. Really. Well, a very challenging time at any rate.

On a personal level, my life has had a few up-and downheavals as well. On May 21 1999 I got married. Unfortunately this perhaps a little too uxorious an experience ended in a divorce in July 2001. This has been the second most fundamentally impactful - and sudden - event of my life. The dinosaurs could scarcely have been more stunned - and destroyed - by the meteorite that hit the earth 65 million years ago.

Things have improved, deteriorated and improved since then. I got married for a second time in September 2003. The most impactful event of my life was the birth of our baby girl Anne, on 24 April 2004 at 22:10 (needless to say, Anne has her own site at anne.karsmakers.name). Another divorce happened in summer 2007, though this time it was a mutual thing so there is not as much shock or anger.