Thread:Deathstalker666/@comment-1496755-20151224121621/@comment-1496755-20160310064452

The only books a true nerd reads are game manuals :P

It's a little sad that anyone who is even slightly unorthodox and non-conformist can get to be labelled a "menace to sicety" just like that. I'm sure that if they had known you better, they would not have thought you insane. I'm glad to say I had more creative freedom, though I was still pretty infamous with my literature teachers - because of my attitudes (I always wanted to experience stuff my way, not just follow the "approved" interpretations from the textbook) and my dark style. I remember studying medieval literature, and we got an assignment where we had to write a short story using relgious symbolism. I used all the symbols in the most disturbing manner possible (e.g. slaughtered lamb, rotten cross, corrupted eucharist, donation box containing thirty pieces of silver etc.). My classmates liked it, though the teacher was frowning quite a lot.

Yeah, we had a very specific internal humor. Sometimes I did "mock stories" for the student paper and they were highly satirical - some of them even got the Student Government angry. I took that as a sign that I had really struck a nerve ;)

Oh yes, war journalism is pretty dangerous. Most correspondents survive, but they pay for this with their sanity. Many former war journalists succumb to alcohol or drug abuse when they get older. Our Dutchman had been in many nasty places - the one with the landmines was Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia). The city was surrounded by hills, which were occupied by Serbian snipers - they shot at pretty much anything that moved on the streets below. So when you drove, you had to drive at top speed, while also dodging the landmines on the street (disguised as piles of debris). And on top of all that, you had to drive with your doors open, so that you could quickly jump out if there was an artillery shell coming towards you.

JMC was the perfect choice for me - it was exactly the place for weird and creative people, plus there was a lot of field work, which I enjoyed (even though I am a little scared of talking to people). For the sake of balance, I picked a more "serious" second major - Political Science (POS), which was quite the opposite - purely theoretical and analytical.

You know, you could start your own video blog - "Deathstalker talks about... test maps with no exits!"