User:Jules Grandgagnage

 Where Jules lives it is approximately: 11:12

I'm painting here, a landscape or a nude, I don't remember ;)

Hi

Hi, I am a Flemish writer and retired teacher living in Brasschaat, a town near Antwerp, Belgium, and I hope to be able to contribute something valuable to this project. For about 30 years I worked as a elementary school teacher, meanwhile I studied at the open university for about eight years (Faculty of Arts) and wrote a few Dutch books for adults and for children. In the late nineties I was a columnist for a Dutch computer magazine ('Netwerk') and worked as a programmer of educational software in my wife's company. At about that time I also made a career change and quit teaching to start working as an ICT coordinator in the city of Antwerp.

I am retired now and enjoy the good life! For me that means playing the saxophone, reading and studying a lot, translating English poems (Shakespeare's sonnets, John Donne), walking my dogs, and contributing to a number of online encyclopedias. I also write poetry and short stories and some of them where published in literary magazines. I enjoy playing guitar, blues harp and thin whistle, watching old movies, painting still lifes, reading magical realist novelists like Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Isabel Allende and listening to my favourite music (traditional jazz and jazz manouche). Life's too short. I do not consider myself to have a real field of expertise, but I do read a lot about philosophy, the occult, jazz and English literature. I also studied western astrology for more than 20 years, not as a 'believer' but because of my interest in medieval sciences. For the same reason I'm absolutely fascinated with alchemy.

• My language skills: Dutch (mother tongue), English and French (middle level, reading and writing), German (basic, reading), Spanish (basic, reading).
• B.A. in education, studying Arts and Humanities ('Cultuurwetenschappen') for fun at the Dutch Open University - cultural history, art history, literature and philosophy. I also took courses in scriptwriting, music theory and network management for a few years.
• For more information please see my website

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Articles I'm currently working on

Articles started on Citizendium

Pre-Socratic philosophy - Arthur Schopenhauer - The Tempest (play) - Cynics - Socratic dialogue - Protagoras (dialogue) - Gorgias (dialogue) - Critias - Jack Sels - Witch-cult hypothesis - Witchcraft - Witch-hunt - Philosophy of history

Contributed to

John Donne - Renaissance - Arthur Conan Doyle - Gothic novel

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First impressions

Hey, isn' t everybody entitled to a first impression after spending a few months here? OK, so here goes. What they say about Citizendium is true: most articles are well written by competent authors and editors, there is no vandalism - at least not that I know of - and the way people treat each other around here is, well, it's a relief after working on Wikipedia (Dutch version). I spent about 3 years or so on WP but I finally got fed up with all the interferences by self-proclaimed know-it-alls who were in fact not that bright or omniscient. When I come to think of it, some of them were downright maladjusted troublemakers and borderline psychotics ;) Well, I left all that behind and I feel that I have come home, after spending some time in a human zoo. I hope that the friends I made at WP will find their way to CZ too.