Yordi - A Lifelong Journey of Growth
Yordi - A Lifelong Journey of Growth
Yordi
My name is Yordi Verkroost, a computer science teacher and athletics coach.
Latest Posts
We're at a fair. A family walks by. Or at least, I think it might be a family. It could be two families, who knows? The adults are all women, and I count three kids: two boys and one girl. The two boys seem fascinated by something at...
Coffee in the morning. I wouldn't know how to start my day without it. It's a ritual. Weighing 14 grams of coffee beans. Then the grinding, using the exact settings for the correct sound and ultimate taste. Foaming the milk for the best...
Racing in May can be strange. One week you're running 10 kilometres in 12 degrees, a week later you don't know what hit you when you're lining up late at night in 26 degrees for a 5k. No acclimatising, it just flips from one extreme to...
On a recent training camp trip to Mallorca, one of the other traveling athletes was a photographer. She took her gear with her and I was allowed to use it some days, just to try it out. After a day of taking shots, I was hooked. Hooked...
Recently I fell into the Instagram Reels trap where unknown artists play a snippet of their music and then offer one of their CDs for free. You only pay for shipping. Until now I had ignored these videos, but after seeing the same...
I wake up slightly later than planned in a strange but incredibly comfortable bed, in a house I slipped into the night before. Well, "slipped into" might be too dramatic. I walked in through the front door, looked the owners straight in...
This morning started ordinarily enough. Coffee, then a look at the balcony, overdue for its yearly spring cleanup. I've had years where I cursed myself on the first warm day for not sorting out my only outdoor space sooner. Nothing more...
Today I read Choosing my own standards by paco. The first sentences of his argument hit home: Music is a passion I've always had, but I slowly let go of it because I kept on comparing myself to others and I couldn't find the point of...
Right in the middle of a set of squats, it happened. A small twinge in my lower back. Not severe, but sensitive enough to quickly put the weights back in the rack. A few minutes' rest and then try again, I thought. But it was too tender....
Years ago, a few friends, fellow students and I had a subscription that let you go to the cinema as often as you liked for a fixed monthly fee. And we made good use of it: on weekday evenings, preceded by a regular visit to the local...
Books are strange things. Whenever I'm reading them, I feel wonderful. It's one of the greatest feelings in the world to immerse yourself in a story. It's a chance to escape the day-to-day life, to get lost in a fantastical world of...
It's early in the morning when the first rays of sunlight find their way into the poorly darkened bedroom of a young blacksmith. After one final stretch, he gets up, walks across the creaking wooden floor to the forge, and shovels coal...
Where is everybody? We are here on earth, where life started approximately four billion years ago. Single-celled beings. Living things. We evolved further, into two cells. Four. Eight. And eventually, into an unimaginable number of...
After an internship visit at a fascinating company, I cycled home through the city centre. A quick detour to the bookshop to pick up a newly released book by a somewhat peculiar but absolutely wonderful artist. You have to do something...
I grew up with Harry Potter. I was roughly the same age as Harry at the time of the book releases, which meant there was a lot I could identify with. I visualized Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and all the other magical places in my head while...