Hello (probably bored) visitor of the Abacus website, it seems like you have found me. Let me quickly introduce myself. I am Rutger van der Graaf and I am the Chairman of the 55th board of W.S.G. Abacus. Well you are probably still bored, maybe a little bit curious about me and definitely don’t want to continue your studies. Let me introduce myself again, but this time not so quickly. Grab yourself a nice cup of coffee, because this might take a while.

It all started in a hospital in Hardenberg where on Sunday the 9th of September, 2001, I was born after being a little annoying(yes, when I wasn’t even born yet I was annoying). Hardenberg is not the city that I live, but it was simply the closest hospital. I actually, and still do, live in the lovely village Lutten. Sadly, after some weeks, I had to go back to the hospital. I had two thingies in my heart that controls how often it beats instead of one. This caused me to be way to tired which is ofcourse not good. Luckily after some back and forth to the hospital, medication and time this is not a problem anymore. To this day, it is still there, but just inactive, although I sometimes like to think that is the reason why I can get very busy all off the sudden.

After that scare in the beginning of my life, we just picked up how everything should go. Like I said, we live in Lutten with my parents and 2 older brothers. I went to the primary school in Lutten, C.B.S. De Fontein. I had a good time there. There are lots of stories I could tell about my primary school time, but I’ll only tell the following quickly since I am already getting the feeling I will be writing a way too long piece. In group 6, we always got a certain amount of tasks/exercises we had to do throughout the day. Now there were some kids that were extra smart, and they finished these tasks quicker and better than the rest. The teacher had a way of rewarding/challenging these kids. Somewhere near the end of the day, when they were done with the schoolwork, he would teach them/let them play chess. I sadly was never in this group, since there were some subjects, all language related, that I did not perform that well in. Sad noices apart, I really liked he did this and it made me work harder throughout the day.

Also somewhere during my primary school time, I decided to join a sport, namely gymnastics. This was mainly since 2 of my best friends were also on gymnastics. For that exact same reason I stopped one or two years later and joined the sport that I still do to this day. As you might know this is football, where I currently play in S.C. Lutten 2 as a striker and also sometimes in the prestigious F.C. Abacus. Besides football, I have never really joined a sport, although I like playing all different kinds of sports. In the summer I always play some tennis with a good friend of mine and I sometimes like to go for a run.

After 8 years in primary school, it was finally time to go to high school. Apparently, I was smart enough to go to gymnasium. We did not expect this, my parents did not even go to any informative lectures on this, since they thought I would go to HAVO, just like my two older brothers. But no, besides my lacking in language and grammar and such, my primary school teacher thought it was a good idea to send me to gymnasium. I choose the same high school as my two older brothers, namely Het Vechtdal College in Hardenberg. If you do Gymnasium on high school you have the nice added product that you have the honor and pleasure to also practice Latin and Greek. For this reason, 2 years later, I switched in level and continued doing VWO. Apparently you are not very good in these subjects is you struggle with language.

One year later after it was time to decide on a specific study program on which I would spent my time the last three years of my high school time. For me it was very clear to go towards a NT direction, with Mathematics B and D, Chemistry, Physics and the odd one out, Economy. After this decision I became more comfortable at school with only studying the subjects I really like. Furthermore, in this second set of three years, I made some friends for life and made a friend group with which I still hang out to this day.

There was only one problem, French. Like I already mentioned throughout my whole story, there has been some struggle with languages and grammar my whole life. This has always been annoying, which was also seen in my grades. The only thing that kept me “alive”, was passing different subjects, like mathematics with grades good enough to compensate this struggle. Luckily, there is a school system in place, and somewhere during the fifth year of my high school time, my French grade dropped to a sad 3 on average. After trying everything my French teacher finally said: “There must be something else going on”. So we did a test, and there it was: dyslexia. With the reading speed comparable to primary school group 7 and not being able to understand grammar rules, everything was clear. I got to finish my high school time without a second language(French or German), which did meant that I had to do 3 years of a different subject in one year, but I managed.

Besides this big revelation, I also had to choose what I was going to study after high school. For me this was actually very clear, namely Mathematics. But this isn’t the only decision, since more than one university offer this beautiful subject. After some consultation, the options were down to Groningen and Twente. I did a ‘student for a day’ at both Universities. First at Groningen, where we were pushed in a group of 10 high school students and did a very structured walk/day through the University. Than there was Twente. Here I had a one on one day where we simply joined a lecture, walked around the campus and even played a game of the infamous Taipan. This more relaxed and personal feel suited me way better and in the end, I choose Twente.

Beginning my journey here with an amazing Kick-In where some great friendships arise, I ofcourse got in contact with our lovely association.  Still living at home in Lutten I attended the activities and even joined the (A)bac(ch)us and Sports day Committee in my first year. Somewhere in my first year, I decided that I wanted to live in Enschede. Somewhere in the beginning of my second year, I became member of Huize Steriel. The Abacus house of Enschede where I currently still live with Karst and my two fellow board members Chendo en Jorrit. Ofcourse corona struck during this time, but I don’t want to think back about that too much. Luckily corona has passed(gulp) and things got back to normal in my third year. Here I did two more committees with the Parents day and the Twick-In.

In these three years I was very quickly interested in doing a board year, and right now, in my fourth year was the perfect timing. I grabbed my change and applied for the 55th board, for which I was chosen together with an amazing group of people.

And that wraps up my story. I hope you enjoyed reading about me. You can almost always find me somewhere around the Abacus room so if you are ever bored again, you can always come by for a quick chat. If you are still bored right now, I have a game for you. I have decided to not proofread or let somebody do a spelling check on this piece, so the game is to find the most spelling/grammar errors you can. I hope you have fun and otherwise, good luck with whatever you are doing!

Rutger van der Graaf
Chairman of the 55th board of W.S.G. Abacus