George: „ I can still see myself standing there, with my backpack and sleeping bag in the main building hall, at the start of introduction week for my studies in Computer Science back in September 1986. Before long I saw another shy student also looking around the place. We started talking and were both delighted when we learned we were going to do the same studies. And so I found my first friend in Steven, not long after that two others joined: Frederik Jan (FJ) and Lucas.
Our studies at the Faculty of Mathematics & Computer Science contributed significantly to our development, both as individuals and as professionals. It was a place where we were taught and stimulated in a field that has now become well-established in society and the world. Implications of that era before the internet were hardly clear as we students walked through the long dark corridors of W&N building, with blinking fluorescent lights, past many identical doors with indistinct rooms behind them. We plopped down behind terminals, Zenith 386 PCs and, later, actual Sun workstations to work together on assignments.
Social interaction in those days was offline, gaming for us was synonymous with Nethack and Dungeons & Dragons. The lectures were plenary, with our "heroes" Evert Wattel and Andy Tanenbaum. They made such an impression on us at the time, that we traveled specially to VU a few years ago to attend their farewell lectures. Playing together at PCs with Minix and later Space Quest created a bond, sort of like The Big Bang Theory avant la lettre.
Finding love was a difficult task for Computer Science students at that time, with only two or three female and more than a hundred male students. Hence, we occasionally looked ‘over the fence’ into studies like Biology and, in the context of Human-Computer Interaction, also into minors like Introduction to Psychology, where we sat together surrounded by dozens of women.
That bond led to joint sports at ASVU, where we learned fencing and jiujitsu. But it also led to a particularly brief career at R.S.V.U. "Okeanos," where we rowed up and down the 'Bosbaan'. For our graduate thesis, Steven, FJ and myself worked for several semesters in a one-person room with three workstations, a pile of cans up to the ceiling and three pairs of armpits. During that time, we sat on daily "snacks" like Taorollen and croquette sandwiches from the university restaurant.
After that time, we each flew off into different directions in our ICT careers. But we continued to get together on an irregular basis, at one of our homes or at the Beiaard (now: De Brabantse Aap) at Spui to spend an evening playing cards and board games. As soon as the four of us sit around a table, we turn back into being students, carefree and naive.
It feels special and valuable to me that a friendship can last this long, and that despite the irregularity of the contact there can still exist such a close bond across time and place. I predict that we will sit together like this from time to time for a very long time to come, until our crooked hands can no longer hold the cards. A friendship that started at VU, with many fond memories, so the bond with our alma mater will always remain."
