Introduction and my story
Hello reader,
Welcome to my blog! Let me introduce myself.
Please see this post for an update!
My name is Michael Goossens, well, that is my official name. I’m a female born male from The Netherlands. Currently, on most of my profiles that are official (at companies), have my legal name, Michael. Though it will change to Michelle, eventually 🙂
Update 10/30/2021: I’m officially (and legally) Michelle M. Goossens now! (and 19 years old).
Currently, I am 17 years old. I’ve been into computers and servers since I was six years old. It’s in my family, my father and uncle had a company where they repair computers. Unfortunately, my uncle retired and my father switched jobs, so it no longer exists.
I discovered my interest in servers when I was about 11. I started by playing around with Windows Server 2008, got into making an Active Directory Domain, DNS, DHCP.. Basic network admin and sysadmin stuff. I did this using old PCs that I had.
Then, when I was 12 or 13, I discovered virtualization. VMware… Oh boy. Things may have gotten a bit out of hand with that. More on that later. I started with VMware Workstation, running Linux in a VM on my PC. Then I went to nested virtualization, where I had ESXi 6.0 running inside VMware Workstation. After watching lots of documentation and YouTube videos, I started to get the hang of it.
When I was 15, I got my first real server. A HP ProLiant DL140G3, with two Intel Xeon X5355s, for a total of 8 cores, with 32 GB of ECC RAM. Man was I ever excited for it. It was LOUD, but it was worth it. (Seriously, it sounded like a jet taking off, all the time.) I quickly armed myself with an USB flash drive with the ESXi 6.0 installer on it, and after installing it on my single 500GB Samsung SSD, I threw some VMs on it. Windows Server 2012 R2 for ADDS and DNS, and a second VM that had a fileshare on it. (I was well aware that I could run that on one VM, but I had the space for at least two VMs, so I made a second one, just because I could. Hey, I was exploring after all.)
After a few months, I decided to explore Horizon and vCenter. Not at the same time, that wouldn’t fit on my server. First off I started with vCenter. Creating a Datacenter, adding the host, playing around with dvSwitches… It was a lot of fun. After a few months, I got myself a second server with the same specs. Now I could run vCenter and a basic Horizon setup at the same time. I was so happy, but… My parents were not, with the powerbill of the servers being 350W all day and night.
By this time, I’ve gotten off elementary school and high school. I started at a school to get my System and Network Admin degree, however I dropped out, as with my medical issue (hyperacusis; hypersensitivity to sounds, in my case, hearing everything 8-10x louder), I was unable to go to school and finish the degree, so I dropped out. This also means, that I’ll most likely never get my driver’s license, or be able to go with public transport.
When I was 16, I came clean to my therapist that I wanted to be a woman, on my birthday, March 29. I also told it to my parents that same day. I felt very relieved, knowing that they supported me. After a month, I went to a special therapist that is helping me with my transitioning. More about this later.
When I turned 17, I’ve already been wearing woman’s clothing, and shaved a lot. Some people close to me called me Michelle. Though to this day I still have to tell the rest of my family, not a lot know. in October 2019 I got signed up to the hospital for hormone therapy. Sadly, the waiting list is 18-18 months! So it will be 2021 before that even starts 🙁
Next to that, I also got myself a better server, a HP ProLiant DL380G6. It’s armed with two Xeon X5650s, for a total of 12 cores and 24 threads. It rocks 144GB ECC RAM and has two 500GB SSDs and a 1TB SSD, and plus two 2TB HDDs and a 320GB HDD. Right now, I run ESXi 6.7 on it. I also run a vCenter Virtual Appliance on it, and I have NSX deployed. I recently got myself a book, Mastering VMware vSphere 6.7. I’m learning all about Horizon at the moment, and play with NSX-T in a lab.
On my income, I’ll have to live with income I get from the government since I can’t work. I’m trying to get this sorted right now, and it’s going to be a pain and it has only just started. More updates on that to follow… (edit 22/05/2020: still working on it!)
I’ve had been having a depression since last year early 2019. It’s still not fully gone away and this whole virus thing isn’t making it any better 🙁
Thank you for reading this and I hope that you enjoyed your stay. I will keep this updated as things improve.
Last update: 22/05/2020
Changelog:
– 20/03/2020: updated server info and added info to my story.