Simple steps you can take to create a buffer around you that makes it harder for a stranger to start stalking you
This is a short and simple course geared toward independent professionals, the owners of small businesses, YouTubers, bloggers and otherwise self-employed people. People who have to be online and who have to list contact details online.
There are simple practical things that you can do to help protect yourself against stranger- stalking that begins online.
While this course is not focused on preventing that people walk into your brick-and-mortar business one day and then start stalking you, it contains a few tips that are useful for that kind of situation too.
The course is brimming with tips and based on 13+ years of personal experience. Yes, I am sharing lessons that I learned the hard way. I became self-employed more than two decades ago and helpful to know may be that my dad was self-employed and my two sisters are self-employed too.
If you think that stranger-stalking will never happen to you, then let me remind you that none of us foresaw the Covid-19 pandemic either, let alone that many of us would have to close our shops for extended periods of time or would become flooded with online orders.
Increasingly often, stalkers aren’t people who hang around in front of your place of work all the time, people you can take a photo of. These days, stalking frequently begins online. At first, you won't even know that it is happening and later, you still may not have a clue as to who it is, where the person lives and what he does for a living.
You can shield yourself from stranger-stalking. That does not mean that it will never happen, but you can limit the chance that it does. You can protect yourself somewhat. This course focuses on very simple, practical tips that are easy to implement.
Some cost no money at all, some only a little while only one of them will cost you a substantial sum. Hey, listen, if you have an entrepreneurial spirit and are a great networker, you can surely find a solution for that too if you need to.
Why you should enroll in this course?
Once the horse has bolted, there is no point in still trying to close the barn door. An ounce of prevention is worth a fortune in terms of cure within this context.
HIGHLIGHTS
►Emigrated three times (United States, Netherlands, United Kingdom)
►Certificate teaching course VU University Amsterdam
►Former board member of the Environmental Chemistry (and Toxicology) Section of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society
►Former board member of NIMF, a Dutch foundation for women in science and technology
►Former associate editor of the international newsletter of the US-based Geochemical Society
►Author of book on the new eugenics (“We need to talk about this”)
►Author of book about otherisation and forms of cruelty (“Is cruelty cool?”)
►Former member of Toastmasters of The Hague
►Former member of the Amsterdam American Business Club
►Former member of Portsmouth Environmental Forum, launched and supported by Portsmouth City Council (no longer exists)
►Graduate of NCFE-accredited course "Taking The Lead", sponsored by Portsmouth City Council
►MSc degree in earth sciences - with distinction - from VU University Amsterdam
►Additional diploma for research in chemical oceanography, also from VU University Amsterdam, for scientific research on seawater from Antarctica, carried out in conjunction with the Royal NIOZ (rare earth elements)
►Member of Studium Generale think tank and co-organiser of two symposiums for women in science and technology while working on my Master’s
►Four years of PhD research for universities in the US and the UK (rare earth elements, iron)
►Became self-employed in 1997, have worked with top companies such as ARCADIS, supplied presentation skills workshops to NATO, and taught Dutch graduate students in areas such as 2D computer modelling of shallow water flows
►First letter to editor(s) published nationally while I was still in high-school. Later had several more published in notably Volkskrant's Saturday edition
►Certificates for two evening courses, Netherlands School of Journalism
►Based in England
WHO I AM
I am what some people call a boss. I am also what Marie Forleo calls “multipassionate”, but I'm not just multipassionate, I am actually good at many different things. I can openly claim that because I had myself tested extensively over the course of several days when I was working in tourism and hospitality in Amsterdam in a job that was a lot of fun but also a dead end. I specifically wanted to know whether I had any weaknesses that would stop me from pursuing a particular area.
I then quit that dead-end job – but still continued to help out there every once in a while for about a year – after I enrolled as a full-time student at university in a highly multidisciplinary field. It has happened to me repeatedly throughout my life that people wanted me back or did not want me to move on. It’s even happened that departments quarreled over who got to get me. I solved that by working 50% at either as a temporary solution.
I have also been told several times that I am a good teacher, once even by a former teacher who I helped with setting up a website for her artist husband.
I’ve always been strongly driven by a sense of justice. I for example write e-mails, sign petitions and take part in the occasional demonstration. I started doing that decades ago. In addition, I have a bit of a knack for law, too. I was successful as a so-called LIP or “pro se”, launching a law suit on my own against two other parties, ending up settling the case for an undisclosed sum in negotiation with lawyers representing various parties’ insurance companies.
Over the years, I developed an interest in bioethics in the broad sense (sensu lato), the way it was intended by Fritz Jahr, the person who came up with the word “bioethics”. This includes the rights of non-human animals as well as inclusivity challenges.
Jahr also introduced what he would later call “the Bioethical Imperative”:
“All living beings are entitled to respect and should be treated not as means but as ends in themselves.”
FUN FACTS
►I once took a flying lesson and flew a small aircraft for a few minutes before I had even learned how to start a car. (My eyesight stopped me from pursuing this professionally.)
►While carrying out geological fieldwork in Sweden, I accidentally dipped my car into a deep overgrown ditch not once but twice, having to be towed out by helpful Swedes who happened to be passing in their cars.
►I got into bird rehab as a volunteer while living in Tampa Bay area, adopted two quaker parrots from that bird hospital and now occasionally rehab a pigeon and adopted my most recent slightly handicapped rehab pigeon.
►I have never been into consumerism so I repair and upcycle and repurpose a lot.
That's me, in a nutshell.
Anything else you want to know? Please ask. I hope that you will also share your own story with me and your fellow students.
I hope you are having a wonderful day!
~ Angelina