Making sense of numbers and words: Statistical methods |
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I was born and grew up in South Africa, went to school there, completed a nine-month spell of Citizens Force training in an artillery regiment, and at the urging and with the financial assistance of my parents left for New Zealand. I spent two years in Wellington at the University of Victoria, and another two in Christchurch at the University of Canterbury ostensibly completing a major in philosophy as part of an Arts Degree but mostly enjoying good conversation, good music, and writing prose and poetry (this transformed into writing poems and songs in Australia). NZ friends and acquaintances (incl. John Hales, Kathy Healam, Malcolm Brown, Robert Simpson, Kevin Tod, Gerald (last seen cuddling a snake in Sydney), and also Alister Hallum (BBC producer, director, writer)) have come and gone. I left New Zealand to see the world and got as far as Australia, remaining here ever since. In Australia I took up hand-crafts but realising my limitations (lousy hand-eye coordination & lousy fine-motor skills), returned to University, completed a BA, and then a Postgraduate Diploma in Education, and became a primary school teacher. After some years of this, again realising my limitations as a school teacher, I returned to university to study Psychology, completed a Phd at the University of Queensland, and after some intervening steps became a data analyst and stats/methods advisor (not a bad thing to be). I've met and worked with a fine array of colleagues along the way in Australia (most of my life now). I retired a few years ago (2016) but still do the occasional analysis and still write the occasional report. On a more personal note, I've married, divorced, and remarried, the second time around more durably and more happily. I could go on to write about children, step-children, grand-children and step-grand-children, but won't. |