Back on dry land

Gbye, island paradise and gbye to that pina-colada feeling of detachment.


I'm back in school again.  My fifth and hopefully, last semester here in Brisbane.  Two years ago around the same time in July, I entered into this ridiculous time-wasting course called STAT1201.  That and Organic Chem.  God help me if I ever have to do them again.  During STAT1201 I realized a hatred for all things statistically related, which later unfortunately turned out to be really all things written in scientific journals.  Two years on, my ignorance in stats has become appalling and the frustration and  inconvenience of "picking-up-as-I-go-along" is really getting to me.  Stats has given me a slap in the face for doing so the past two years.  Well, when it comes to stats analyses, there's usually no where to run until you've either mastered the fundaMENTALs for yourself or there's a patient, external source of info to curse and cry to for help.  So this is my little declaration to all of humanity, no, to myself to get my crap together and swallow the damn stats for the academics. Bite by bite.

I found this book called "Biostatistics: The bare essentials" by Norman and Streiner in the library this afternoon.  I've chosen this book because it was humorous.  There.  Hopefully it'll wind up teaching me a thing or two about stats. The authors mentioned this apt condition faced by many stats-challenged people called "photonumerophobia" which is the fear that one's fear of numbers will come to light...haha!  Happened too many times actually.

I did also locate a spot in the library that I could potentially like.  3rd floor near the toilets and the stairwell.  No computers around, just a smooth, long, wall-facing table.  The only sound that escapes into this space is the blasted hand dryers coming from the toilets, giving an annoying sign of human presence every now and then.