I am first generation Australian, born to Dutch parents as Ardena Jansz. They came from Java in the Dutch East Indies after WW2. After a few years in New South Wales,(we were living near Newcastle and then Wollongong mostly), we came to Victoria to holiday with my grandma. We never left.

My schooling up until my last year at school was at the Seventh Day Adventist schools, first of all the Primary School in Hughesdale, and then the High School in Hawthorn. For my final year at High School I attended the Noble Park High School.

One of the things I've enjoyed throughout my life is music and when I was 15 I had the opportunity to start learning to play the piano.

After school I took some work at various places and then a few years later I married. I have five sons, who of course are growing fast. They all enjoy using the computer, and we all enjoy using IRC and chatting with people from around the world. The boys are Ben who would like to make karate - full contact that is - his main occupation.  Stuart, Daniel,  Philip and Jonathan. The children in the photo (taken Nov 1993) are the three youngest. The dog, Holly was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named "Holly-go-Lightly"(from Audrey Hepburn's character "Holly Go Lightly in Breakfast At Tiffany's.

In 1995 we purchased a 5 month old tabby kitten to help us out with a bunch of mice that were not disappearing for all the mouse/rat bait we put out. (In fact they were increasing in number). Now, some people tried to discourage us by saying that the cat might not be a mouser. They were wrong though. Sherry (as we call her) was a wonderful mouser and in her first week with us she caught and killed at least 8 mice. She was a very active kitten, but she has become a very smoochy pussy cat and spends a lot of time on my bed (under the doona).

In 1996 I completed the Associate Diploma in Business (Microcomputing) at a TAFE College (Technical and Further Education College). I was planning, originally, to have a secretarial business from home, but plans do change. Previous to TAFE I completed a desktop publishing course at Skillshare.From there I completed the TAFE course and I have now completed my study for the Bachelor of Computing (Information Management) degree at Deakin University-Rusden. Here is the picture of me at the graduation ceremony.

What am I doing now? I'm working - have a job doing Office Admin. It is an all round type of job - I do switchboard, timesheets, invoicing, inwards and outwards mail and everything around it and in between. No time to waste there.

After I finished working there, I had the job of caring for my brother, Ron, who had motor neurone disease. He lived with us for nearly 8 months before we could no longer care for him. We had to get Ron into a nursing home, and he died in January 2006.