Jody Hanson was born and raised in a small town in central Canada. As the first child and grandchild she received more than her fair share of attention - until, that is, she learned to walk and talk at nine months. Since then, according to family myths and legends, it has been downhill. As the oldest of six siblings she would never do as she was told and she readily embraced the role of the black sheep, a title she defends to this day.

But that isn't surprising as she was born in the Year of the Dragon: "Whether breathing fire or generally causing a stir, the Dragon person often attracts, and enjoys, attention and is also more at home in demanding situations that require assertive action than in routine everyday business." Furthermore, Dragons are flamboyant, original, iconoclastic, utterly irresponsible and convinced that rules and regulations are made for other people. And Jody is the quintessential Dragon

Realising that domestic skills could lead to marriage, she refused to learn to cook, sew or crochet. Instead of spending time in the kitchen, she took refuge in books and read voraciously. Jody thinks men are wonderful - as long as you don't take them too seriously. Consequently, she has never married. She also heeded the parental warning of "Wait until you have a child just like you!" and didn't bother with motherhood.

While at university she started doing short-term teaching contracts on isolated Indian reserves and spliced her work with taking classes, getting a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology and a Bachelor of Education degree in English along the way. She bought a log cabin at an isolated settlement in northern Canada and adapted to hauling her own water and cutting her own wood, not that there was much choice in the matter as the survival chores had to be done.

The village chief socially reconstructed her as the mulatto daughter of the Chief of Qua and Jody was addressed as Rankaditti and accorded all the privileges of an African princess, something she accepted without any difficulty.

Returning to Canada she did a term as a vice-principal at an Indian controlled school and then worked at a northern community college as a programme co-ordinator. Again she became restless and secured a teaching contract at the South West China Teachers University in the People's Republic of China. In the Middle Kingdom she improved her ability to eat with chopsticks and learned to say nihaoma (hello) and fourteen other Chinese words, generally related to greetings or food. At the end of her term, rather than flying back to Canada, she took the Trans-Siberian Express from Beijing to Berlin. Along the way she learned that the Mongolians in Ulan Battour look a lot like the Dene in northern Canada - except that they eat yak meat rather than beaver - and that Siberia looks just like southern Saskatchewan from hence she came (a revelation that didn't impress the farmers there).

On returning to Canada, Jody went through a series of short-term contracts, working as an educational consultant for a tribal council, a communications officer for a school board and a principal of a school. Basically she has a short attention span when it comes to employment. Most of her jobs required extensive travel to isolated northern areas so evenings in hotels or being weathered into Fond du Lac for the weekend because the bush planes couldn't fly provided her with a lot of time to pursue graduate studies. By the end of this stint in the north, she'd finished a Masters and a Ph.D in adult education.

By then Jody was bored so she packed up and went on a nine-month round-the-world trip though 29 countries with Cathy, another Canadian woman. Wanting a base in southern Canada Jody sold her log cabin and bought her pointy-little-house-on-the-prairies before she went globe-trotting and talked her brother, Hank, into doing the renovations. Whenever visiting Canada she is in-residence at her A-frame.

Cathy and Jody, intrepid travellers who relied on helpful locals, questionable public transport and sheer good luck, journeyed through Asia and into Africa. In Botswana Cathy wanted to go to the Okavango to which Jody replied, "A swamp? Not a chance! I travel to meet interesting people, shop in great markets and eat wonderful food - and you aren't going to find any of those there" so she headed to Eastern Europe. At the time she was doing freelance work for CBC Radio in Canada and filed reports on meeting the Gypsies in Romania and going into Serbia just after the UN declared sanctions to interview the smugglers who were bringing cigarettes and liquor in from Italy by speedboat and heavier goods through Macedonia by truck.

Jody is a self-confessed travel junkie and has been to 81 countries to date. She wants to be eligible to join the 100 Countries Club (not that she'd actually take out a membership as she doesn't join anything). She spent her 30th birthday in Pankshin, Nigeria, her 40th in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and her 50th in Timbuktu, Mali. And she plans on spending her 60th at Victoria Falls in Zambia as she doesn't see any point in breaking a good pattern (see the Birthday 2013 page on this site for further information).

Following her global jaunt, Jody accepted a tenure track position at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand. As Dr. J her research focus was how women learn to work safely in the sex industry. During this time she did field research in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Thailand, Viet Nam, the Philippines, Fiji and Tanzania.

After three years in academia Jody resigned from the university to pursue creative self-employment by setting up a consultancy that specialised in grand ideas and outrageous schemes. One of her strengths is that she is very good at translating bureaucratic jargon into understandable English. She refuses, however, to do the same with techno-speak such as computer manuals as she has her principles.

Jody's current work varies from senior draft editing through to constructing CVs and writing covering letters that help functional illiterates get good jobs. She claims that if people learn to use apostrophes and commas properly she may be forced to find a 'real' job again and that is something she isn't prepared to do. The financial panic attacks of being a sole trader keep her healthy because she simply can't afford to be sick.

After three years in Auckland Jody moved to Australia. Realising that the regulations about trans-Tasman migration were about to change she arrived in Melbourne in August of 2000. The woman at Immigration stamped her passport with a permanent resident visa and said "Welcome home". Six months later the rules changed, but she was already in the country and took out citizenship two years later. She is now a genuine Aussie Sheila with a somewhat flattened Canadian accent.

Jody lived in Melbourne for three years and then moved north to Sydney where the weather is warmer, work is more available and the cost of living is higher. She lives in a terrace house in Surry Hills, an inner city suburb, where she doesn't need a car. Everything a single woman could possibly want - a multitude of restaurants, theatres, art galleries, bars, shops, a supermarket, a liquor store, an outdoor Olympic pool that is heated all year around and a florist- is within walking distance.

When Jody isn't editing, teaching short courses or wondering when her next contract is going to come in she enjoys eating out, drinking wine and having more than her share of adventures. She is fiscally irresponsible and her retirement plan is to write a book about being a bag lady.
Dr. Jody Hanson's epitaph will read, "Some loved her; some hated her; everyone had an opinion."

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