Another unusual year
The year 2003 was again a very unusual year. It started with a request from ESADE to teach yearly an advanced course on data collection and analysis for the master and the PhD students who needed some more knowledge for their research. I got a room in the building to work and to receive people. The students in the course were very different from my students so far. They came from all over the world. Of course there were Spanish and Spanish speaking students from South America but there were also persons from the USA, Great Britain and France and even from Egypt , Turkey and other countries.
For example there was a muslim women from Cairo. She told me that she was married and had children but worked at the American University in Cairo. She followed here the master program because she couldn´t continue her work at the American University, if she did not have a degree from a Western European school. She worked hard and was very good. I admired her persistence to work as a mother with children in a muslim society.
Also the topics the students were interested in were very different. They were interested in management problems, competences for leadership, financial issues etc. Some PhD students of ESADE were working on projects that were difficult for their supervisors because the research problems were too complex. Several of them I could help with their dissertation by transforming their research problem in a SEM model which could be estimated with the LISREL approach. I liked this new environment, the people and the place where I had to go for work. It was completely at the other side of the town in an elegant area.
For example there was a muslim women from Cairo. She told me that she was married and had children but worked at the American University in Cairo. She followed here the master program because she couldn´t continue her work at the American University, if she did not have a degree from a Western European school. She worked hard and was very good. I admired her persistence to work as a mother with children in a muslim society.
Also the topics the students were interested in were very different. They were interested in management problems, competences for leadership, financial issues etc. Some PhD students of ESADE were working on projects that were difficult for their supervisors because the research problems were too complex. Several of them I could help with their dissertation by transforming their research problem in a SEM model which could be estimated with the LISREL approach. I liked this new environment, the people and the place where I had to go for work. It was completely at the other side of the town in an elegant area.
A lively town
In the weekends we went into the center of the town. One day I registered with my video camera all the music that was made that afternoon. A brief impression is presented below. There were many different types of music, not only the Catalan dance music. There was of course also a fiesta for some reason. This time it was the Fiesta de Abril for the people from Andalucía who live in Barcelona and surroundings. A little village was created with small houses where people went to dance their traditional dances. The “toros” also belong to this culture. There were small, medium and big ones and the children had to try to stay on them while the “toros” were moving. I had never seen anything like that anywhere. It was very funny, also the music on the background.
In the weekends we went into the center of the town. One day I registered with my video camera all the music that was made that afternoon. A brief impression is presented below. There were many different types of music, not only the Catalan dance music. There was of course also a fiesta for some reason. This time it was the Fiesta de Abril for the people from Andalucía who live in Barcelona and surroundings. A little village was created with small houses where people went to dance their traditional dances. The “toros” also belong to this culture. There were small, medium and big ones and the children had to try to stay on them while the “toros” were moving. I had never seen anything like that anywhere. It was very funny, also the music on the background.
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Early retirement
Around the same time I received a letter from the dean of the Social Sciences Faculty of the University of Amsterdam. She asked me whether I would be willing to accept early retirement when I would be 62.5 years old, with compensations for my loss of salary and my loss of pension. The retirement would start in January, 2006. Irmtraud and I talked about this proposal together and quickly we came to the conclusion that there was no reason to refuse this offer. We enjoyed Barcelona, we had very interesting scientific work at the ESS and ESADE and we thought that in that case we could stay permanently in Barcelona what we liked a lot, while it also was a good place for Irmtraud, suffering less from allergy. This was an unexpected development in our life.
Around the same time I received a letter from the dean of the Social Sciences Faculty of the University of Amsterdam. She asked me whether I would be willing to accept early retirement when I would be 62.5 years old, with compensations for my loss of salary and my loss of pension. The retirement would start in January, 2006. Irmtraud and I talked about this proposal together and quickly we came to the conclusion that there was no reason to refuse this offer. We enjoyed Barcelona, we had very interesting scientific work at the ESS and ESADE and we thought that in that case we could stay permanently in Barcelona what we liked a lot, while it also was a good place for Irmtraud, suffering less from allergy. This was an unexpected development in our life.
Another community
We had already considered the possibility to stay in Barcelona when we would retire, but now the idea became real. Earlier we already looked at a condominium which we thought would be very attractive to live in when we would retire but now we looked more seriously at this possibility. There was a very nice condominium close to the sea. It was like a holiday resort. 300 apartments were arranged around a garden with a terrace, a swimming pool, “tennis courts” a gymnasium and a social room. The parkings and storage rooms were underneath. The garden was luxuriously decorated with palms, banana plants and exotic flowers. We also knew that the apartments were quite large, the high ones had a sea view and/or a view on the town. What was also important for the future was that a big supermarket was at the other side of the street.
We had already considered the possibility to stay in Barcelona when we would retire, but now the idea became real. Earlier we already looked at a condominium which we thought would be very attractive to live in when we would retire but now we looked more seriously at this possibility. There was a very nice condominium close to the sea. It was like a holiday resort. 300 apartments were arranged around a garden with a terrace, a swimming pool, “tennis courts” a gymnasium and a social room. The parkings and storage rooms were underneath. The garden was luxuriously decorated with palms, banana plants and exotic flowers. We also knew that the apartments were quite large, the high ones had a sea view and/or a view on the town. What was also important for the future was that a big supermarket was at the other side of the street.
Given all these positive evaluations, the only question was whether we could afford such an apartment. We started to inform about these possibilities. We were offered several flats. The most attractive one was at the 9th floor. It was a new flat because it was only bought for speculation purposes. The price was much higher than earlier but with a good price for our recently bought apartment and some mortgage we could afford it. We decided to buy it because we were afraid that the prices of the flats would go up very quickly, what indeed also happened. This means that within 2 years we moved again but now we thought for the last time because now we had found the ideal place to live for a long time. The video shows why we thought so
Last course in Amsterdam
A bit later, to my great,surprise, I got a request from the department of Sociology of the University of Amsterdam to teach a course in advanced statistics for students who were involved in a research master. This was a request which I thought I could not refuse because the University still payed my salary while I did not teach there during two years. I also liked to teach this class because it gave me an opportunity to teach once on a higher level than I normally did. I had a meeting with the students of this course where I introduced to them the attractive possibilities of matrix algebra for different applications. I wanted to see if they liked a more advanced statistical approach to social science research. They were not afraid of it and liked the approach. This showed me that they were seriously interested students. Then I suggested them that we should study a new book published by Robert Groves and others about survey research and would do all the exercises. As the picture shows the course dealt with measurement problems and the sampling issues and indicated all steps where errors can occur.
I also told them that I was now living in Barcelona and that I was planning to come once a month to Amsterdam to talk with them about the task for the next weeks and to speak with them about the exercises. It turned out that one of the students organized all. They did the tasks and came together to look if they had derived the same results for the exercises. The best and most interested students were Irene Jonker and Daniel Oberski. They took care that at the end of the month all the exercises were correctly solved. When we met, I only had to discuss with them the work done and indicate the new chapter to be studied. This was an easy way of teaching.
The time left I used to tell them about the data collection for the European Social Survey, the procedures to evaluate the quality of survey questions and the program I had made to predict the quality of survey questions (SQP). This was a DOS program. Daniel Oberski suggested that one could do the same better in Windows. So we discussed this issue and he suggested that he, with a friend, would be willing to transform the DOS program in a Window version. This was the birth of SQP 1.0.
A bit later, to my great,surprise, I got a request from the department of Sociology of the University of Amsterdam to teach a course in advanced statistics for students who were involved in a research master. This was a request which I thought I could not refuse because the University still payed my salary while I did not teach there during two years. I also liked to teach this class because it gave me an opportunity to teach once on a higher level than I normally did. I had a meeting with the students of this course where I introduced to them the attractive possibilities of matrix algebra for different applications. I wanted to see if they liked a more advanced statistical approach to social science research. They were not afraid of it and liked the approach. This showed me that they were seriously interested students. Then I suggested them that we should study a new book published by Robert Groves and others about survey research and would do all the exercises. As the picture shows the course dealt with measurement problems and the sampling issues and indicated all steps where errors can occur.
I also told them that I was now living in Barcelona and that I was planning to come once a month to Amsterdam to talk with them about the task for the next weeks and to speak with them about the exercises. It turned out that one of the students organized all. They did the tasks and came together to look if they had derived the same results for the exercises. The best and most interested students were Irene Jonker and Daniel Oberski. They took care that at the end of the month all the exercises were correctly solved. When we met, I only had to discuss with them the work done and indicate the new chapter to be studied. This was an easy way of teaching.
The time left I used to tell them about the data collection for the European Social Survey, the procedures to evaluate the quality of survey questions and the program I had made to predict the quality of survey questions (SQP). This was a DOS program. Daniel Oberski suggested that one could do the same better in Windows. So we discussed this issue and he suggested that he, with a friend, would be willing to transform the DOS program in a Window version. This was the birth of SQP 1.0.