Enrolled!

So I went and enrolled in my course on Tuesday. By February next year I'll be starting my course and be $25,000-odd in debt. Why do these sorts of courses have to be so damn expensive?

The good thing is that I won't be paying it upfront (do I look like I'm made of money??) or through a standard loan system (like the student loan system in the States and Canada, eh?). No, you sign up for what's called "VET FEE-HELP" (HELP is the new version of HECS and VET FEE-HELP is the same system specifically for private colleges and TAFES that offer VET courses) which is a system whereby the government will pay the institution the fees (either all or some depending on your preference) and then, once you start working and earn over $40-something-thousand a year, you start paying it back via the taxation system as a percentage of your annual earnings (just like tax).

For example, currently I get taxed about $700-800 per fortnight as "normal" tax and then, on top of that, I pay about $100 a fortnight for my current HELP debt which comes out along with my tax. If I don't earn over the threshold for the year I claim all that HELP debt repayment back through my tax return (which can net you a couple of grand for a tax return which is always handy). Not a bad little system and it does make getting an education attainable for a majority of people who would otherwise be too poor to do so. Mind you, it would be better if all higher/tertiary education was free like back in the old days.

Bloody government and their financial rationalising.

The other good thing is that once I do finish the course I could choose to leave the country and work overseas - thereby not actually earning anything in Australia and therefore not have a taxable Australian income - and not have to pay it back anyways. So, in a roundabout way, it would be free. Heh heh heh... yes, people, milk those loopholes for all you're worth (as long as you don't mind not living in your country of birth once you've finished your education)!

There is the possibility of having that loophole closed sometime in the future with a retroactive effect which would mean I'd be a little screwed. But the system needed to do that (not to mention the co-operation of all the other countries of the world) would be so difficult as to be almost "incontheivable!" and practically unmanageable. So I think I'm pretty safe. *knock wood*

So, on top of my soon-to-be $25,000-odd debt I also have my old university debt through the HELP system that put me through university in the first place and got me my teaching qualifications. That debt is about $24,000-odd. So, by next year I'll be around about $50,000 in debt to the government. Woo me!!

If they had have had a course like this back when I first went to university I would have been all over it like a fat kid on a chocolate bar and not have two HELP debts accrued but, as they say, "them's the breaks"! (Seriously, who are "they"? And do they really say that?) These are the things we do for happiness in life. If you have to work you may as well be happy with what you're doing so a little debt is a small price to pay I think.


Lowman X, out.

Confirmation.

Excellent news, friends and well-wishers!

I have official confirmation that I have been accepted into my course for next year. I also have official confirmation that the course runs on Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday. Which leaves Monday, Tuesday and the first half of Wednesday to work.

Erin and I are also seriously considering moving outside of Melbourne (Gisborne, Macedon) and catching the V-Line train in as it will take just as long to do that as it does to travel via tram/train to work now. The rent will be cheaper too and the lifestyle could be better. I think we're both a little over living in a city. By that I mean that we like living in the city and all the benefits that that entails but actually living in the city (ie. the flat) is becoming a little oppressive. We can't enjoy ourselves like we want to. We can't live as we want to. We can't sleep with the windows open because the neighbours suck (as do their two beagles... god I hate beagles... their two small, squealy toddlers... and the parents love standing underneath our bedroom window talking, drinking and smoking at unsightly hours of the night). We have grown a dislike for living in flats that are one on top of the other. We also crave an outdoor space that we can grow veges and whatnot. And a dog. We want a dog. Or maybe start with a cat (they're more independent).

Are we becoming old? Mmmm... possibly but I don't think so. It's not a nesting thing by any stretch of the imagination. Or maybe it is. I don't know. We just want more bloody room and we can't get it for a decent price here in Melbourne. And buggered if we want to go live in the suburbs.

There is also the slight possibility of buying a place if we're happy with the place we move to. We'll see how that pans out though.

Anyways, that's about it.


Lowman X, out.

Next Year.

Some good news for next year: they've (NMIT) informed me that I will be put on a .6 contract for next year which means I'll be getting paid for 3 days a week worth of work. This is a good thing. Mind you, it hasn't happened yet and I won't be celebrating until I have signed that contract.

Still have yet to hear anything from Optus and the net access is still shit.

Lowman X, out.

Sustainable.

No update from Optus. Not that I'm surprised. They have a tendency to use their entire 30 day allotted time period (and then some) to answer complaints. The irony is that since I sent the complaint the internet hasn't been too bad. It's still been dropping out at times but nowhere near what it has done in the past. Mind you, I won't hold my breath...

Erin informed me the other day that it was only about 6 weeks until we head to Canada. I chose to disbelieve until I checked a calendar. "Crap," I thought, "she's right!" And me with nowhere near as much money as I was hoping for. Bugger fudge!

Still waiting on confirmation for work next year. In theory they're going to get me as the core teacher at Youth Worx Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday. That's if they can get the funding for the new social enterprise endeavour. If that doesn't happen then... well, I don't know...

Erin and I went out to Eltham on Sunday to check out the place as we'd heard some good things about it. We happened to go on the day that they have their monthly markets and they had some good stuff out there. We were also going to check out Edendal Farm as they have set this old farm up as a place to show and promote biodiversity, waste management, air quality, water conservation and permaculture. This Sunday they have a Sustainable Living Expo with exhibitions including strawbale building (which I'm dead keen on). So, as Erin's out at Eli's hen's weekend I'm going to cruise out by myself and check it out. It should be fun and informative.

Anyways, I don't really have much else to write about so I shall head off.


Lowman X, out.

Dear Optus...

YOU FUCKING SUCK!!!

Damn straight!

So, after months of putting up with woeful internet access (again) through Optusnet's Wireless "Broadband" (and I use the term loosely... more like "Noband" or "Sometimesband") I put in a complaint to them. And here it is:


To whom this may concern at Optus,

Hello, my name is Damien (Customer Account Number: ************) and I have been a wireless broadband customer of yours since mid-2008.

Never in my life have I had such trouble with service and access to the internet. I have issues with the signal constantly dropping out, slow connection speeds, no connection at all, and connection timeouts. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when the internet works well. It’s just a shame that it’s not reliable. It shows you how bad a service is when this customer is genuinely surprised that he’s been online for more than half an hour without something happening to his access.

When I first signed up to your service last year I was living in a country town and I had these same issues. The main reason for this, as was explained to me, was the large number of people trying to access the inadequately small service and I had to pay for and put up with MONTHS of crap internet service and access. I also had the wireless modem up and die for no apparent reason at this time. I now live in Melbourne in one of the inner suburbs with clear sight to any number of mobile coverage towers so what the hell is the excuse now?

The access has always been “touch and go” and it has gotten worse in the last couple of months. The internet will work fine for anywhere between 5 – 15 minutes and then it will drop the signal. I end up having to turn off the modem, waiting a couple of minutes, switching it back on and hoping that it will work properly. There are also times where I will have to turn the modem off and then, when I go to turn it back on, it won’t do so and then I am forced to unplug the modem from its power supply and plug it back in and only then will it power back up.

If I have a webpage open for a few minutes and not do anything with it (like if I’m actually reading whatever is on the page) and then try to move on to another website I can’t because the modem has dropped the signal. The same thing happens if I turn the modem on and not use it straight away (usually only a couple of minutes). After this brief interlude between me turning it on and trying to access the internet I can’t because it won’t pick up the signal and I have to turn the modem off and start all over again. It frustrates the hell out of me and my partner as we pay damn good money for a crap service.

I don’t know if it is the coverage or the modem but we’re both getting to the point where we’re ready to throw the modem out of the damn window.

I would like an explanation as to what the problem is, what Optus intend to do about it and what you are offering to help alleviate the months of frustration for this customer.

Regards,


Here's hoping that they actually get back to me in the allotted legal timeframe of 30 days. Last time I complained I didn't get a response until 2 months after I complained and only because I told them I had actually informed the Communication Ombudsman 20 days after their time had run out to respond (I feel like I gave them enough leeway).

I'm tempted to see what I can do about getting out of the contract as I feel like they have not upheld their end. If I can then I'll look at maybe signing up with iinet and their Naked DSL broadband. It looks like a pretty good deal...


Lowman X, out.

Just A Funny Thought...

You know, it just occurred to me that I never owned a "real" computer until I was 24 (6 years ago) and now I'm going to be doing a course in computer animation and games design. Sure, I'd owned consoles (Sega Master System II in the early 90s, an Xbox in the mid-noughties, and now a Wii) but I'd always used computers and played computer games at my friends' places. Even at LANs I went to I was always "that" guy who used others' PCs for rounds when people were taking a break (which sucked if everyone decided to take a break at the same time).

I have to admit, if I'm going to be completely truthful, I did own a computer in the mid-90s. It was called an "Apricot" and had an orange (or maybe apricot) monochromatic monitor and I used it twice. Once to see what sort of games it had on it (nothing that I could find) and once to try and do some sort of word document on. That second task ended up being an exercise in futility as I never found a printer that was compatible so the task I'd written up (I think it was a school assignment) was never able to be printed and is probably still on that hard drive sitting in a landfill somewhere. Or wherever it is that computers get sent to.

I also owned a Commodore 64 in the late 80s that only had the cartridge slot and the tape player drive. No 5" floppy disk drive for me! I had 4 games for it. The cartridge game "Wizard of Wor" (I don't know if that was a typographical error on the cartridge case or not), "Ghostbusters" on cartridge (that I clocked and it never worked again for me), "Pacland" on tape and also "Tim Burton's Batman" on tape. The tapes were so finnicky and when you used up your three lives you had to rewind the tape back to the beginning and start the process all over again. "Batman" only worked once. Try as I might it never worked again.

Mind you, there was something about typing in LOAD"*", hitting enter and following the on-screen instruction of PRESS PLAY ON TAPE that made me feel, when I was a 9 year old, that I was doing something really cool with a computer. And those few times I used a C64 with a disk drive and had to type LOAD"*",8,1 and hit return I felt like I was a programming/gaming/computing master! Heh... good times.

I even remember once my cousins and I tried making one of those games that the early computing magazines would put all the code in for. We spent hours (or, at least in my memory it seemed like hours) typing it all in correctly and double checking it then, once we were complete, finding that it didn't do anything at all.

Years later, when I started my teaching course in 2004, I got myself a loan and bought myself an iBook G4. My reasons for a Mac and not a PC were because, in theory, I wouldn't be able to switch between doing work and then playing games and lose 14 hours of study time. I even deleted the preloaded games (some Tony Hawk game I could never figure out the controls for and some top-down spaceship game). Also, the Mac was sexy (and I love that "new Mac" smell).

I bought the Xbox at the same time as the iBook and that was my gaming machine. The reason? Well, Halo mainly, but also because it was set up in the loungeroom and would require me to physically move to play it therefore cutting down on the ease of which to get distracted.

It actually worked pretty well. Except when all the housemates were home. Then it was multiplayer mayhem til the wee hours of the morning where much alcohol was consumed and much ownage occurred. And the couple of times where we had 16 players on the "Prisoner" map with nothing but rockets enabled was pretty damn nuts! But a hell of a lot of fun.

Then I moved overseas and gave my Xbox to an old friend of mine along with all the games and controls. A month after I moved overseas my iBook died with no way to get it repaired. Due to the ass reaming that Apple were trying to deliver me in regards to my iBook I went and bought myself a PC which is now both my work and (semi-serious-but-not-very-often) gaming machine while my Wii is my "let's-have-fun-together-socially" gaming machine.

I've never taken computers seriously as something to get in to "professionally" other than as a utility to use to create art work on. Now, in a (relatively) very short space of time I have gone from never owning a "real" computer to now planning a career and lifestyle around it.

Just a funny thought I had...

Eye Spy.

I've been noticing over the last month or so that I'm getting more and more headaches due to eye strain (and possibly bad posture too). I'm reading alot more lately than I have for some time and I think that's causing it. Also, I'm sitting at a computer more and more lately. So, I'm checking out prices for getting an eye check and (probably) some glasses. Spec Savers seem to do a good deal. Around $150-200 (though I'm not sure if that includes the eye check) but it'll have to wait for some time as finances are tied up at the moment with saving, paying off the credit card and more saving. Ugh! I need to win lotto!

In other news of the "good" variety: I'm essentially a shoe-in for the 3D Animation course for next year. I had my interview last week and they were impressed with my artistic skills and my keenness and they told me that I'm at the top of the pile. Awesome sauce! Work is also willing to work around my timetable so I can still earn some dough. I'm also looking at doing some trivia night hosting a couple of nights a week at some pubs around Melbourne so that should help with the finances a bit too.

Not a lot else has been going on. TAFE starts back next week (I've only had 3 days off these holidays) and it'll be interesting to see how many students actually turn up.


Lowman X, out.