real life things happened less this week than i was expecting.

things i got done:

1) groceries.
2) set a dr's apt
3) cleaned
4) laundry
*5) attend dr's apt

* tomorrow. no, our public health insurance up here isn't so outstanding that you get an appointment in a day, i happen to have been playing phone tag and she'd already pencilled me in because she couldn't get a hold of me. well, i don't actually have a phone, so reaching me in real time with a phone number is actually impossible at the moment. yeah, how's that for being a hipster? no phone. ahahaha...

i honestly don't want to pay for the phone. that's really the crux of it. i pay roughly $20/yr for a mailbox. i will eventually get a phone and connect it to the voip service; for now, i'm using the leave-a-message-i'll-call-back approach, which creates problems when the other side is always busy.

the other thing is that i don't trust phones. i'm in the "harmless, but monitored out of interest" category. i don't need the cia following my gps around. it's just unsettling. i don't know how so many people can just shrug it off.

things i didn't get done:

1) buying wood. i can't; the bus is on detour. in a few weeks.

2) compost dropoff. i would have had to go this morning, but i slept-in. i leave my compost in the freezer until it builds up, then drop it off to some kids that use it to feed hungry people. i think it's technically a muslim group, but i don't get the impression that they're proselytizing. i'm solely interested in the feeding hungry people part. yeah, the state should do it, but if you've been in a food bank you know that items like fresh vegetables aren't actually there. it's mostly about dumping near expired goods. i don't like it, but i understand that the thatcher-reagan system is designed for religious groups to fill this void. given that reality, i'd much rather support a minority muslim group than a dominant christian group. balances of power and whatnot. so, i've got these giant bags of frozen banana peels and stuff and i need to walk 2-3 km to get them to there. leaky banana peel juice is kind of nasty, so i tend to prefer to go in the spring and fall when it's close to 0 to minimize the melt. i'll take this out next week, when the temperature gets back down to 3 or 4.

anyways....that means i've got all day to record, and i will! some kind of clarity something or other should be up before midnight...

got some student loan mail, today.

minimum payment: $1100 month. right. ahahahahaha....

i qualify as very low income, it's not really a serious concern. i'm actually not sure if the best thing to do is to ignore it or to apply for further loan forgiveness, but i'm going to ignore it for now. i mean, they can try to debit my account if they want, but they're going to get nsf every single time.

obviously, if i catch them doing that, i'll have to call them. until then? meh...

i'm in the "zero chance of paying back a dime" category.

if it comes down to it, i'm more likely to nail gun my forehead to the cra building in protest, kind of thing.

i didn't want to get in this mess and did a lot of juggling a few years ago to avoid it. what happened was my father pleaded with me to go back to school around '08. i really, really didn't want to, because i didn't want to take on more loans for more useless schooling. i was aware at the time that it wasn't going to get me any closer to accomplishing my goals in life. however, he convinced me to go back by telling me he'd pay tuition and rent. that gave me the following choice:

1) work bullshit jobs to pay rent and do music in spare time
2) go to school and have rent paid for and do music in spare time

school doesn't have strict schedules. nobody yells at you for showing up late. you don't have to deal with people. it's a better choice....so long as you don't have to pay for it.

so, i took him up on his offer.

about a month before classes started, he tells me the market crashed (this is the infamous '08 crash - it's true, it did crash, and pretty badly) and he can't pay for it in real time, but if i take out a loan then he'll pay it back later. at this point, i'm kind of screwed. i need to make a quick choice - find *immediate* employment, or take out a loan. i'd been living off a few thousand dollars i had put away for the previous few months, waiting for the rent money to start coming in in september.

finding immediate employment didn't work, so i took out a loan under the promise that he'd pay it back when i was done school.

now, he's dead (and left me basically nothing) and i have a $50K student loan that i'm never going to pay back.

i can blame myself on some level. i did make an error. i sort of had little choice but to take the loan by the time september came around, as it was the only option i had to pay rent. however, i shouldn't have put myself in a situation where i was so reliant on money coming in. in my defence, my father was always very reliable in the past. i had little doubt in believing him.

unfortunately, he badly misjudged his financial situation and lead me around by the nose a little, convincing me that he'd eventually be able to pay it down for me when the market recovered. as we all know, the market never really recovered. i held on to some resentment about this for quite a while, but in hindsight i have to come to terms with the fact that it was a function of bad planning and i'm as much at fault (moreso for not taking control of the situation for myself) as he is.

that doesn't change the fact that i can't pay this back, and i knew i was never going to pay it back as i was signing up for it.

i'll let them do the work in really tracking me down....

i'm not exactly up to date on the letter of loan forgiveness legislation, but it will no doubt kick in eventually.

don't worry - i'll check out what's offered at the university of windsor before i start nail gunning myself anywhere.

but for now, i'm ignoring it...

if i can get enough music finished before they find me, that might be what i want to end up doing, anyways.

i mean, i realize going to school isn't going to help me accomplish any of my current life goals, but there's going to be a point where these things are going to be more aligned. maybe around the age of 40 or so. i wouldn't mind living the last thirty years of my life as an associate prof somewhere, but if i don't get the music out of my system then i'm never going to have my head focused there enough to delve into it.

i'm an A+ student when i want to be. the problem is i've historically usually wanted to spend my time doing something else. the idea of advancing through these departments has really not appealed to me. but i'm well aware that i will eventually reach a point where i do want to be an A+ student because i will want to get somewhere in some department..

conversely, i don't see any future in an employment role whatsoever. there's nothing worthwhile to it. no goals, no aspirations...just a waste of time.

at this point, considering the size of the existing debt, i don't care how old i am, or how much debt it produces, i'll always pick school over employment so long as the option exists.