jessica
it's very generous of you, thank you. i was worried there for a bit that somebody was holding it for some reason or another.
if you're curious, you can stream what i'm doing at this page:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com
i think maybe most of it might be a little too "modern" for your tastes. most of it is broadly categorized as "classical music", but it's classical music with distorted and often dissonant guitars, grating percussion and weird sound effects. i like beethoven (and you can often tell), but agree with his dismissive opinions on rossini. so, there's not much of that. it's more drawing from the tradition of varese, stockhausen, cage and zappa - and following that line of thinking as it evolved through integration with rock traditions through the 60s, 70s and 80s.
nana
glad to hear you got it!I am getting many phone calls for you regarding your student loans.Could you please get in touch with them.The calls are all on my answering machine.Yes I am curious to here your music so will stream it.Take care & stay in touch.
jessica
i'm sorry that they're bothering you about the loans. i don't want that to happen.
however, i've been trying to avoid them rather purposefully, as it's not clear what my financial situation is going to be over the next few years. if i could tell them "i'm on disability", it would put me in a no payment status. but, i can't do that until i get that cleared up. so, i've been waiting for it to get cleared up until i contact them. i was hoping that was going to be dealt with months ago, but there seems to be a push from the top down to get people off disability. that means i might have to push back a little harder than i'd like to. i think an analysis of my life history makes it clear that i should be on disability, it's just a question of making that apparent.
the other thing is that i may be eligible for an artists' grant should the disability not work out, and i don't know how outstanding loans would affect that. i'll need to apply for that rather soon.
i'd ask that you tolerate this for a few more months, until i can get this cleared up. i know it's annoying, but i simply can't deal with what they want me to pay. they're expecting $1200/month. my income, with tax benefits, is $1150. so, it's impossible. but i can't claim i'm going to be on odsp because i can't get the papers.
my deadline is on the 13th of april, but i feel like my appointment on the 17th of february is going to let me know whether disability is something i can rely on or not
so, i'll be doing *something* in the next few weeks about this, but it's not yet clear what i can do.
i think i explained this story a few times, but i think i'm fighting against some misinformation spread by my sister. i wasn't supposed to have this debt in the first place, but i got suckered into it by my father. further, my step-mother is not upholding his obligations on the matter - rather, she's denying that the obligations exist. i suspect he may have been dishonest with her, and that the money he was supposed to use for this ended up lost in poker games, horse races or stock options. that is, he may have told her he was giving me money and gambled it away instead - perhaps even with the legitimate intention of winning money to give me. my father had a gambling problem. he kept it quiet, but he never really defeated it. when people have gambling problems like that, it can warp their thinking. that is, if my suspicion is correct, i don't doubt that he meant to use the cash he won to pay the debt down. it's just that it wasn't done transparently with his wife, and ultimately wasn't very smart, and now i'm stuck with the consequences of it.
i've tumbled this over in my mind a lot and have to conclude i'm at fault for putting myself in a reliant situation. but it doesn't change the reality that i got screwed over.
so, this is what happened...
when i got out of school the first time (in 2006) the debt was manageable. i managed to find a decent job that allowed me to get a nice apartment and pay into it. the monthly payments at the time were about $300 - about a third of which was interest to start, but it went down over time. i paid almost $10000 into it from 2006-2008. and i was also able to maintain a little nest egg for emergencies.
near the end of 2008, i was having difficulty finding employment. i still had that nest egg, so it wasn't really imperative that i find employment immediately. my dad was trying to get me to go back to school, but i specifically didn't want to increase my debt and resisted his requests. going back to school would have meant either going into debt or moving home, or both. it didn't seem like a smart decision, given that it didn't seem like going back to school was going to help me with my ambitions, which, at the time, were to simply find a job i could walk to, and focus on recording. i was hoping i could just wait it out and eventually get a job at starbucks or something. the one way i'd think it was worthwhile to go back to school is if he promised to pay both the rent and the schooling. it was offered almost sarcastically - i didn't think he'd actually agree to it. but, he did, which created an offer i couldn't refuse. i mean, if the choice is school or work and it doesn't cost me anything to go to school then school is always going to be the rational choice - school is more enjoyable than work, less scheduled, etc.
so, i applied for graduate school in mathematics and was accepted. at the end of august, though, i had second thoughts. i looked at the job market. i saw jobs in programming. my recent background was working tech support for hp and microsoft. i thought an undergraduate programming degree would be more marketable than a graduate degree in mathematics. i don't regret that decision; i think it was a correct analysis of the job market at the time.
however, a few things happened in the spring of 2008 - the markets crashed, primarily. combined with the higher dollar, foreign firms saw a disincentive to invest in job growth in canada. that didn't really change over the next few years.
the week before classes started, he told me that the market crash made it impossible to carry through with his promise. he encouraged me to take out a loan, and promised he'd pay it back by the end of the year. the problem was that i'd missed the loan deadline. so, i put my nest egg down to pay off the semester, expecting to get it back by the end of the year. i then applied for odsp starting in the winter. *that was the error i made that led to all the problems that followed*. i should have just looked for a job.
several semesters went by, and he kept promising me he'd pay it down, but it never happened. the loans just kept adding up. i had faith in him to carry out his promise. and, he was still promising he'd pay it down on his death bed.
about a week before he died, the three of us worked out an agreement. the step-mother would give me a few hundred dollars a month. but when i got back from windsor, she claimed he was "delusional on his death bed". i could probably sue her for this and win, but i don't want to spend the next ten years in a court battle. and, should i stay on odsp long enough, the loan will no doubt be "forgiven" anyways. i'd rather take this approach than spend who knows how much on court fees and untold amounts of time preparing legal arguments.
i just need odsp to follow through on it...
but i didn't want this mess. i specifically tried to avoid it. but i got suckered in by a promise that was never upheld.
