planets playing hide-and-seek
It's... been a bit. I've been meaning to put in a proper retrospect of the past year, which has actually been quite a significant change in recent years; in fact, I'd have to say that upon look back at my time in Portland, this would be the time when I feel like I'm actually settling in on my own terms. However, in light of the new paperwork nightmare that I have to deal with, I'm not going to be in the right state of mind to go into that until next week.
I'm certain it will be resolved (it's a clerical error of some kind; someone inputted my transcripts twice so the Dept. of Education is under the impression I've exceeded the amount of credits I can have to still receive aid), however they decided to tell me this before the office would close for a week for the holidays. On top of this, I can only have this resolved on Monday, the day of the disbursments, meaning that even when this gets resolved, I still have to wait for everything to process. Added to this is that this may be more than just a simple few keystrokes can deal with; I may have to send a petition to the Dept. of Education spelling out in detail not only the nature of the error made but a detailed list of how soon I expect to graduate and the classes I intend to take to make sure that I'm done by the end of Spring 2012. Thankfully, I've already done this considering the amount of bureaucratic nonsense I've had to dodge and jump hoops for. I already know that despite needing only 30 some-odd credits to finish the Psychology portion of my major is not enough considering the university requires a certain percentage of my credits to come from the university itself. This is fine; hence why I tacked on Russian as a double-major and if worse comes to worst, I can finish off with it as a minor.
I was not only hoping to have a bit of those disbursements cover the portion of the rent that this paycheque won't take care, but I also wanted to get my textbooks and get a jumpstart before the term since I'll be taking some of my first classes conducted in Russian outside of the langauge classes. As I've mentioned, I'm positive this will get resolved in time, but I didn't need the reminder of how precarious my situation is if, all of the sudden, I wasn't able to continue with school. I'm well aware that I need to do a bit of budgeting to make sure that the credit cards get paid off before I finish school and that the next set of FAFSA forms I have to fill out will be the LAST ones I'll be filling out other than the summer extensions. Considering the rest of the bureaucratic nonsense I've had to maneuver through, this shouldn't be anything new, per se, but just the threat of having to stop when, really, I've come too far to stop now without anything to show for it was enough to basically ruin my weekend and now, it looks like, the holidays as well. If I wasn't sure this would be resolved, I'd be in a far worse place emotionally but Dan already noted how completely shaken the whole event, a minor hassle in the grand scheme of things, had left me.
I SHOULD be working more on the songs we've been doing since it sounds like we'll be up for another show at the Someday Lounge's Incubator and I should also be sending them to Matt and Dee since they have winter break as well. I WILL be doing this (and have actually) mostly because we have about 3/4 of the songs we want to perform. I also have to send an e-mail to a fellow I recently met at PNCA if he has the time to do some visuals for us. Anyway, to change the mood up a bit, how about the potential next show and the material we have together. Basically, since Incubator allows for 20-25 minute slots and we actually have a wide pool of songs to draw from, both old and new and Dan becoming more comfortable writing lasting material, we decided on doing a set of songs done entirely in unusual time signatures. This is a feature I've wanted to incorporate more into my songs other than the handful and Dan's accustommed enough to them that we've not only been able to do this without any problems, but we can do it without sounding like Rush, which is even better. One of the recent results of this, which we'll be playing, is a song in 5/8 that, right now in its demo phase, sounds like a Gary Numan song (yes, with THAT string-synth sound) remixed by George Clinton; we've found that more funk-oriented rhythms make it easier to follow unusual times and this works out great in the combination of my wanting a funk-by-way-of-Joy-Division bassist and Matt's long-running suggestion of adding more funk to counteract the melancholy vibe that tends to permeate much of my songwriting. Though the Pre-Fash unit has become a nucleus of Dan and I, Matt and Dee say they don't mind using their breaks to see if they can add more bits to the stuff we've been coming up with. When these songs are finished, we'll throw them up on the MySpace. Otherwise, and obviously this applies to Portland-folk, it's best you show up to the next Incubator if you want to get a feel for our "Out of Time/Out of Sync" vibe.
There's a good deal more. I might have to approach trying to talk with my dad again, mostly because I might need his help. With their bankruptcy taken care of, I know much of their income is going to come from their buying and selling gold and I think I need to ask him how to do that considering that they've been able to save up for long trips and have otherwise been relatively comfortable. I don't think I'm going to be able to manage a second job, which here in Portland is almost a forlorn hope and I'd really, really like to avoid having to moonlight as a go-go boy. I'm also not joking about that last bit.
I'm certain it will be resolved (it's a clerical error of some kind; someone inputted my transcripts twice so the Dept. of Education is under the impression I've exceeded the amount of credits I can have to still receive aid), however they decided to tell me this before the office would close for a week for the holidays. On top of this, I can only have this resolved on Monday, the day of the disbursments, meaning that even when this gets resolved, I still have to wait for everything to process. Added to this is that this may be more than just a simple few keystrokes can deal with; I may have to send a petition to the Dept. of Education spelling out in detail not only the nature of the error made but a detailed list of how soon I expect to graduate and the classes I intend to take to make sure that I'm done by the end of Spring 2012. Thankfully, I've already done this considering the amount of bureaucratic nonsense I've had to dodge and jump hoops for. I already know that despite needing only 30 some-odd credits to finish the Psychology portion of my major is not enough considering the university requires a certain percentage of my credits to come from the university itself. This is fine; hence why I tacked on Russian as a double-major and if worse comes to worst, I can finish off with it as a minor.
I was not only hoping to have a bit of those disbursements cover the portion of the rent that this paycheque won't take care, but I also wanted to get my textbooks and get a jumpstart before the term since I'll be taking some of my first classes conducted in Russian outside of the langauge classes. As I've mentioned, I'm positive this will get resolved in time, but I didn't need the reminder of how precarious my situation is if, all of the sudden, I wasn't able to continue with school. I'm well aware that I need to do a bit of budgeting to make sure that the credit cards get paid off before I finish school and that the next set of FAFSA forms I have to fill out will be the LAST ones I'll be filling out other than the summer extensions. Considering the rest of the bureaucratic nonsense I've had to maneuver through, this shouldn't be anything new, per se, but just the threat of having to stop when, really, I've come too far to stop now without anything to show for it was enough to basically ruin my weekend and now, it looks like, the holidays as well. If I wasn't sure this would be resolved, I'd be in a far worse place emotionally but Dan already noted how completely shaken the whole event, a minor hassle in the grand scheme of things, had left me.
I SHOULD be working more on the songs we've been doing since it sounds like we'll be up for another show at the Someday Lounge's Incubator and I should also be sending them to Matt and Dee since they have winter break as well. I WILL be doing this (and have actually) mostly because we have about 3/4 of the songs we want to perform. I also have to send an e-mail to a fellow I recently met at PNCA if he has the time to do some visuals for us. Anyway, to change the mood up a bit, how about the potential next show and the material we have together. Basically, since Incubator allows for 20-25 minute slots and we actually have a wide pool of songs to draw from, both old and new and Dan becoming more comfortable writing lasting material, we decided on doing a set of songs done entirely in unusual time signatures. This is a feature I've wanted to incorporate more into my songs other than the handful and Dan's accustommed enough to them that we've not only been able to do this without any problems, but we can do it without sounding like Rush, which is even better. One of the recent results of this, which we'll be playing, is a song in 5/8 that, right now in its demo phase, sounds like a Gary Numan song (yes, with THAT string-synth sound) remixed by George Clinton; we've found that more funk-oriented rhythms make it easier to follow unusual times and this works out great in the combination of my wanting a funk-by-way-of-Joy-Division bassist and Matt's long-running suggestion of adding more funk to counteract the melancholy vibe that tends to permeate much of my songwriting. Though the Pre-Fash unit has become a nucleus of Dan and I, Matt and Dee say they don't mind using their breaks to see if they can add more bits to the stuff we've been coming up with. When these songs are finished, we'll throw them up on the MySpace. Otherwise, and obviously this applies to Portland-folk, it's best you show up to the next Incubator if you want to get a feel for our "Out of Time/Out of Sync" vibe.
There's a good deal more. I might have to approach trying to talk with my dad again, mostly because I might need his help. With their bankruptcy taken care of, I know much of their income is going to come from their buying and selling gold and I think I need to ask him how to do that considering that they've been able to save up for long trips and have otherwise been relatively comfortable. I don't think I'm going to be able to manage a second job, which here in Portland is almost a forlorn hope and I'd really, really like to avoid having to moonlight as a go-go boy. I'm also not joking about that last bit.