Monthly Archives: September 2014

Waiting List

So today I got a message back from this Co-op I applied to and did an interview with and I am now on the waiting list! 😀  It could be six months, it could be a year, but they have high turnover of the one bedrooms, so hopefully I will hear back in a short while.  I’m pretty happy about that, it’s a pretty co-op, and it’s 100 years old, so it has that character thing I’ve always liked.

Posey and Little Mister met their dog sitter tonight.  Posey was barky, but Little Mister was friendly and interested in her.  So I hope it goes well.  It’s for only one night, so I am hoping they do okay.  And if not, then it is only one night and I will know for next time to do something different.

Tomorrow is my performance in London.  I went down to Union Station to buy a train ticket, it was twice as much as it was online, because of a service charge that equals the amount of the ticket.  Pbbt!  But it will get me there and back in the right amount of time.  I got all lost when I was looking for Via Rail AND the TD Canada ATM.  Union Station is very busy.

I was gonna buy a printer/scanner tonight too, but obviously that isn’t gonna happen.  Sooooo, maybe the media place tomorrow will let me scan this book?  Not even a whole book, just a chapter, or part of a chapter.  I have to do my seminar on Thursday this next week, so I am gonna try and find something good about spectatorship.

Posey has a new collar.  Her other one was so loose I was worried she could slip it, and it couldn’t tighten any more.  So now she has one that can go way smaller, and it has a reflective stripe on it.  Little Pose!

POSE!~ 🙂  I wish she wouldn’t be so suspicious of new people.  I hope she grows out of it.  Little Mister doesn’t care, if only she could follow his example.  She’s such a sweetheart otherwise.  I hope she is totally different while I am away and doesn’t mind the dog sitter.

In Student Loans news, the letter still hasn’t arrived.  So maybe Monday?  I hope so!  I’m really itching to get this figured out.

Cuppycakes

The movers turned out to be pretty good.  They accepted the cheque for the lower amount, got almost all my stuff in (there is a box of paper that went missing in transit), and worked fast and professionally.  There was only one smashed knob on my dresser, and everything else appears to be in good shape.  One box nearly fell apart at the last second, but aside from that things were fine.

Student Loans FINALLY accepted the money on Monday and sent out a letter that day saying I could now contact National Student Loans and arrange a repayment schedule, and THEN I can start my new loan process again.  So I am going to do that.  The letter is going to my Mom’s house, because I haven’t updated my address yet, but I will.  And she can scan it and email it to me.  It’s gonna happen!  I just gotta hang on!

Aside from that, I am doing school work, looking for a roommate, and getting ready for a performance this weekend in London.  Ontario.  I have to get back to reading this thing and also doing a one paragraph artist statement and a one sentence artist statement for tomorrow.  A show is opening in Saskatoon that is screening a video of mine, which is sweet.  Another artist fee!

Um, what else?  I’m not sure, I should go finish my reading though.  My dogs are wrestling next to me.  They are pretty cute.  They are both upside-down slapping eachother with their paws.  Yesterday I ate four cupcakes.  But I’m diabetic, so I didn’t eat cupcakes at all today and probably won’t for a while.  I just really needed cupcakes.  You must understand!

Bad Movers

So two things are happening.  One is that the 164 I had to pay AGAIN went AGAIN to EI.  And Canada Student Loans refuses to take off the restriction until the money is officially transferred.  Even though they can SEE it in my account. So the CRA guy was checking every two hours to see if it transferred yet, and he will check again on Monday.  Sheesh!

Then I had some troubles with movers.  The company moving me, Vega Line Movers, is charging me one number, and every time dispatch contacts me, which is another company, they quote about 150% the original price.  So I’ve been contacting Vega Line again, and again they gave me the lower quote.  The other company doing the dispatch is a totally different company, Troy Transportation.  Anyway, I think they are trying to commit fraud and hold my stuff hostage until I pay them a whole bunch of money.  So I called the Fraud Squad, but it was 5pm when I called and they close at 4pm on Fridays.  So if something happens tomorrow when my stuff comes, I’m gonna have to call the police and find my division and see what they can do legally.  I’ve got the contract in writing and I’ve got another recent email, and both of them are the lower price which I am able to afford.  So I can at least show that to the delivery guys tomorrow, who I am almost sure are going to try and charge me more money, again.  Mom and I watched an episode of Marketplace about crooked Toronto moving companies, and it looks like this is one of those situations.  I just checked the reviews for Troy ( because Vega Line got good reviews) and all of them suck.  A lot of comments about broken items and them trying to overcharge people by hundreds to thousands of dollars.  Also late deliveries, things not showing up at all, UGH!  I am gonna write to Vega when I am done with this move and tell them if they value their reputation they should find another company to subcontract out to.

So I am pretty nervous.  I have a certified cheque for the lower amount, but I am pretty sure they are gonna try and screw me over and get more money.  BUT I HAVE NO MORE MONEY!  And if I put it off for longer, they are gonna start charging me for storage.  So, fuck.  Sigh.  I’m gonna have to be tough.  And not let them fraudulently charge for things I’m not supposed to have to pay for.  My friend Louis is coming over tomorrow morning when they deliver, to look tough.  So I hope that works.  And I hope all my stuff arrives undamaged.  Once I got Two Small Men With Big Hearts to move me and they lost my dog’s ashes and this blanket my Grandma crocheted for me.  Two Assholes with No Hearts!  If I ever have a good moving company I will be sure to tell everyone.  But so far it hasn’t happened.

OH! But Canpar is good, if you are just moving boxes of stuff.  Really reliable.  Handy, that!

New place! Still in Student Loan Limbo

I’ve moved into my new apartment!  It’s a basement suite, kinda far from Ryerson but I can get there on one bus and one subway ride, so it’s not so bad.  The dogs love it!  They are so happy! They have been settling in, at first they were hypervigillant about noises from the upstairs folks, but now they have gotten used to the usual bangs and stuff from walking and chairs rolling around.  I even left them alone today for a more extended period, first when I went to school for six hours, then when I went out for dinner!  When I got home they were super happy to see me, and after being covered in dog kisses they started playing with each other, wrestling, doing that weird dachshund fencing thing where they hold their mouths open and try to bite each other, and then they did their favorite thing, chasing!  Little Mister and Posey chased each other around and around.  They haven’t been able to do that for a while because the other dogs we stayed with found it suspicious.

School is alright.  I am getting used to it.  EI transferred almost all of my money to student loans, but kept the 164 I owed them, so I had to make ANOTHER payment of 164 to student loans, and today I called to see if it went through but I didn’t get in contact with the guy helping me.  Tomorrow I will ask.  Then HOPEFULLY they will remove the restriction and I can get a student loan!  FUCK this is taking so long!

Also I had some troubles with my movers, BUT I think it has been worked out, I just have to call them tomorrow and get them to come on Saturday.  I’ve been sleeping on an air mattress and I really miss my bed and all my junk.  Like diaries and books and stuff.

My fellowship payment went through, so now I owe less than half of my tuition and fees for this semester.  Which is good, and bad, because I still don’t know about my loan.  I really hope once the restriction is lifted that my loan goes through fast, because things are getting pretty lean!

What else?  Ah, it’s Thursday tomorrow, my last day of school before the weekend.  Whew!  Week three nearly finished!

Well, I should sleep I guess.  I’m not tired, but I did take my meds.  Night meds.  I ate a banana too, I don’t know if that will help but it couldn’t hurt!  I need to do some cleaning when I get home tomorrow!

Twists and turns

So I called CRA on Tuesday and they informed me that my payment DID go through, but it went to EI.  I owed EI between 100-200 dollars, so I don’t know WHY they took my entire $1042.  They had no right to, I didn’t owe them nearly that much.  I had to call EI and ask them to transfer it to student loans.  They told me it would take up to 45 days to transfer it. FUCK!  Then I called student loans and they could see that I had paid 1042 dollars, and they knew it was getting transferred, but they couldn’t rehabilitate my loan or lift the restriction until it is actually transfered and in their account.  So then I called CRA and cried and now I am supposed to call this guy on his direct line on Monday and he’s going to try and hurry up this transfer.  So he will give me good or bad news.  Sigh.

And then, AND THEN I called my movers to find out how much I owe and they gave me this insanely high number.  And I practically died inside and was like “I’m never getting my stuff!” Cue tears.  So then I called around today and a relative is loaning me some money to pay them.  I do have SOME money for them, but not enough.  And I also sent them a request for a breakdown of how much I owe and why, and they gave me another quote that was about $600 less than I had been told before.  So that seemed more sensible.  I was really upset for a while though.  And I changed when they would bring my stuff to Thursday.  But then my relative called me again and said the bank transfer of their money would take until Thursday or Friday, so I may have to call AGAIN and get the delivery date  changed again because they won’t drop it off until I can hand over a certified cheque, money order, or cash.  It’s all incredibly frustrating.

Someone is lending me a bin of house things while I basically camp out in my suite until my stuff arrives.  It’s reminding me of what life was like when I moved to Vancouver as a teenager, or Montreal as a beginning-to-go-insane 20 something.  When I am in my 40’s and moving to LA to get my big break in show business, I will probably wind up in a bare apartment with an air mattress, old sheets, and a pot of ramen noodles yet again.  Nah, I won’t move to the States.  But it’s just a really weird thing that happens to me a lot.

My friend Louis was like “Oh, I hope your suite isn’t haunted.”  And I was like “Ah, I think ghosts follow me anyway so it probably will be.”

It’s been an incredibly stressful week, and I STILL didn’t miss a single class, not even the one that had a very dense article we had to read full of big unpleasant academic language. So that was good.  I handed in my homework on time.  So far no prof has told me I suck, so that’s a good sign I guess.  I didn’t do any school stuff today, just worked out my moving issues and then hung out with Louis and then came home to pups!  I left Posey for literally six hours and she acted like I had been gone ALL DAY!  She gave me kisses for about an hour and cleaned my ear and ran around my shoulders.  Little Mister also snuggled, but he’s a pretty independent guy so he wasn’t as needy as little girl pup.

And just before I wrote this they told me in their doggy way that they were ready for bed, so here we are.  Tomorrow I have an appointment for an interview with a Co-op Housing place, so I am gonna go do that and then maybe see my friend again.  It’s close to where he lives, so it would be nice if I got into it, although I know it’s probably gonna be a waiting list situation for a year or more.

I’m sleepy.  My night meds are kicking in.  Posey is all cuddled up under the covers.  I haven’t had to call a suicide crisis line so far, which I think is pretty good!  It’s been a really stressful couple of months.  I think and hope that things will change pretty quick, but it’s really unknown.

And through all of this my Grandma is still having a hard time, and I am far away, and somehow I have to have some extra money in case I need to go home because of an emergency.  Not for good, just for a little bit.  Whew.

I figured out something I am going to add for my performance in London Ontario.

Payback

Today I called CRA, found out I needed to pay them 1042 to rehabilitate my loan, and within hours my friend emailed me the money and I paid it through online banking.  Now I just have to call them again on Tuesday and confirm that I paid it, and then call Student Loans and get my restriction taken off.  But also I had a thing that said I should send them a written letter stating the same things.  SO I will do both, to cover all my bases. I really want this to work out!

I was gonna stay up late tonight because I have no school tomorrow, but I am already yawny!  Tired me!  I was up early, and had no naps.

I went and got some food for my dogs, muzzles in case they get barky at the new place when they are settling in, poop bags for obvious reasons, and some stuff for school.  I ordered two books I need for a class and they should arrive tomorrow, and the rest of my texts are gonna be available via PDF files online.  So that’s good.  Books are cheap! 😀 $40 bucks so far!  I have another class on Monday, hopefully the books for that are cheap or online too!

I don’t have much else to say.  I hope my loan gets approved next week!

That woman at student loans lied to me!

Classes have started!  Besides this funding quandary I am actually really enjoying myself at school and having a good time!  Ryerson increased my fellowship by a thousand dollars, to five thousand dollars.  Including my Residential School Education Credit from my Grandma, I have about 8000 towards my 10,000 tuition.  Which is why today when I found out Mom and I don’t qualify for a student line of credit because she doesn’t make enough money, I still felt sort of hopeful.  I mean, the tuition is gonna be mostly paid for, it’s just living and books and about 2000 for the rest of my tuition.  That’s ALL I need.  Which isn’t so bad.

But it’s still kinda stressful.  Anyway, today my info from Student Loans showed up saying I COULD rehabilitate my loan and get the restriction taken off, if I pay about 800 in interest and do two monthly payments to CRA.  And my loan is so little, SO little, it’s $2000.  So the monthly payment might be 25-50 bucks for all I know.  I was so frustrated though, because all the money I have is paying for rent and moving costs and maybe some food.  But then a friend said she might be able to loan me the money to rehabilitate my loan as long as I pay her back when I get my next loan.  So I’m gonna give it a shot, call CRA and find out how much my monthly payments are.  So I don’t know why that woman was telling me it was too late to rehabilitate my loan.  SHE LIED!  She just wanted to be an asshole, and probably assumed I owed tens of thousands of dollars!  Anyway, hopefully this can get worked out in the next week.

It’s so weird, I never realized how much of a struggle it would be just to go to Graduate school.  I haven’t even done any assignments yet!!!!

In better news, my new landlady checked my references and was happy with them and I will be moving in on September 15th.  So YAY!  🙂  I’m relieved!  She’s drafting up a lease and letter and then I’ll be handing over rent money.  It’s a good thing she is renting to me too because I already told my movers where I was going.  If I hadn’t got the place I would have cancelled and changed it, but now I don’t have to!

The pups are getting used to my friends dogs and Posey was trying to play with the old matriarch dog, Tashi, but we couldn’t tell if Tashi was getting pissed off at her or being playful because she kept growling and wagging her tail.  Mixed messages!  At one point I witnessed all four dogs running around in a circle through some doorways from the living room and kitchen and hallway.  I think Posey was playing and Little Mister was chasing and the other two were just caught up in all the hubbub.  Either way Posey and Mister are settling in to their temporary situation.  I feel bad because their little lives are going to go through another upheaval in a couple weeks.  And then a little bit again when the new roommate moves in.

What else?  I’m excited to be reunited with my things.  And my bed!  And have my own place again!  And my books and bookcase and various important things!  And filing cabinet!

I’m gonna have to find a couch or chairs or something tho.  For my living room.  I only moved bedroom furniture.

Things are so up and down.  I’m hanging on though!  I’ve been on time for all my classes so far, I have one more tomorrow morning at 9, and then I’m done for the week!  Tomorrow is Media Production I, the lecture part.  And then we do the lab half on Monday.  I’m not sure what to expect, I guess I’ll find out!  I have no printer at the moment, so my iPhone has been saving my life.  It’s telling me when and where all my classes are and I can check the campus map on my gmail app.  And google maps has also saved me, especially watching my gps dot move around telling me where I am.

I also got my OneCard student ID thingy today, and I found a pharmacy near my school where I got my prescriptions transferred.  They said I could pick them up on Friday.  So it’s working out.  I also need to get a doctor, psychiatrist, dentist, optometrist, hairdresser, and Little Mister’s new groomer.  But that doesn’t have to happen just yet.