Money and Study and Time

With a HECS debt that could easily serve as a deposit on a house, and that is going to take me years to pay off, I am very glad that my current course is not adding to it. In fact, I simply wouldn't be able to do it if I had to pay. As it is, I am struggling to work enough to pay my bills, while having time to devote to my music. This year I think the balance was tipped too far towards money-work and not enough towards study-work, and as a consequence I didn't gain the results that I would need to get a scholarship for next year, which would mean that I would be able to do less money-work and consequently achieve more with my music.

It is a chicken-and-egg scenario - it is hard to continually devote the time it takes to excel in anything without having any financial assistance, and the financial assistance is impossible to obtain without achieving results that require large investments of time and energy.

It hasn't always been like this, though: this article in today's Sunday Age reminds me that the baby-boomers who are now running the system, and making it harder and harder for current students, had the benefits of free education, affordable housing and stable employment prospects.

(Image from stock.xchng)

Brian Eno lecture

A couple of weeks ago, while I was up during the night suffering biological payback (why is it always that the women suffer while men get off scott free?), I distracted myself from my discomfort by listening to this lecture by Brian Eno, as part of the BBC's Free Thinking series. Brian Eno is a fascinating chap, and an excellent speaker, and this lecture prompted me to continue my musings about time, particularly in relation to his Long Now project.

The essence of time

There hasn't been much lately. Time, that is. I feel awful bad for neglecting you, my droogies, but I'm sure you're surviving just fine without me.

I found this today on nownow:

Today at 2 minutes & 3 seconds past 1 o’clock it will be:

1:02:03 04/05/06

- a moment in time that occurs about every thousand years.

How special is that?

Now it’s up to you not to waste this historic second in time. When, in the distant future, your grandchildren ask you how you spent this once in a thousand year moment, don’t let the answer be, ‘I was on the toilet, honey’.

Yelp, cheer, smile to your self, hug a stranger. Just do something to mark this rare but wonderful oddity. Because before you know it we’ll be back to boring, out-of-order time, and their ain’t nothing special bout that.

Make sure you make the most of that split second of infinity!

Last night's train journey

I am sitting on the train with the beginnings of a headache. To the west, behind the clouds the sky is pale blue with deep magenta slashes through it. The reflections of the city lights in the train windows are superimposed on the last remnants of the sunset.

The train is starting to fill with passengers, eager to get home to dinner and the evening's television programs. They read books, newspapers, office documents. Each is sitting in their own bubble of personal space, their own island of discontent.

The season is changing. There is a chill in the air now, at night. Brown leaves are starting to appear on the ground, but strangely the trees are still outwardly verdant.

We are out of the city loop now - out of the noisy, cuving, concrete tunnels. The train sways on its journey along the tracks, stopping at all the little inner city stations: West Richmond, North Richmond, Collingwood, Victoria Park. It is too late for the express trains now - the fast bustling trains ferrying anxious commuters to and from their tall office blocks in the CBD. No, this is a lazy train, taking its time as it winds its way to the leafy north-eastern suburbs.

I miss living in the inner city. I miss being able to jump on and off trams, and walking home once the trams had stopped running at midnight. I miss the convenience of short distances and milk bars on corners.

This train journey is a new thing in my life - a different type of time. It is an in-between time, a time that is not nothing, but is not really something either.

What do people do on trains? Do they do different things from normal? Do they think different thoughts? Would the man sitting opposite me really read The Amulet of Samarkand if he were somewhere else? Would the man on the other side of the carriage read MX if he were at home? Would I be writing this if I were not on the train?