July 16, 2019

Dumbfounding (Updated)

For those who do not want to be perplexed by the perplexities of my Walter Mitty lifestyle, here is another view of a girl in Penang by Feigiap.

 Van, Computer, Washing Machine, Tuition, and Student Loan all hit at once at the end of a 5 week pay hiatus because of my vacation. (The tuition I was expecting, obviously)

After discussing the matter with the bank I was able to convince them that I am enrolled in school. I also, reluctantly, took out a student loan to cover the class that I'm taking and a new computer, as my almost completed final paper (due August 1st) is in the data which is confirmed to be intact on the deceased iMac. After the initial confusion was resolved, everything went smoothly, was approved quickly and I received confirmation that the loan had been submitted to the school. 


That is where matters stood as of Friday. 

Today, with no change in my balance, still unable to access some library features and parts of the college due to my account balance and with no problems on the banks end, I called the School to check up on why my money was not being taken.

After some go-round I was informed that the school's database only had me taking three credits.

I informed the cashier that this was correct.

There was a bit of a pause before I was informed that O.D.U. does not take money from loans for ammounts of money less than 6 credits worth of tuition.

I can't put my name back on the graduation list.

This literally stupefied me. 

I sat for almost 15 minutes just dumbfounded by the abstruse stupidity of this policy. I have money. If I've learned ANYTHING in 30 years of college it's that O.D.U. REALLY likes to take money from people. 

But they don't want this money, presumably because taking it would cause me less pain than refusing it. 

I will talk to administrators tomorrow, but the outlook is not good. 

I'm beginning to suspect that O.D.U. is an elaborate infernal plot similar to a certain Demon Crowley's use of malign transportation engineering to drive people to despair and damnation in a cunning soul harvesting scheme.


I'm on to you O.D.U. and your moeblobs too.

UPDATE:

Thanks for all the kind words.

Well, I got a personal loan, which cannot, by law be used for school. Instead I used it to buy a new washing machine and iMac which could take the info off the lightning damaged iMac and thereby preserve my paper. The precious precious paper that I've been furiously rewriting over the last week and a half without the ability to access special collections or certain online repositories (though I discovered yesterday that I CAN still use J-Stor).

Since the paper was almost done I can now breathe a huge sigh of relief.
I've scrapped together enough money to pay more than half my tuition and should have the rest next week, having made more overtime this week than I have since December thanks to Prime Day.

Raphtalia, the replacement for the late, lamented, Holo is a really nice computer and is much thinner than the old machine.

And the mouse and keyboard use a proprietary charger for their non-removable batteries.

Aaand....that's it.

Given that Holo was 12 years old, which is an awfully long time in the world of personal electronics, I must say I expected a rather more pronounced learning curve, but there really as been little more than refinements and cosmetic changes. I guess Apple simply does not care about the personal computer market, or perhaps they think they've reached perfection.

In any event, Raphtalia is one of the last Made in the U.S.A. Apple products. We'll see if this one lasts 12 years.

As for the school's intractability on the matter of accepting my student loan, this actually appears to be be to to a regulation that has the school's hands tied, though I have yet to determine if this is Federal or State. My inquiry into that matter proceeds.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:13 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 682 words, total size 5 kb.

1 Yikes!  Good luck with that.  

Posted by: StargazerA5 at Tue Jul 16 21:47:55 2019 (jl9eJ)

2 Glrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wed Jul 17 02:10:38 2019 (PiXy!)

3 I learned that there's no university policy that cannot accommodate an exception. In fact, all of them even have instructions and procedures about manufacturing these exemptions. But it all comes down to relevant people willing to go the extra mile. Sometimes it's possible to escalate up.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Wed Jul 17 02:39:46 2019 (LZ7Bg)

4 You need to talk to your congressman or local tv station.
This is freaking ridiculous. You have enough credits for three degrees, and exemptions are made for this kind of situation.
St. Catherine of Alexandria! St. John Bosco! St. Anthony! St. Joseph! St. Jude! St. Expeditus, for goodness sake! All you holy helpers of students, please pray for him! Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for him! In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, and in the name of the Holy Trinity, I call for some justice and mercy, and at least one fully awarded degree!!!!
And if this person has some hidden enemy or annoying demon, I ask St. Michael to smite said enemy or keep him unable to mess around with our friend. And if you know any tech support angels, feel free to send them along, because he needs some serious help in that department.
O Holy Spirit, comfort our friend and cheer him. Grant him the spirit of wisdom and understanding, and refresh his hope and faith and love. Be his Advocate, I pray, and give some common sense to his poor excuse for a college administration. Because this is getting very old.
I ask this in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Fri Jul 19 14:23:06 2019 (sF8WE)

5 So...Does anybody else see Feigiap's cityscape in the negative?

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Jul 20 21:54:14 2019 (YUAc9)

6 Not sure why you're hanging on it. It is just as impractical and uncomfortable, not to mention unsafe place to live as the flooded city you posted previously. But it's not the point. The artist just wanted a pretty picture with a citiscape that it's out of the ordinary. The UHF antenna is super cute. That building is probably some kind of local maintenance and administrative office (unless a poor as a rat ham radio operator lives there).

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Jul 21 07:54:51 2019 (LZ7Bg)

7 LOL.

Sorry Pete. I was completely unclear.

I don't mean does anyone have a negative opinion of the picture, I mean do they SEE it in the negative.

http://brickmuppet.mee.nu/images/ScreenShot2019-07-20at3.51.41PM.png

That's how it looks in Pale Moon. It looks normal in everything else.
As far as I can tell, that's the only picture affected.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Jul 21 08:29:11 2019 (YUAc9)

8 Ah.
There IS one other picture that has the same effect, also by Feigiap.
The other two times I've used his pictures (here and here) they are unaffected by the glitch.

Both of the affected pictures are from a specific art set; one of views in  modern day Penang.

This effect does not show up on any other browser and did not show up when I posted using Pale Moon on my old iMac with Mountain Lion. I'm wondering if this is a terribly ineffective attempt  DRM or just an obscure glitch in an obscure browser.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Jul 21 09:24:15 2019 (YUAc9)

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