Pg. 146 – And The Future.
Well, since my Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 went bust last week, I’ve been getting more cramps. Fortunately, the replacement arrives today. Yay for OEM (non-retail) pricing at NewEgg!
I’m getting very close to finishing the pages. After that I have to return to the drawing board to start producing the bonus content. I think I have to inform you all that there might not be any updates after this chapter concludes until I’ve found a place to settle into.
Housing and Fiscal Difficulties
See, I’m likely to be evicted from my current residence in the months after my book hits the presses, and I’m unemployed so I have to find a job and fast. Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors in Washington State, the job market here is not very bright for a deaf 24-year old with average skills in video editing, illustration and writing. I could probably find a part time job as a writer for some publication, but I’d need to find another job to supplement that.
The biggest question after I finish this book is whether or not I should start focusing on returning to college. There are several prospect campuses I’m looking at, but lately I’ve been very vehemently against public colleges because of their habit of pushing completely unrelated classes on you and extending your stay at the campus for no good reason.
More on that after the jump.
Choosing The Campus
See, I’d go to the University of Washington for what I hope to be a major in video game design and development and/or game art design, but the idea of wasting more than three years on general courses such as mathematics, English (I once took English 200 at Gallaudet University, passed it), science, and so on does not appeal to me. So in short, it would be more feasible but more expensive to go to a trade school that specializes in game development education.
So, there are three major private colleges in the Seattle area that can fill that necessity. The Art Institute of Seattle, and the International Academy of Design & Technology, and DigiPen, which is a “pressure cooker” college that specializes in game development courses. I know there are other lesser colleges but I’d rather acquire a full blown Bachelor’s, and quite possibly a Graduate’s.
I’ve toured the Art Institute of Seattle last year in 2007, and I toured DigiPen in 2006 when I was looking at how they did things. DigiPen seems like a very bad option for me at the moment due to housing complications in Redmond where the campus shares a building with Nintendo of America’s headquarters. Affordable housing is often in South King County in towns like Federal Way, Renton, Kent, Auburn, and the Pierce County port city of Tacoma.
Paying For The Education
This is pretty much where it can get difficult. Most private colleges require an education loan from a bank or financial institution in order to qualify. I learned this when I spoke with the Art Institute asking if they were willing to handle my entire education funded by the State and through grants, and they said that it was a necessity for me to have a personal education loan from a financial institution. Not sure why, though.
Given the current economic climate on Wall Street and the increased dangers of private bank institutions failing in the next 12 months, I am not very comfortable with the idea of a private loan just to cover my education. As a note, I am a customer of the Boeing Employees Credit Union, a not-for-profit financial institution that was founded to help manage the finances of the Boeing workers during the heyday of the Boeing Company.
There are solutions, but even those can take time.
Because I’m deaf, which is part of a minority in the United States, I can almost get all of my education paid for by the government, but I am somewhat on the fence about it because of the current fiscal crisis in the United States. I do not want to contribute another $50,000-$200,000 of expenses to the State just because of some overly Democratic policies that enable us to get better education, but it will have to be done. There is the FAFSA, and a good number of grants that I can apply for in order to cover my education expenses.
However, I find it quite annoying that I have to “pay” for knowledge as a commodity, and everyone gets this knowledge in varying degrees…
C’est la vie. Such is life, and I have to find a way to get out of this potentially problematic rut I’m in. But the book comes first, since I want it to be out there for you to read. My only regret is that it will not tell the whole story of The Phasmatis Crisis…in fact, it is a proverbial snapshot in the entire arc of over 54 chapters which will take years of dedicated work to complete.
Key word: Dedicated. With college and other commitments that I have neglected for the year starting to creep up on me, there is a very real possibility Fantasia Arks will have to go onto sporadic hiatuses.
-NK