Now HECS census date has come and gone

That’s it now. HECS census date, March 31st, has come and gone. I am financially committed to the course units I am currently enrolled in. No turning back, no turning back without financial disincentives.

The first undergraduate study I did was in Nursing. In 1989. At the time, in other states of Australia nursing was still being taught in hospitals and it was deemed inequitable to be charging us for learning that others were being paid for. We New South Wales undergrad nurses were given a free ride as all around us physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists and ophthalmology students were filed into the beginnings of a beneficiary-pays system. I remember snickering behind their backs. In an empathetic, nursey kind of way.

For those outside Australia, HECS (the Higher Education Contribution Scheme) is a system of paying back some of the costs of your university degree through the tax system, once your income is high enough, i.e. once you are considered to be receiving a financial benefit from your studies. As it stands it is relatively fair, but change a few numbers and the system is primed and ready to disadvantage the poor, the sick, the disabled, the female. As you can imagine, it is the battleground of considerable political struggle, and you can probably already guess on which side of the line I stand. If not, let me remind you that I once wrote something for the Labor Herald.

In the early seventies, then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam shoved Australian society into a large mason jar, screwed on the lid and shook the contents. Really quite hard. The jar was opened and tipped and the contents spread along the kitchen bench of political reform. “Ta da!” said Gough, ending conscription and the death penalty and delivering everything from hospitals for Western Sydney to maternity leave for Commonwealth employees. One of the magnificent changes wrought was fee-free higher education. And the children of Australia’s less well-off were given access to a world of critical thinking and argument that has caused no end of irritation to the priviledged end of town ever since. Oh how I love my country. And Gough. (If you want to spend more time, and I’m sure you do, admiring Gough’s chutzpah you can read about his political legacy at Whitlam Institute, which is part of Western Sydney University.)

Oh how I love my country. And oh how I believe that higher education should remain within reach of people living with disadvantages, because there are more social gains to be made that only today’s batch of disadvantaged kids will be able to get educated on, fight for and win. You go, kiddos.

Maybe that is why I am retraining to be a secondary school teacher. At Western Sydney University. Where yesterday was HECS census day.

Any time before census day, you can withdraw from your unit without the cost being added to your ‘account’ with the tax department. (So that’s four weeks of free higher education for everyone, every six months! #jokes…Although…).

And that’s four weeks for you to make up your mind if you are in the right course, or have chosen units that fit with your needs. Four weeks where you can be ambivalent about your chosen career, or just those language classes you thought would be easy enough (guilty). Then, as sure as Christmas, census date arrives and you are forced to decide if you meant everything you mouthed on about during the last month or if those were just empty promises to yourself.

You have your will I/won’t I moment, and then as suddenly as it came, census date is gone and your life now has a predetermined nature to it that not even the memory of hazy summer holidays can dilute. And that’s why I’m here, right now, composing this blog post. Because nothing gives your hobbies an urgent quality like the pressure to do real, intellectual work.

 

 

 

Safety Last!

excerpt from Don’t Bring Lulu (1925)

I bet you’re all wondering what I look like when I’m playing the flute! Here’s your chance.
This is also your chance to hear me introduce music using my hoitiest-toitiest voice, which is very important when introducing highbrow cultural activities in Australia.

Ha! Just kidding! This isn’t the 1950s!

Of course not.

It’s the 1920s! An era of silent film, live musical accompaniment, foley sound effects and sheet music without nearly enough key signatures or bar numbers for my liking.

This was a performance I did with a group of students from my university. I feel I should credit them by name, but I don’t have permission to type their identities all over the internet. It might be enough to suggest that quite a number of them are named ‘Ben’, that you can hear their names on the video, and they would all willingly play for remuneration, and leave it at that.

The footage starts a little early, so if you are up for a hoity-toity introduction but don’t want to watch us fuss over our instruments, start watching at the one-minute mark.
Or you can skip the spoken introduction read the it below and begin the silent movie experience at the three-minute mark.

The act is actually kinda cute in parts. I’m quite proud of what we achieved.

Now, on with the show…

Ladies and Gentlemen, today we will be showing an excerpt from The Goat, an American short comedy film from 1921 written, directed by and starring Buster Keaton:

An innocent man is on the run from the law after a case of mistaken identity. After providing assistance to a young woman in distress he is invited to supper, only to discover that her father is the chief of police.

Starring Buster Keaton, Joe Roberts, Virginia Fox and Malcolm St Clair.

We will be accompanying the visuals with Don’t Bring Lulu, a circa 1925 song by Rose, Brown and Henderson, along with a touch of My Melancholy Baby, by Ernie Burnett, written circa 1916.

Our second offering will be an excerpt from Safety Last!, a 1923 romantic comedy silent film starring Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother and Noah Young:

Harold is a store clerk who arranges for his construction-worker housemate, Limpy Bill, to climb the outside of a department store in a bid to attract more customers. Before that can happen, Limpy Bill finds himself in trouble with the law. Harold must take his place on the climb as Limpy Bill tries to evade the cops.

Harold Lloyd lost a thumb and forefinger four years before Safety Last! was filmed, making his climbing feat all the more impressive.

We will be playing Somebody Stole my Gal, by Leo Wood written around 1922, and a Spud Murphy arrangement of Walter Donaldson’s My Blue Heaven from circa 1922.