The Vent Thread

[LantisEscudo]

Bleah. Got rolled out of bed by a phone call that there was a major problem at work, go straight in, and spent the next eight hours playing phone tag with the upstream provider's tech support to resolve the issue on their end. Still not fixed, but someone else is now at our end to handle it, so I could go home.

Only bright side is I got a lot done while waiting for the phone, and now get most of Monday off.

[Ematheo]

This is more a rant than vent kind of thing but need to get this out of my system.

What the heck is wrong with the university/collage students today?! Okay, I can only talk about the ones here in Sweden but do they ever talk about anything other than how poor they are and how hard their life is? If they take a full student loan they get somewhere around 1 018 USD/month. I know this money doesn't make you rich but I'm just tired of them complaining like they are the most exposed people in the world. I'm sorry but you're f*ucking spoiled.

When I first moved to this city I had about 60-70 hours a month at work which gave me about 690-770 USD/month. I had a rent on $585 (that includes electricity and broadband) And the money left was for everything else. I didn't live grand but hell, I managed. I never had to go hungry and I could even afford to go to the movies once in a while, cons and make cosplays.

Most of the students in this city also lives in dorms or share bigger appartments which take them down to a rent between $320-450 (including the necessary bills) sometimes even less. I realize some money goes on books but you can sell them later or buy old ones. SO WHAT THE HECK ARE YO COMPLAINING ABOUT!? "Ooh I can only party every other weekend :'''( bohoo"

I realize this rant/vent comes from me working yesterday night and dealing with people(mostly students) who was out partying for the forst time for 3 weeks. Really, 3 whole weeks? I feel so sorry for you. And complaining that we don't have any student discount. Next time someone complains about it I'll say "Sorry no we don't but we do have a student addition" *ads $10 to their order*

Aaah I feel so much better now. (:

[JaddziaDax]

rent on $585 (that includes electricity and broadband)

WOW! That's pretty darn cheap!

[Emong]

This is more a rant than vent kind of thing but need to get this out of my system.

What the heck is wrong with the university/collage students today?! Okay, I can only talk about the ones here in Sweden but do they ever talk about anything other than how poor they are and how hard their life is? If they take a full student loan they get somewhere around 1 018 USD/month. I know this money doesn't make you rich but I'm just tired of them complaining like they are the most exposed people in the world. I'm sorry but you're f*ucking spoiled.

When I first moved to this city I had about 60-70 hours a month at work which gave me about 690-770 USD/month. I had a rent on $585 (that includes electricity and broadband) And the money left was for everything else. I didn't live grand but hell, I managed. I never had to go hungry and I could even afford to go to the movies once in a while, cons and make cosplays.

Most of the students in this city also lives in dorms or share bigger appartments which take them down to a rent between $320-450 (including the necessary bills) sometimes even less. I realize some money goes on books but you can sell them later or buy old ones. SO WHAT THE HECK ARE YO COMPLAINING ABOUT!? "Ooh I can only party every other weekend :'''( bohoo"

I realize this rant/vent comes from me working yesterday night and dealing with people(mostly students) who was out partying for the forst time for 3 weeks. Really, 3 whole weeks? I feel so sorry for you. And complaining that we don't have any student discount. Next time someone complains about it I'll say "Sorry no we don't but we do have a student addition" *ads $10 to their order*

Aaah I feel so much better now. (:

I don't know what's the situation there in Sweden but here in Finland the student allowance provided by the state has stagnated while real prices have been going up. On the top of that they basically dropped proper public funding of universities recently and made them reliant on private funding and donations. I'm afraid we're moving away from the tax based model towards the US type semester payments. Universities are still free here but I'm afraid what will happen in the future.

A lot of the discomfort also stems from the fact that students are encouraged to take student loans while at the same time they're pushed to graduate sooner and sooner. A lot of them choose to work instead of taking loans though as the labor market situation is getting worse and worse even in spite of the recession. It's not cool to be in debt after getting your master's degree if your employment options are insecure. If you ask me I'd return the proper public funding of universities and raise the student allowance and attach it to indexes.

^ None of that, however, really compares to the problems in the US. Compared to ridiculously huge student loans, high semester payments and high unemployment (and probably also high living costs?) we're really well off in Scandinavia.

[Ematheo]

WOW! That's pretty darn cheap!

Depends what you compare to. That apartment was 30 m² which is about 322 ft² i think (putting my faith on a converter)
But I think it really depends what country and city you live in. I think that apartment though is considered pretty average consider to location and the condition it was in.

I don't know what's the situation there in Sweden but here in Finland the student allowance provided by the state has stagnated while real prices have been going up. On the top of that they basically dropped proper public funding of universities recently and made them reliant on private funding and donations. I'm afraid we're moving away from the tax based model towards the US type semester payments. Universities are still free here but I'm afraid what will happen in the future.

A lot of the discomfort also stems from the fact that students are encouraged to take student loans while at the same time they're pushed to graduate sooner and sooner. A lot of them choose to work instead of taking loans though as the labor market situation is getting worse and worse even in spite of the recession. It's not cool to be in debt after getting your master's degree if your employment options are insecure. If you ask me I'd return the proper public funding of universities and raise the student allowance and attach it to indexes.

^ None of that, however, really compares to the problems in the US. Compared to ridiculously huge student loans, high semester payments and high unemployment (and probably also high living costs?) we're really well off in Scandinavia.

Yes that is what I think to, We here in Scandinavia have it pretty good, although I think it's going downhill here in Sweden. We're also moving towards this, which I'm not happy at all about. And that doesn't only apply to schools but for pretty much everything. That's another story though.

I hope that noone is taking my post as me complaining on every single student. I know people come from diffrent kinds of familys and situations. I just got sick of those kind that kind of "brag" about how poor they are. Everyone I know that have little money and a hard time for real, rarely talk about it but somehow the richer you get, the poorer you feel.. or? D:

[Emong]

I just got sick of those kind that kind of "brag" about how poor they are. Everyone I know that have little money and a hard time for real, rarely talk about it but somehow the richer you get, the poorer you feel.. or? D:

I know what you mean and sometimes it's good to point out how much worse things can be.. Actually happiness correlates with income statistically speaking Although at a certain point the level of your income doesn't increase your happiness. I think what you're talking about, complaining and such, also has to do with high standards and in this light it's not really a bad thing. For example nowdays you can hear feminists complaining about everything but what this signals is not that nothing is good enough for them (a typical reactionary critique) but that we're more and more aware of inequality across the whole spectrum of social life and that our standards have increased.

It's kind of my philosophy that at the moment when a poor person stop complaining and conforms to her dispriviledged situation she has swallowed the ideological injunction. Unfortunately a lot of anime has this crap

[JaddziaDax]

It always depends on where you live on how cheap it is, but compared to the USA, that kind of rent including utilities is extremely cheap even in some of the less expensive places to live.

[Emong]

It always depends on where you live on how cheap it is, but compared to the USA, that kind of rent including utilities is extremely cheap even in some of the less expensive places to live.

Having no clue whatsoever about the issue I would guess high income taxes in Scandinavian countries are reflected onto lower rents.

[Radical_Yue]

It's amazing how fast a potentially fun day off can turn into a shit filled depression-fest.

[ZephyrStar]

stuff

You're doing it right!

I also had that complaint all through school, because I wondered how in the hell my friends did it...being able to have a new car, going out to eat all the time, buying a new TV, things like that. When I was a grad student, I got something like 1,100 USD a month from my stipend. My month looked like this:

Rent: $590
Electric: $100
Cable+Internet: $100 (it was a bundle, did not want cable, but they had a monopoly there on highspeed internets)
Water: $55
Food: $100
Gasoline: $100
Left over: $50

Most of my left over went to art supplies/school stuff/random things that pop up like oil change for car. I got real creative with food, still tried to eat healthy despite having $25 a week to try and do that. Ate a lot of ramen/udon/rice. My favorite dish quickly became "rooster stew," which consists of a teaspoon of rooster sauce and a teaspoon of soy in water as a soup base, and then chopped veggies, one boiled egg, and some udon/ramen/soba noodles. Filling, cheap, and somewhat healthy. Ate lots of potatoes & oatmeal too. I'd be lucky if I'd have enough to maybe go out to eat once a month or play MTG on Fridays.

BUT (and this is very important) I graduated with zero credit card debt. When I realized that one of my friends had about $30k on his card from school, I was like No freaking wonder. So I was able to get my education fairly cheaply, because I lived like a poor student, not an entitled little bastid

;_____; sorry mang. Just remember the manatee. And the shark.