Yikes!
Ooops - we took our eyes off the ball a bit with regard to Patrick going to university this year, mainly because we've had a hundred and one other things. Anyway, the realisation has suddenly dawned the 'O week' (orientation or freshers' week) starts on February 19th at all the universities Patrick has applied to. I get back from the UK on Saturday 17th February, and the idea was that I would meet Michael in Sydney, we'd stay over one night and then go to his cousin Alysha's wedding on the Sunday. What looks like happening now is that I arrive back at Sydney Airport, if Patrick gets into the University of Queensland in Brisbane I will then hop straight onto a plane to Brisbane, and Michael will have to drive Patrick and Ella and all of Patrick's stuff up to Brisbane to meet me! Then we'll spend Sunday settling him into to a hall of residence - we're assuming he can get into one - before driving home again. All in all, a cool 900 kilometres of driving over the weekend.
This has of course crystalised our thoughts on financing Patrick through university. Here you can only get a student loan for tuition fees - in Patrick's case this should be about $5,000 or so per year. You cannot get loans for living expenses, so we will be footing the cost of all that, by paying the university directly for the hall accommodation and then giving Patrick an allowance which he will have to supplement by working. But the next hurdle is that we can't get the HECS-HELP student loan until Patrick and Michael have their tax file numbers, and since this involves surrender of passports and a lot of mucking around we haven't been able to do that yet. However, since there's a deadline of 31st March for the loan application, we now have an extra incentive to sort it out!
Patrick's biggest practical issue is that he doesn't have a driving licence, having failed to take advantage of the opportunity to get it while in the UK. It turns out that if you want a driver's licence here you have to sit a theory test, then apply for a provisional licence, then do driving lessons AND 50 hours of accompanied (and logged) driving with your parents or very good friends BEFORE you can take your test! Oh that he had done it in the UK: life would have been so much easier for him! Because of the requirement to do 50 hours of accompanied driving it takes ages to rack up enough hours to take your test. Think about it: how many hours a week would you want to spend in a car driven by your child? When you've got other commitments, a job and the family to look after? Even if we managed 5 hours a week it would take 10 weeks in addition to the driving lessons... What it means is that Patrick basically has no chance of getting a driver's licence until the next long holiday (over Christmas), if he's lucky. Or he'll have to wait until he finishes at uni.
Meanwhile, I am crossing my fingers that the remaining boxes we are awaiting dock in Sydney this week. In theory, because the duty payable was calculated on the full inventory and paid when the first lot of boxes came in, our goods should speed their way through Customs this time and proceed straight to Quarantine. I just want to get them before I got to the UK in early February, because they contain lots of stuff we had wanted to donate to Patrick for uni, and I really don't want to have to buy a load of new stuff for him when I have it all coming soon...
This has of course crystalised our thoughts on financing Patrick through university. Here you can only get a student loan for tuition fees - in Patrick's case this should be about $5,000 or so per year. You cannot get loans for living expenses, so we will be footing the cost of all that, by paying the university directly for the hall accommodation and then giving Patrick an allowance which he will have to supplement by working. But the next hurdle is that we can't get the HECS-HELP student loan until Patrick and Michael have their tax file numbers, and since this involves surrender of passports and a lot of mucking around we haven't been able to do that yet. However, since there's a deadline of 31st March for the loan application, we now have an extra incentive to sort it out!
Patrick's biggest practical issue is that he doesn't have a driving licence, having failed to take advantage of the opportunity to get it while in the UK. It turns out that if you want a driver's licence here you have to sit a theory test, then apply for a provisional licence, then do driving lessons AND 50 hours of accompanied (and logged) driving with your parents or very good friends BEFORE you can take your test! Oh that he had done it in the UK: life would have been so much easier for him! Because of the requirement to do 50 hours of accompanied driving it takes ages to rack up enough hours to take your test. Think about it: how many hours a week would you want to spend in a car driven by your child? When you've got other commitments, a job and the family to look after? Even if we managed 5 hours a week it would take 10 weeks in addition to the driving lessons... What it means is that Patrick basically has no chance of getting a driver's licence until the next long holiday (over Christmas), if he's lucky. Or he'll have to wait until he finishes at uni.
Meanwhile, I am crossing my fingers that the remaining boxes we are awaiting dock in Sydney this week. In theory, because the duty payable was calculated on the full inventory and paid when the first lot of boxes came in, our goods should speed their way through Customs this time and proceed straight to Quarantine. I just want to get them before I got to the UK in early February, because they contain lots of stuff we had wanted to donate to Patrick for uni, and I really don't want to have to buy a load of new stuff for him when I have it all coming soon...
posted by Sara Bowen at 2:34 am
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