I survived meeting my daughter

So we had coffee at a coffee shop she likes. I wasn't that impressed with it when they bought out some water and after we poured some into a cup there was a bloody great hair in it. Ack. Anyway it broke the ice and a bit of a laugh.

We talked about what had been happening with each of us. She was saying there's huge changes to TAFE happening. She's nearly finished her course luckily, but the fees have gone from only a few hundred for the course to if you enrol this year it's now $14,000! WTF? I asked who the fuck is going to be able to afford that? Nobody will go, TAFE will end up an empty shell. Apparently they can get access to HECS to pay it. Imagine that, having to take on a HECS student debt just for TAFE FFS!

She's still with her boyfriend of some time now, the same one that she was with when she was here. The video things she wanted I found an old DVD disk at home that the neighbour had transferred a tape or two onto of when she was born and came home. So I uploaded it to YouTube. Told her her birth had been immortalised forever on YouTube. Unless the world comes to an end and YouTube losses all it's content it can be watched there to her hearts content. She'd still like some of the other ones, I suggested she find a place that does it professionally and she pay for the transfer.

I spoke about the bullshit Housing dept, the bullshit HESTA super fund that left us completely destitute for two weeks, and the greatness of the Australian Super fund. About how we had to go to Vinnies charity for food and help with bills. She looked pretty shocked. They don't have a heater, just dona blankets in the lounge. I said that at my stage of life there's health issues involved in being freezing cold. You know that the average life of a homeless person is only about 50, as their body has to work so much harder to stay warm in the cold.

We talked for half an hour or so and agreed to meet again at some point. Still won't tell me where she lives (I suspect somewhere very near that cafe) but has me all unblocked now on everything. No apologies over the way she'd behaved through all of this, no money for cleaning up her room after she left it in a pigsty. Oh well, can't expect too much I guess.

She also sent another pic of Felix later on :)