Thank you Gerber. Yeah, money is a significant issue for me. Living of student scholarship is pretty hard going... Especially when we are expected to do various things to be positively contributing to the department and those things cost money. I should say that the proffs and visitors here are really very terrific with subsidising students out of their own pockets (with respect to conference dinners and the like which are networking opportunities mainly) but it really can be hard going...

I think I'm in the financial %#@&#! as it is with only one pay before I'm off to conference in NZ and I've still got accomodation and conference registration to pay for eep!!! (And yes I've used up all my departmental budget just with flights).

I simply couldn't afford to see him without the sliding scale. I could pay him more during the first semester of the year but the second semester is always really very tight with conferences and stuff where we need to contribute significantly even though it is subsidised significantly.

When I had just arrived here I phoned a couple of clinical psychologists and asked about whether they had sliding scale student rates to offer to students living off scholarship with no other source of funds. The best they could do was $100 per session which is basically one third of my weekly income. There was simply no way I could afford to do that. I literally couldn't have afforded to eat even if I ceased with departmental activities altogether (hence cutting off my chances of ever getting a proper job) :-(

So... He really has been wonderful to me. I told him that I really didn't mean to take advantage of his generosity or anything like that. But I do feel bad, rather. Questioning my motivation etc. That really is a great idea about sending off one claim. I could do them one at a time and see how many they do before kicking up a stink lol. Sending one would be manageable. Sending 60 or so... Just fills me with terror.