UPDATE 8/14/18; 8:28 p.m. PST
Running Total: $784 raised :-D
Amount left: $116
I have enough to pay the rent, and most of what I need to pay utililities, etc.
Thank you for your help so far
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This diary is an appeal for assistance
If you aren’t interested in this sort of diary, please move on. Thank you.
I will outline my current and near future need, my justification, and my future plans to gain financial independence. I’ll start with a summary of my needs, then talk about some plans for my future, and then go into more detail about my life, which you can skip if you want.
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First, here’s a summary of what I need:
I need $900 in order to pay for my August housing, utilities, and gas-to-get-to-work financial needs. I will need another $1000 in September. Briefly, this is because I work as a substitute teacher, and I have not worked at all this summer. More on this later in this post. Links to help are below.
If you can’t contribute, please REC, TIP, COMMENT and SHARE to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. You may reach someone who can. Even a comment saying “good luck” helps keep this diary in the queue.
Anyone lurking or just passing by, please take a moment to rec, tip, and comment. It can mean all the difference in more Kossacks seeing this fundraiser. Thank you!
Thank you for your continuing assistance.
PayPal (James at JamesThomasGreen dot com) |OR| GoFundMe
Pet Supplies Amazon Wishlist (feed my dogs and cats)
Kosmail me for my postal address or other options
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FUTURE PLANS FOR FINANCES:
I am a 57-year-old disabled person. I have spent much of my life in non-money-making ways (see next section), and my future is very uncertain, and me dying homeless is a real possibility. I am trying to do what I can to keep that from happening.
I intend to apply for a multi-subject teaching credential at CSU Monterey Bay combined with an internship program. This means that if I’m successful, I will be getting my own classroom and paid as a full teacher by next fall.
I have great skill in graphic design and video production. Some of you have seen the various cartoon/memes I've been posting. I’m going to expand the type and number of those memes, and use Patreon to get income from that production. More on that in a future diary, as well as links in future posts.
I’m in the process of setting up a YouTube channel called “Mister Green’s Ad Hoc Lessons” wherein I will teach brief lessons with a target audience being about 4th grade.
I’m in the process of setting up a YouTube channel called “Critters of Casa de Verde”, wherein I shall post videos about my various pets, dogs, cats, as well as “visitors” like the opossums and birds, as well as my past pets. Note, Casa de Verde is House of Green, as my last name is Green.
I’m in the process of setting up a YouTube channel and genealogy service called JTGenealogy (JTG + Genealogy). I will talk about genealogy research, and how we all are related if we go back far enough. I’ll trace the ancestry of people who want me to do so.
There’s more, watch for diaries announcing these as they become available.
BACKSTORY of my LIFE
Some of you know much of my backstory, so you can skip this if you wish, or read through for new information, and to those to whom I am a new or existing unknown, welcome to my life.
I am 57 and live alone in Salinas California. I am partially disabled due to a combination of being a cancer survivor with a permanent colostomy, multiple large surgical hernias, diabetic, and weigh about 400 pounds, down from a max of about 600 pounds. In the past few years, I have had multiple cases of pneumonia and infections during which I continued to work anyway because no work means no pay and no pay means homelessness. I had part of my right foot amputated, and I still have infections that I have to watch carefully so they don’t cause me to lose the rest of that foot. In fact, my doctor recently told me I need to lose about 150 pounds or I may not live more than another 5-10 years because I’m showing signs of kidney and liver failure. I’m trying but it’s not easy, especially given the financial and other stresses I’m under. I’ll post more about that in a separate diary.
I was the caregiver for my elderly father until he died. I was his caregiver after he was my caregiver. In 2000, he went into a three-month coma. He came out of his coma in part because I refused to allow his medical support to be terminated and for the next fifteen years, I took care of him. I still have a great deal of grief over his passing, and even now as I type, tears are welling in my eyes. That’s also a big story for another diary.
My family abandoned me following Dad’s death. Without going into details, the massive ongoing family dysfunction has both my siblings and cousins informing me they will never help me with “one red cent”, although they could if they wanted. The fifteen years of being with Dad almost every day helping him amount to nothing to them. That’s another story for another time.
After Dad died, I had a difficult time getting employed. I had not worked in a paycheck job for a couple of decades due to having been Dad’s caregiver, and before that, I was an engineering student, but I had to drop out due to my own cancer diagnosis. As an aside, I would likely now have experiments flying on the space station and be working on ways to mine the asteroids had I not gotten cancer. My initial diagnosis was 90% death within five years, but I survived not out of miracles, but because at the time of my diagnosis, new and effective treatments were available that had not been previously available. I like to say that I didn’t beat the odds, the odds changed.
I came close to homelessness several times, and that is still a real fear and possibility for me.
All this has given me a sometimes-crushing depression and at times it’s difficult to see how I can go on. I’ve had the kind of depression that sometimes makes the future seem a dark pit from which hope for any happiness has evaporated. If not for my critters, I might have given up long ago. I’m working on a diary on depression.
I finally stumbled onto substitute teaching, and that was my saving, at least for now.
Herein I shall give you an update on my status as a substitute teacher, my future plans for getting a full credential.
I have not worked this summer as substitute teaching jobs in the summer are few and far between.
This begins my third year as a substitute teacher. School has begun, but there aren’t many sub assignments in the first couple of weeks of each year, and in fact, this year is starting out slower with assignments than the past two. I’ve got an assignment next Wednesday in a “Special Day Class”, which is a combination of students with learning disabilities, traumatized students, as well as behavior problem students. Hopefully, long-term, I will work almost every day until next May.
I am applying for a full credential and internship program to start next Fall.
The past few years have been among the worst of my life, starting after my father died after me being his caregiver for fifteen years. I am partially disabled with multiple surgical hernias and a partial amputation of my right foot. I am a cancer survivor and have a permanent colostomy and I am approaching my 25th year. In the past couple of years, I have had multiple cases of pneumonia and infections, during which time I went to work anyway. More about that in a future post.
After dad died, I had a lot of economic difficulties. I had not worked consistently in a paycheck job for about 30 years because I had been a university student, then I was a caregiver for my mother in her final days, and then I had cancer with an initially dire prognosis, but I survived, and then I was Dad’s caregiver for the final fifteen years of his life. Employers were not impressed and I applied for about 200 jobs and got almost nothing. More on that in a future post.
I stumbled into Substitute teaching, which is one of the few professions where having 12 college degrees doesn’t get many employers to back away.
This fall, I had hoped to get hired as a “provisional teacher”, meaning I could be hired as a full teacher with my own classroom of students, but that didn’t happen, probably due to a combination of enough people with credentials combined with being bilingual, which is either a requirement or a strong preference in all local districts.
I have a little hope that I might be hired as a “super sub” with one of my districts. It’s probably a long shot as the super-sub positions are more sought after due to higher pay, and they also want people with full credentials and bilingual, but I’m putting in my app anyway.
There’s a lot more I could write, and this document will be the basis of a much more expansive diary updating my teaching status and my life soon. I’ve been intending to post a full diary about my teaching situation, but things keep being uncertain and changing, but with the new year beginning next week, things should stabilize soon and I will post that and several other status diaries in the near future.
OK, that’s a ramble. If you read through all that, thanks. I could go on and on, and probably will in the future. For now, Thank you all for your support.
#jtg
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(-: * * * * * * * * * * * * * :-)
Summary of what I need:
I need $900 in order to pay for my August housing, utilities, and gas-to-get-to-work financial needs. I will need another $1000 in September. Briefly, this is because I work as a substitute teacher, and I have not worked at all this summer. More on this later in this post. Links to help are below.
If you can’t contribute, please REC, TIP, COMMENT and SHARE to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. You may reach someone who can.
Thank you for your continuing assistance.
PayPal (James at JamesThomasGreen dot com) |OR| GoFundMe
Pet Supplies Amazon Wishlist (feed my dogs and cats)
Kosmail me for my postal address or other options
(-: * * * * * * * * * * * * * :-)
Tuesday, Aug 14, 2018 · 10:38:42 PM +00:00 · jtg
As of now, I've raised enough to cover my rent. I still need money to cover my utilities. If this campaign doesn’t cover that, I’ll post a part 2 on Sunday at 11:15 a.m. I will also tell the story of how I kept my father alive by not letting his doctors terminate his life support prematurely. In other words, it won’t be merely another appeal diary.
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I want to thank those of you who have helped so far in whatever ways you could.
This has been a very emotionally exciting day as I sit here watching the funds and comments while my puppies and kitties keep pushing under my hands as I type to get attention.
I feel myself feeling lightheaded and a bit giddy at the turnout, which I did not really expect. I have been feeling a massive depression lately with the feeling that the future was ultimately a black hole and I might one day soon die homeless and sick, especially after my doctor told me if I don't lose about 150 pounds and change my diabetes, I won’t last much longer than 5 years. I’ve been more worried about what would happen to my critters after I’m gone than in my own survival. I've been working on a diary about depression, in part stimulated by several other kossack diaries. Wow, I got dark there.
Thanks again. I need to go out for a while but I will be back in a couple of hours.
#jtg
Wednesday, Aug 15, 2018 · 3:45:08 AM +00:00
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jtg
Running Total:
$784 raised :-D
Amount left: $116
This is very good news, it’s almost enough to cover all my bills.
I think this is close enough that even if no more come in, I will forgo a part 2 campaign and save my energy and karma for September when I know I will need help. I will simply have to decide which bills will go overdue and hope I can make a double payment next month. I will not have many sub assignments this month and I only have two assignments scheduled, and they are next week. This year is starting slowly as by this point last year I had about ten subbing assignments scheduled.
I think the September campaign will be on the first Saturday or Sunday of September. If necessary, I may need to do one in January due to half of December being break time.
Thanks everyone for your help. This has been a huge emotional and spiritual twist for me and I’m very grateful.
#jtg