Updated: Teaching update, Life, Critters, & Thankful for Kossacks

Greetings.

Herein I am going to give a brief update on my substitute teaching efforts as well as my progress towards getting a full teaching credential so that I can one day soon get my own classroom.

I am very thankful for the Kossack community, PWB Peeps, Villagers, and more. I have not been as diligent at sending out thanks as I should have been. Without you, I am not sure where I would be, if I would be anywhere at all. I haven't been as diligent at keeping up with posting my status or giving thanks for your support but I am greatly thankful.

First, I want to ask for your help in getting through the next couple of months, and I’ll go into justification and a summary of my life and future teaching credential plans afterward. Due to the Thanksgiving break and no work, I will be $600 short in December, and the winter break over December and January will leave me about $1500 short for January and February expenses. I’m asking for $600 help to meet my December shortfall, and I will do another campaign in January for that shortfall.  

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Also, I’m going to do a live stream on YouTube today at 2:00 p.m., Pacific time. You’ll be able to see me be dominated by my critters, and I’ll talk more about my life, status, future plans, and the critters of course. You can ask me questions there as well. I may also do another live stream this evening on Facebook if there’s interest. Watch for an update to this diary for that.

Now some brief backstory: 

The past few years since my father died have been very hard on me. I had been my father’s caregiver for about fifteen years after he had been my caregiver following a potentially-terminal cancer diagnosis a few weeks after my mother’s death from lung cancer.

I am a 59-year-old male who currently weighs about 370 pounds, down about 50 pounds in the last few months and going down; more on that later. I have multiple health problems including diabetes and have had multiple infections, although the weight loss is helping to reduce that. I was my father’s caregiver for about 15 years, a duty I undertook after he was MY caregiver after I had major cancer surgery and a colostomy in 1994, and potentially could have died as my initial diagnosis, based on the stats and treatments up until then, were that I had a 90% chance of dying within five years. New chemotherapy drugs and surgical techniques and the luck of an excellent caring surgeon are why I’m still here. I like to say that I didn’t “beat the odds”, but rather “the odds changed”. One illustration of this was that a few months after my surgery when I was sure death was only a matter of time before cancer returned, I met another person with the same cancer in the same place and the same surgery, but different chemotherapy. He was then in his last stages of life, and he told me “people like you are going to live because people like me died”, meaning that the doctors learned what not to do based on people like him not surviving, i.e. they learned what doesn’t work. He died a few months later, and I regret that I never wrote his name down to remember him now.

Dad’s Caregiver:

In 2000, Dad had open heart surgery. While the surgery was a success, he got an infection and went into a months-long coma. I refused to allow his life support to be cut off, and to make a long story short, he eventually came out of his coma and while mentally he came back, physically he was weak and I was his caregiver until he died in 2015. I’ll be posting more about his later too, as writing his life story is a big priority for me.

Democratic Activism:

I have been a Democratic activist for a long time. I am the secretary of the Monterey County Democratic Central Committee, and I was recently re-elected to the position of Delegate to the California Democratic Party, which means I go once again, as I have done for over 14 years, to the California State Convention.

Teaching Updates:

I have been working as a substitute teacher for the past few years. I’ve taught every level from pre-school to high school, and many different classes ranging from “regular” students to behavior-problem classes to “Special” classes with autistic and other disabled students.

I find being a substitute teacher a greatly rewarding job, but it doesn’t pay much, both in terms of daily pay, but also in that over holidays and breaks (summer and winter), there is zero pay. I have had to ask for help in the past as I am one financial crisis, extended illness, accident, fall, or other random blamo from disaster, as are many people.  After that, I should be OK until April when the Spring Break comes in and then next summer when I will (hopefully) begin classes to get my teaching credential begins. I will determine how much help I’ll need, if any, I’ll need next summer. It will be a combination of my living expenses along with about $3300 Tuition for my first semester. 

If all goes well, after next summer, I hope as part of my credential program, I’ll be part of an “internship” program, where I will be placed into my own classroom as “teacher of record”, and my income will more than double and, barring future major crisis, I will not need to ask for help anymore. 

When I get home after a day of running after schoolkids, I often come home and pass out in my chair and sleep until it's time to go to work again, and sleep has been my dominant activity outside of work. I rarely go anywhere beyond work or shopping or democratic meetings. The bulk of my food comes from haunting the local food banks, which in Salinas generally means lost of salad and other produce, with some canned vegetables, pasta, and peanut butter. It’s a bland diet but I have survived on it.

JTG’s CRITTERS!!!

I have an amazon wishlist with pet food and supplies on it. If you can send me pet food and other items, it helps me conserve my scarce funds.

Conclusion:

I could go on, and I probably will at some point on many aspects of what I say here. For now, thank you for whatever you can do. 

If you can’t contribute directly, please help boost this post by clicking REC and TIP, and SHARE this diary to your social media.

I am not expecting contributions from people who are in distress themselves. I know there are many people in greater need than I. For example, my cousin lost his house in the Paradise family, losing everything he had, as did several other people here in Kosland. 

I am hopeful that I am on a path to not needing regular help, but I am now like someone who is swimming towards land after a shipwreck. I can see land and safety ahead, but there is still quite a long way to go, and I could go under within sight of the beach. 

Thank you again.

#jtg

Please Support my Diaries, Activism and Activities

REC, TIP, COMMENT, SHARE This Post

 GoFundMe• PayPal (James at JamesThomasGreen.com)• Patreon

Amazon Wishlists:  Pet Supplies • Clothing• Holiday/Birthday

Follow Me: DKos• YouTube• Facebook• Twitter