This diary is an update on my life, including my ongoing adventures in substitute teaching, getting my teaching credential, my critters, along with a request for financial assistance.
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O’hai
Ffor those of you who are only here to contribute, here is this month’s needs summary due to the December/January Winter Break unemployment due to no classes to substitute teach.
$1200
Links are at the end of this diary.
JUSTIFICATION: Holiday breaks are essentially unpaid unemployment for me as a substitute teacher. This is what I need for the December/January shortfall for living expenses, power/heat. It has been rather cold here in Salinas and I’ve had to use gas heating almost every night and even during the days when I am home on weekends. In past years I tried to get by without using the heat to save money, but the constant respiratory issues made that counterproductive.
This year the heat has been especially important as I had kidney stone removal surgery over the break and I spent an extended time in intense pain with other unpleasant fecal side effects. I had more serious side effects than had been expected and I spent many days sitting in a chair because lying in a bed was too painful to endure.
I had such intense abdominal pain that I had to keep my eager critters from lying on me as their 10-20 pounds (each) of fuzzy love was too much to endure, and they looked at me with confusion when I pushed them off me.
TMI ALERT AHEAD: Even as type this, I can still feel the lingering kidney pain along with abdominal pain caused by not having a BM for over a week. I now flow freely, but I am still sore from all the spasms and distortions from too-full bowels due to high doses of oxycodone. (BTW, this is the first time I’ve ever taken Oxy and I can see how destructive it can be to someone who gets hooked on it.)
During this time the pain was constant, 24 hours a day and it never ended. It was not the worst pain of my life, which would be the pain of my colostomy in 1994, but the neverendingness of it sapped my will to do anything but exist.
Also, I had two nights of sleep study during this time to be evaluated for a CPAP machine. In retrospect doing the sleep study while on Oxycodone and in intense kidney pay was probably not the best idea, but I had scheduled it during the break so that it would not interfere with my work/substitute teaching schedule.
The first night of the study I was wired without the CPAP, and the second night I wore a CPAP.
I should be getting my CPAP in the next few weeks.
Substitute Teaching: As I type, I have begun to substitute teach again with the new spring semester, having already done a couple of days in a preschool special education class in which fortunately I was only a backup for a newly hired teacher with little to do and a restroom right next door for me to use frequently. The start of every semester is always a bit anxious for me as I slowly fill up my schedule with assignments. Often there are few assignments in the first couple and last couple of weeks of each semester, but so far it looks Iike I will be employed almost every day for the next few months, at least until the Spring break.
I went to one school which I had been to many times in previous years but had not gone back this school year yet. My assignments are a random thing that depends upon what comes up on the computer, and I had not avoided this school, but I was always booked elsewhere. I had a sixth-grade class where about two-thirds of the student had me at least once before and they remembered and liked me. One student said to me that I was the best teacher she had ever had. That is a rather common reaction among students :-D.
Teaching Credential Status:
I will be writing in more detail in a future diary about my teaching credential.
This is a brief summary of my current status. I have taken the spring semester as a leave of absence to return in the Fall semester. During this time I will be searching for either an internship or a student teaching placement for fall.
I have discovered that the two-year-paid-internship pathway is not nearly as simple as I had initially thought. For one thing, I now know that schools must, by law, hire applicants with existing credentials and may only then look to intern teachers after all credentialed applicants have been exhausted. This automatically has placed me at the back of the list. I knew that credentialed applicants would get preference, but I did not know it was a state law that they are selected first until a few weeks ago. In a sense, it is a relief to know this law because now I have an explanation for why so many applications I have submitted and interviews I have attended have come to nothing but learning experiences. In short, they have not been rejecting me, but my lack of a credential.
Another factor is that nearly every local district puts in bold type in their announcements BILINGUAL PREFERED, and my Spanish is not anywhere near bilingual. So after all the credentialed applicants have been exhausted, then all the bilingual interns will be exhausted, so I’m at the back of two lists. Then comes less obvious factors like would they pick a 60-year-old 375-pound fat man over a 20-something new teacher graduate-it is not something I could prove but it could be a hidden factor in some cases.
Still, I have not given up on the internship pathway, but I am going to try to raise enough finances and financial commitments to go through the one-year unpaid student teaching pathway rather than the two-year paid internship pathway. I am exploring various funding sources and i will be writing more about those options in future months.
MY CRITTERS: The critters are all doing well. They have been keeping me sane throughout all the drama and pain I’ve been going through. They are often the only things that have kept me going and getting up and moving because if I don’t feed them they don’t get fed.
Perhaps because I was home every day and I was in such obvious pain both the dogs and the cats have seemed extra affectionate. Na’at, my younger cat, had been going through a phase where she didn’t want to be touched, but recently will frequently jump on me and purr loudly and nibble on my fingers if I don’t start petting her right away. As I’ve been typing this I have had to stop several times to pet my doggos who need frequent love. This morning I awoke with all of them in my bed, and Zorrita lying on her back next to me for belly rubs while she kissed me on the nose and Apophis laid on top of me purring and others were under the covers with me.
I thank those of you who have sent food and I am set with dry dog and cat food for at least a couple of months, but canned dog & cat food are always welcome, as are such extras as flea ointments as they are getting covered with itchy fleas.
And now you know more than you ever thought possible.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
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Friday, Feb 7, 2020 · 4:41:22 AM +00:00
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jtg
RUNNING TOTAL:
Goal: $1200.00
Raised: $1040.00
Remainder: $0060.00
FEB ADD: $0150.00
NEW NEED: $0210.00
{I am adding $150 because I had a larger than expected heating bill because Dec/Jan was very cold here and I was home almost every day during the break post-kidney-surgery and I used the heater Day & Night during that time & Nights and weekends since.}
LINKS:
ORIGINAL NEEDS DIARY
PayPal (James -at- JamesThomasGreen.com)
GoFundMe • Ko-Fi • Amazon Pet Wishlist • Patreon
Kosmail for postal address
Monday, Feb 10, 2020 · 2:37:18 PM +00:00
·
jtg
RUNNING TOTAL:
Goal: $1200.00
Raised: $1040.00
Remainder: $0060.00
FEB ADD: $0150.00
NEW NEED: $0210.00
{I have added $150 because I had a larger than expected heating bill because Dec/Jan was very cold here and I was home almost every day during the break post-kidney-surgery and I used the heater Day & Night during that time & Nights and weekends since.} I will be posting a new need diary in a couple of days.
LINKS:
ORIGINAL NEEDS DIARY
PayPal (James -at- JamesThomasGreen.com)
GoFundMe • Ko-Fi • Amazon Pet Wishlist • Patreon
Kosmail for postal address