There is now a Paypal donation button on the blog. 

http://conventioneering.org/help-out/

(You will probably have to scroll a bit to see it, sorry)

Now, I gave one version of the story on the blog, which is the official, clean version. I will give another here.

I hate asking for help. I hate asking for funds, for handouts, for aid, it feels weak. I pride myself on my ability to stand on my own, without help. 

Sometimes, I need help.

November’s going to be a rough month for me. I will explain via bullet points:

• In October, my phone died. I needed a new one, and unfortunately because of my jobs, I needed a smartphone. That was expensive. 
• Also in October, I was cut off from my food stamps (Hey, I’m on food stamps, fun fact). I managed to get them reinstated, but I will not be getting new ones until the 15th, and I don’t have many left. I like being able to eat. It’s pretty awesome. 
• I have two neuropsych appointments scheduled because my school won’t give me accommodations or prescribe the medications I need for my ADHD unless I have recent proof of my condition. I also need to get my generalized anxiety disorder checked up on, as well as to see if I do in fact have Seasonal Affective as I suspect. While I have insurance, it isn’t very good, and this will be expensive.
• Also expensive will be my drugs, if I am allowed to get them. 
• More importantly, I have to miss a day of work to go to this appointment. I might have to miss two days, depending on how long the first one takes.
• Additionally, in doing research for my book, which is for my thesis, I have to miss another day of work. 
• Because I work for a college, I won’t get to work at all over Thanksgiving Break, as there’s nothing for my department to do. While I love having holidays, I also like having money, and this cuts me out of two days (I work two jobs to about a total of 23 hours a week, and most of my hours are on Fridays… which is the day I keep having to miss.)  
• I already struggle to survive, I have huge student loan debt (like everyone), and before all this happened I was struggling to break even. 
• December will be just as bad, as there is about a two week-ish period when there is, again, no work to be done. 

I thought very carefully before coming to Le Internets for assistance. I’ve done everything I can to make up my work hours, to try to get extra hours, to find ways to make a little extra to make up for it but in the end, I can’t. The budget doesn’t balance, and I am far in the red. 

This isn’t an emergency, I’m not in need of surgery or anything (I hope), so don’t feel too obligated. I can’t offer much in return, unfortunately, I’m not a good artist and I can’t make deadlines, and I don’t have the time to write customized short stories for everyone. What I can promise is more updates to conventioneering.org, continued posts and content from here, and so on. If I get enough money, in fact, it’ll help me to go to more conventions and thus help with my research, ensuring that blog posts will come more than once every six months. So hey! More content, it will happen. 

You don’t have to give much; even $5 would be super helpful. 

I’m sorry I have to ask this. If you can help, you have my eternal gratitude.