March 11, 2013

 Today didn't really feel like a Monday. It seems like it should be somewhere in the middle of the week already. We'll get there soon enough.

There was one state assessment this morning and then there was the rest of my boring day. I just missed literacy centers with kindergarten and when I went to check on my second grade literacy group the class wasn't in the room. So I was bored off my ass until lunch. My day wasn't too exciting after lunch but I had a four classes, the fifth being a no-show.

I spent my downtime looking at reviews for the Nexus 7. I think over Spring Break I am going to give my iPad (which was given to me by the school so it isn't really mine) to the kindergarten teacher who didn't get the memo when they were handing out the iPads. I only got it because the principal wanted me to be familiar with it so I could help out the teachers if they had questions about them. That time has pretty much passed and I don't really uses the iPad much anymore. I occasionally play games on it but not often. The most useful thing I use it for is to write my journal on when I'm at the theater on Friday and Saturday night. So I am thinking I'll let the kindergarten teacher take the iPad for the week and if she likes it I can erase everything off of it and let her have it. Then I can eventually get the Nexus 7, maybe as a birthday present to myself. It will be slightly more portable and I can get a case/keyboard which will make writing my journals easier.

I am also thinking about getting the new Kindle Paperwhite. In my mind, if you buy a book on Amazon, you should get the Kindle version for free. Kind of like what they do with CDs now, where if you get the physical CD you get most or all of the songs in digital format for free. If that were the case with books I would definitely get a Kindle. Without that, I think that maybe the Kindle would be good for books I am interested in reading but don't see myself reading more than once. That way I wouldn't add more books to my multiple stacks that I don't intend to read again. I have spoken with a couple of the teachers at school who both used to have a lot of books but they said as they got older the books turned into more of an inconvenience when it came to space or when they moved, so they have whittled down their collections. I currently have over well over 750 books and I want way more, but it seems like it would be smart to maybe slow down on buying physical books. Maybe save it for books I really like. I don't know. I'm still thinking about it.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos and played video games. I finally beat 10,000,000 and then tried out a couple other games. Not exactly in alphabetical order like I mentioned before but close. First I tried Alien Swarm, a game from an indie bundle. It is a top-down, isometric shooter type of game and it was actually pretty fun. I ended up getting my ass handed to me in the final wave of aliens but I still had fun and the game looked pretty cool. Then I tried out Ceville, a point-and-click game where you play a squat little tyrant king trying to escape from a rebellion. I got it for a couple bucks awhile ago because I was on a point-and-click kick and it sounded pretty funny. And it is funny. I still suck at point-and-click games but I am having fun clicking on everything until I finally get something that works. I would like to put some more time into it at some point.

The next three days will have three assessments each. I'm not looking forward to standing for over three hours watching kids take tests. It is going to be a long three days.