April 18, 2013

Today was a good day. State Assessments are finished for the week, it will be nice to have tomorrow off. Next week we have two classes taking their three Math assessments, two classes taking two Science assessments, and at least a few classes starting the MAP test. I'm sick of testing.

I continued working on recreating World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros., the NES version. Now I think I am going to have that on the bottom and then have the sky turn to night and have Space Invaders or Galaga up there. Or maybe just have the sky black to begin with. I don't know, I have a ways to go before I get there. On a slightly different note I've been watching a playthrough of Evoland on YouTube and it really wakes me want to play Zelda: Ocarina Of Time. I can't decide if I want to plug my N64 in or if I should try to find an emulator. I'll probably do neither.

I had a fifth grader stop me in the hall today with the statement “Question: Were you a nerd when you were a kid?” I said I like reading, video games, and computers, so I was a nerd and a geek and I still was. He responded that he didn't like any of that stuff but he liked Star Trek and writing stories. I said that sounded pretty nerdy and welcomed him to the club but then he said he had been a nerd longer than I had. I told him I was born a long time ago and he said he had used the teleporter from the original Star Trek. So I guess he wins? It was an interesting conversation.

At one point during the day the librarian peeked her head in the lab to see who was around and then came in wearing a mask and carrying a lighter, and asked if she had missed the bonfire. Hilarious.

There was an assembly today for the kindergarteners who had a performance tonight. They sang songs and recited the lines from a book. It was pretty great. I learned during the second grade assembly that I love little kids trying to do choreographed dances. The kindergarteners did not change my opinion on this. At one point they do there wiggle worm dance and some of the kids really got into it. They kind of looked like the inflatable dudes they have on car lots. At least on car lots on TV. I mentioned this to the principal afterward and she made an It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia reference. She just got cooler.

As always, my para friend and I put the chairs away after the assembly. Along with some help from a few other people, but mostly the principal. The kids had been helping recently but they all abandoned us today. My para friend brought up the letter I wrote to the President about needed a pay raise for putting the chairs away, to the principal, who wanted to see it. So I printed it off for her and she laughed the whole way through. Along with the email I sent out yesterday, she wants to know why I'm not a published writer. We ended up talking a little while about my interest in going to graduate school to become a librarian, how I spent most of my fourth grade year sitting in the back of the class facing the back wall, and how I stopped talking in seventh grade and then was voted Most Quiet senior year. It was actually a really good conversation.

After school we had a meeting in the library about the school district switching to Windows 7 and Office 2010 over the summer. They talked briefly about that and showed us how to archive email and backup important stuff to the server. My main purpose for being there was to make sure I could help people with inevitable questions in the near future. I learned that the librarian had an email in her inbox from 2005 and that the principal had 10,000 emails in her inbox (which she had recently trimmed down from 12,000). That is insane.

The meeting lasted about an hour and when it was over, I came home to eat dinner before going to the kindergarten performance. I went with my mom and sister and it was just as good the second time. I still love the wiggle worm dance. There were several parents filming and if it ends up on YouTube I might have it on repeat for awhile.

Right after getting home from that I called the new volunteer kid and then was accidentally hung up on. The foster dad handed the phone to the kid and said talk, and he immediately hit the End button, thinking he hit the Talk button because he also thought the foster dad meant for him to call me. He was confused. So I called him back and then headed over there. We went to Sonic as per usual and talked about Chemistry and Math for about forty-five minutes. The stuff he is learned all sounds vaguely familiar but I'm glad I don't have to deal with it anymore. I showed him something I figured out today, which may be common knowledge but I had never seen it before and it just sort of came to me while I was lost in my head during assessments today.

The thing I realized involved multiplying numbers by themselves, and how to figure out the next answer if you are doing it in your head and only know the previous answer. For an example I'll take 3x3, which equals 9. But lets say you don't know 4x4. If you add 3+4, and then add that to the product of 3x3, you get the answer to 4x4, which is 16. So, 3+4 = 7, 9 + 7 = 16. To go up higher you have 11x11 = 121. 11 + 12 = 23, 121 + 23 = 144, which is the answer to 12 x 12. I did it up to 18 (and just checked 24 and 25) and it was still working so I don't know if it always works or if there is a point where it doesn't. I found this pretty interesting.

Now I am waiting for the theater to close so I can go get a bag of popcorn for tomorrow. The kindergarten classes are having a free day because they have been working so hard to get ready for the performance. I also think the fourth grade classes might be having a movie day. I'm not sure if they were doing it after they finished the Math assessment (which they both have) or if they were waiting for the Science assessment, which is next week. Either way, I should have enough popcorn for the entire school.