August 29, 2013

Today I took my old keyboard to work and it definitely makes typing a lot nicer. Mechanical keyboards for the win.

It didn't really feel like I accomplished much today. The day just kind of happened. I made a sign-up sheet for MAP testing and put blank seating charts in the teachers' mailboxes for them to fill out. Testing starts the week after next and that just feels like it is way too soon. I think it is a week earlier than last year but I also think we started a week or so earlier this year so that explains that difference. To my surprise I had a few teachers sign up for times and a few turn in their seating charts. As long as I get it sometime before a class is scheduled to test it will give me time to log in all the kids but the earlier the better so I don't have to worry about it. I still don't have a permanent lab schedule up but I have been avoiding typing one up because the teachers are still trying to figure out their own schedules. I think after MAP testing I'll put up the permanent lab schedule. Which will be good for what feels like a week before the next round of testing starts.

I continued to work on inputting guardian information into my student directory. I'm using the sheets that parents/guardians filled out during enrollment instead of Infinite Campus which kind of sucks. I'm not only having to decipher sloppy handwriting but the information is also incomplete and I don't know what the relationship is to the student. But whatever.

There was an assembly today but I opted out. It had felt like I was going non-stop all day, bouncing from one thing to the next (classes in the lab, an hour in the lunchroom which felt like at least four, more classes in the lab) and I had just gotten the chance to sit down and eat lunch. I needed a break. And the assembly was Agent G, teaching kids about bullying through displays of karate, like jumping over people and breaking boards. All that makes kids want to do is jump around and punch things. And then claim everything is bullying, like a kid cutting in line or not sharing a crayon. I'm not a big fan and most of the teachers aren't either. And the dude putting on the assembly (who is a textbook case for a Napoleon-complex) pretty much bullies teachers into volunteering by getting all the kids to yell and pressure them into doing it. One older para apparently ended up with a giant bruise on her elbow from several attempts to break a board and I was talking to the second grade teacher afterward and she said it hurt enough that she probably would have cried if she wasn't up in front of the whole school. It's a great message for the kids.

After school I texted the new volunteer kid to see if we were hanging out but he had a football scrimmage so that was a no. I asked if there was a better day of the week for visits but I guess the football schedule is still kind of up in the air so who knows. Fingers crossed for a visit next week because we're going on two weeks without one. Not that it really matters because there really isn't a case anymore so his need for an advocate in the courtroom really isn't there anymore. And I do hope that the need does not arise again and that the kid can age out of the system without incident.

I got the other pictures I ordered in the mail today. And I managed to find a frame online for the one I want to give my dad. It is four inches bigger on all sides, meaning a two inch mat instead of the one inch that I wanted, but it was way cheaper than having a frame custom made. At least based on online custom frame prices. I got the frame on Amazon but it wasn't eligible for Prime 2-day shipping so it won't make it here by my dad's birthday on Sunday, but it isn't out of the norm for him to take months to get presents or birthday cards to me on my birthday so I don't feel too bad. I'll just get him a birthday card for the day of, if I'm actually going to see him. I have no idea what his plans are.

Tonight I played more Saints Row 4 and watched YouTube videos. Real productive stuff. My goal is to get to bed as close to ten o'clock as possible so maybe I will be more willing to wake up and exercise in the morning. I full exercise, not just the half-assed stuff I have been doing. I know that if I can't get in the habit now when my room isn't freezing in the morning, I'm going to be a lost cause when winter comes. Although that doesn't see like it will be any time soon considering it was humid and over one hundred degrees today and it is supposed to be worse tomorrow. Anyway, I'm going to bed.