December 30, 2013

A less than productive day. I was going to look seriously into graduate school today but I didn't make it any further than reading the websites for a few of the schools I am looking at. I always get tripped up when the application essay wants me to write about my reason for applying and future goals. And when I need to talk about the most important issue concerning libraries today. For the personal statement, I'm lost. I don't like talking about myself to begin with, and on top of that, I have no clue about my future. I just want to be a librarian and work someplace and learn new things every day. I don't think that will be sufficient or articulate enough for a personal statement.

And with the rest of my day I didn't really do anything. I have a severe lack of personal motivation. It is insane and I hate it. When I know there is something I could or should be doing, I can easily sit and stare at nothing for hours on end, completely lost in my head. Rather than working to improve myself, I want a motivation pill. Or someone with a cattle prod.

Tonight I drove around with my mom and sister to look at Christmas lights. There were still quite a few up but it seemed like a lot had already been taken down. I think the world would be a better place if Christmas lights were up all year. That should be a requirement.

After getting home I finished up the Battlefield 4 singleplayer campaign. I enjoyed it but it was incredibly short. There are three different endings, not major because they happen in the last thirty seconds of the game, but I want to go back and get the other two because I get an achievement for it. Unfortunately you have to play through the entire last level over again, I can't just start from my last checkpoint. So there is a chance I won't go back and play it, but I also want to play the game again, maybe run through on Easy, so I can collect all the hidden dog tags. I got a couple but then I stopped going too far out of my way to look for them.

December 29, 2013

This morning I got up and around 12:30PM I went and picked up my sister and we went over to my dad's house for the last Christmas thing of the year. My aunt, uncle, and grandma were already there and lunch was ready shortly after we got there. I had vegetable soup, a cheese sandwich, coleslaw, a bunch of vegetables, and a couple strawberries.

After lunch we opened presents. Rather than opening one and moving to the next person, each person opened everything they had before moving onto the next person. It worked. The most awkward moment of the afternoon was when my aunt face-timed my cousin. I figured the family would just be in the background or she would just show the room and we'd all wave or something. Instead, my aunt started passing the phone around so we all had to talk to my cousin. We are friendly and talk with her when she is present but we don't really have the kind of relationship that involves face-time, if that makes any sense. It's hard to explain. So it was awkward on our end because we were all supposed to have an individual conversation with my cousin while everyone else in the room was just staring at whoever was talking. And it had to be awkward on my cousin's end because she probably didn't want to be having individual conversations with everyone. It eventually ended but none to soon.

The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting around and talking. After my aunt, uncle, and grandma left, I sat and talked with my dad while my sister and step-mom went down and watched my brother play Wipeout on the Kinect. My dad and I had a really good conversation covering all sorts of things. The best kind of conversation. I mentioned something similar to this yesterday I think in reference to hanging out with my friend, but I miss good conversations. I don't get beyond smalltalk and superficial conversations very often. Kind of sucks. I need to engage more with the world around me.

Tonight I watched some YouTube videos and almost played Skyrim. Instead I finally played a bit of the Battlefield 4 campaign. At some point I need to jump into the multiplayer but I am still a bit gun-shy after all the lag issues with the Beta. And from everything I have heard the multiplayer is still broken so that doesn't provide much incentive. So instead, I'm going with the campaign. With everything set to High, it looks really freaking good. I find myself forgetting to pay attention to the combat or dialogue because I have wandered off to stare at textures. Gameplay-wise it feels just like Battlefield 3, or at least how I remember Battlefield 3 playing. How it is all put together I get the sense they were going for an 80s or 90s action movie kind of feel. Not in the over-the-top sense necessarily but I just get a vibe. I keep expecting a montage to start.

December 28, 2013

Today I slept in and then eventually went to pick my friend up to go to lunch. Originally we were thinking Chipotle but he found a taco place on Urban Spoon that he wanted to try and they had vegetarian options. I have no idea how long this place has been around because I really don't venture outside of my small box, but it was really good. Pretty much anything on their menu can be made vegetarian by subbing out the meat with beans or guacamole, so I got three tacos, one with different peppers and two with pico de gallo and other stuff, all with guacamole. My friend got three of the pepper tacos, also with guacamole, even though he is a meat-eater. Each taco was laid out on a double stack of corn tortillas and mine were piled high so I ended up separating the corn tortillas and making six tacos rather than three. They were much easier to handle that way. We had a bunch of random conversations with several breaks for my friend to comment on how hot the waitress was and how good her butt looked in the pants she was wearing. It was kind of funny.

After lunch we drove around town for awhile, stopping at Wendy's so my friend could get a drink, before ending up at a bar around the corner from where we had lunch. We sat at the bar and talked for another hour and a half or so before we headed out so I could drop him off and eat dinner and get ready for work. It was a nice afternoon. I need more friends so I can hang out with them more often. I miss that. It really fell off after high school, and again after college.

At work tonight I spent the majority of my night sitting in silence, reading another issue of National Geographic. Near the end of the night, after finishing the magazine, I turned on the radio and played a little Animal Crossing. Nothing too exciting but it was a fairly enjoyable evening.

Tomorrow we have another family Christmas thing over at my dad's house, this time featuring my aunt and uncle. After that Christmas should be officially over.

December 27, 2013

The other day I bought some DLC for Saints Row 4 because it was on sale for cheap and I have been waiting for that to happen. I got two new campaign quests and played through the Christmas one because 'tis the season. I defeated Clawz and got a cool ugly sweater, a mechanical flying reindeer, and a couple of cars. Very cool. I also the pirate and hillbilly DLCs, mainly for the cool cars.

I spent a lot of my day, lost in my head, thinking about bookshelves. I think I have decided where I can put one in my room and I did a lot of internet searching to find something that would fit my needs. I came up with a couple options but now I'm thinking about making one instead. I don't know that I will, because I went to great efforts awhile ago planning out a bookcase design that I never made, but I'm still thinking about it.

Tonight at work I played a bunch of Animal Crossing, read an issue of National Geographic, and watched The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty. In Animal Crossing I opened an exhibit on the second floor of the museum and filled it with all the statues I have dug up. I also spent a lot of time on the island catching stuff. I made a bunch of money on my first trip and will make even more with my second trip when the stores open so I can sell it all. In National Geographic I read about the beginning of a man's seven year journey to walk from the cradle of civilization to the last spot humans reached. So he is walking from Africa to the bottom of South America. I also read about cougars in the United States, the possible origins of skiing and the men who still use them to hunt, walruses, tumbleweeds as an invasive Russian species in the United States, and groups of specialists using lasers to scan historical things and recreating them digitally in 3D. A lot of really interesting stuff.

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty was pretty great. It reminded me of movies like Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World and Stranger Than Fiction. Not that it was anything like those movies, those are just the ones that came to mind. The plot was interesting but slightly ridiculous. But I liked it. The music was really good and the locations were beautiful. It made me want to go on an adventure. And I can easily see that being the next DVD I purchase.

December 26, 2013

This morning when I went to pick up my grandma, Nat King Cole's “The Christmas Song” was playing on the radio. Tonight when I was dropping her back off, Nat King Cole's “The Christmas Song” was playing on the radio. Crazy.

I was picking her up to go over to my dad's house for Christmas. We had brunch, opened presents, and did a bunch of just sitting around and talking. It was nice not having to rush through the presents and head off to work. As for presents, my brother seemed to really like the hat I made him (much more so than my sister's husband) and wore it around the house, and my dad seemed to like his stuff. I got money, stuff to clean my car with, and a candle. Oddly enough I have recently been considering getting a candle or something for my room to change up the smell. At the moment the smell is still new enough that every time I walk into my room I catch a hint of it. I'm liking it.

Tonight I watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special, which was also the last episode of Matt Smith as the Doctor. The end of David Tennant's run was mildly traumatic and filled with tears. The end of Matt Smith's run was sad more mostly just confusing. On first viewing I have to say I wasn't very impressed. Mostly because I had no idea what was going on. I need to see it again. And maybe watch all of Matt Smith's run in a marathon so I have the storyline fresh in my mind. As with the end of previous runs, we got a brief look at the next Doctor. I like the actor and I am interested to see how he plays it.

Around ten o'clock I went downtown to see the big tree because I have heard a lot about it. It was big and the lights on it slowly changed color. I did a slow drive-by but I could see myself just sitting there and staring at it. I took a round about way to get home to see other lights and I have to say my favorite displays were the ones where people just had a bunch of lights around their porch instead of the whole house.

And lastly, I had hot chocolate tonight, in non-frozen form, for the first time in many years. The last time I had it was sometime in college, which was awhile ago now. It was delicious.

December 25, 2013

There are at least two movies that have trailers on TV now that state in the commercial that they are winners of Golden Globe nominations. That is just ridiculous. Nominations can be earned but I don't believe they are won.

Today was Christmas, as indicated by the date on the calender. We opened presents this morning around eleven o'clock. It's kind of weird not doing it at the crack of dawn. It is still fun unwrapping presents though. I got a case for my 3DS, a couple CDs from my sister, and a bunch of books. I need to start reading more. There are so many books I want to read. I also need to come up with more space for my books. I have stacks everywhere. I need a solid wall of bookshelves so I can have them all in one place.

Throughout the day I worked on the hat for my brother. I finally finished it tonight around 12:45AM. I started with green yarn but ran out and finished off with blue yarn. It came out looking pretty good because the main part is green and then the folded over brim bit at the bottom is blue.

For dinner tonight my sister made pizzas. I put the toppings on my half of a pizza and it turned out delicious. It had a creamy garlic sauce base that my sister made and I added fake hamburger, a few mushrooms, a bunch of artichoke hearts, a little bit of cheese, and tater tots. It was also supposed to have green peppers, which would have given it a good bit of color, but I forgot until after the pizza had been cooked. It was really good regardless.

While working on the hat tonight I watched an episode of New Girl, rewatched the 50^th anniversary episode of Doctor Who, watched a goodbye to Matt Smith as The Doctor, and then started rewatching the livestream with Lewis and Turps. I was going to watch the Christmas episode of Doctor Who but I wanted to actually watch it, and at the time I was wrapping presents for Christmas at my dad's tomorrow. So maybe sometime tomorrow I'll get to watch it.

Right now it is much too late to be up. So I am going to remedy that.

December 24, 2013

Not a lot going on today. I finished crocheting one hat and started working on another. I may have finished that second hat but I ended up having to start over because it was coming out too big. I think I started with one extra stitch in the beginning, which just kept compounding itself every time I had an increasing row. So I started over and I should be back on track. I am thinking that the hat will be for my brother for Christmas, but only if I can finish it by Thursday. We'll see how much I actually work on it tomorrow. It will have to be a whole bunch if I want to get it done. If I can't I'll just give it to him for his birthday. Or keep it until next Christmas.

Alfie managed to get a chunk taken out of her leg today. She was acting really weird and we couldn't figure out why until the flap of skin was noticed. No idea how it happened but it isn't that surprising because it is the holiday season. A year or two ago on Christmas we ordered Chinese and there was a massive dogfight when it was delivered. Witnessing and then breaking up a dogfight is exhausting and really ruins the Christmas mood. And several years ago on the Fourth Of July, Beau tore open his side when he ran into the fence in the backyard. The dogs should be more careful around the holidays. Alfie ended up with a couple staples and a cone. Dogs in cones are equally entertaining and depressing.

Today I watched YouTube videos and a few Christmas things. Starting with The Polar Express. They added in a bunch of stuff, because it would have been a ten minute movie if they hadn't, but they also made it a little bit darker. All the dolls were creepy. There is also a two-second appearance of an elf with the likeness of Steven Tyler because Aerosmith had a song in the movie. Animating that was pretty much pointless. After The Polar Express I watched Love Actually. It is such a sappy movie but I like it and enjoy it every time I watch it. I ended the Christmas stuff with Black Adder's A Christmas Carol. I have always wanted to watch Black Adder but have not gotten around to it. I figured the Christmas episode was a good start. And I enjoyed it. Now I really want to watch the show.

Tonight I wrapped presents. My sister brought over a bunch of newspapers she has been saving but she had been keeping them in her garage and they ended up getting small worms in them. Not sure what kind of worms but I came across them after several papers. And then I just kept finding them. So I threw out all of those papers and started using the ones that I had my mom save. I think I got all the worms out of my room but I am still going to wash the pillowcases and towel I found some on and probably the rest of my bed stuff. There weren't worms anywhere near getting in my bed, the closest were on a big box that was on the end of my bed. But it is still kind of creepy.

At the moment it is almost one o'clock in the morning on Christmas Eve and I am really tired. So I'm going to go to bed so I can wake up and experience a Christmas that doesn't involve me going to work. It will be nice.

December 23, 2013

Not surprisingly, my lower back hurts today. It's not really noticeable unless I'm twisting or bending so that is nice but every now and then it feels like the early stages of a kidney stone, which I'm not a fan of.

Today I watched YouTube videos and the Yogscast livestream with Lewis and Turps, which was one of my favorite streams so far. Turps is hilarious and I need to look into the podcast he does. I also started crocheting a hat, which I nearly finished by working on it off and on throughout the day. Years ago when I first started to crochet I made a bunch of hats but had forgotten the pattern I used. The one I tried out for this hat feels very similar to the one I used to use. And it seems to be working out. I just wish I had gone with a bigger stitch than the single crochet because I would have finished it a lot sooner.

I also started watching Christmas stuff. I haven't gotten around to that yet this year. I started with Fred Claus which I recorded the other day. Instant classic. Tonight I watched Power Rangers: Super Samurai – Stuck on Christmas. Wow. I have never seen this version of the show but it is just as cheesy as I remember the old show being when I was a kid. It was pretty awful but I watched all twenty-three minutes of it. I ended the night with Nativity 2: Danger In The Manger because it starred David Tennant. Who played twin brothers. I have never seen the first Nativity but now I am intrigued. The second one was interesting. The target audience was obviously little kids because it is about a group of school kids trying to get to a Christmas song competition, and there is a lot of juvenile humor. But I actually liked it. Maybe a new Christmas tradition.

Tomorrow I want to watch The Polar Express because I don't think I have seen it since I previewed it almost ten years ago, and working with the book in second grade the past week got me interested again. So far I haven't watched any of my regular Christmas movies (Elf, Surviving Christmas, and Love Actually). Maybe I'll look into those tomorrow as well. Or find more random ones on Netflix.

December 22, 2013

Well, my day. It was a thing that happened. I got to really sleep in for the first time in awhile and I enjoyed it. And then I didn't do much with my day. On purpose. I wanted a day of nothing. It was successful.

The guys came to clean the driveway off, minus the spot where my car was parked. I went out later in the afternoon to dig it out, then I got it pulled into my regular spot and shoveled the area where it had been parked. I don't know how much snow we ended up getting but I would say it was at least six inches. I can't remember the last time we got that much snow and I am glad I didn't have to shovel more than I did. I am fairly certain that my body will be feeling the affects of my shoveling tomorrow. At least my back.

With the rest of my day I watched the Yogscast livestream and a bunch of YouTube videos, I played Terraria, and I also played Animal Crossing. In Terraria I mainly had it in the background while I was doing other stuff. I would check back every now and then when enough mobs were around me and kill them all to get presents. My goal was the dog whistle so I could get the dog as a pet. And I was eventually able to get it. I think I like the cat better though. The dog looks like it is about to squat down and take a crap. In Animal Crossing I made a bunch of money from the island and also went to it for the first time with other people, which you can do with Club Tortimer. I briefly chatted with the two people that were also on the island but neither of them really spoke English. Based on the character in their names I can only assume they were from an Asian country. The trip was lucrative though because I caught a whole bunch of expensive bugs and a couple sharks. This island also had coconuts so I can add those trees to my town. My main goal at the moment is buy art whenever the art seller shows back up because I think I need to donate at least one piece of art to the museum before I can expand it. I want that second floor.

Tonight I finally got to watch the Christmas musical episode of Psych. I was excited for it because I love the show and it has been forever since they've had a new episode. I was worried about the fate of the show because the actress who plays Jules has a new show but apparently the show is coming back at the beginning of January so that is great. I need to watch the last season again and jog my memory on what is up.

And now I am going to bed. I don't really have anything on my schedule for tomorrow but possibilities include crocheting a hat, knitting something, and looking at graduate schools again. And a whole bunch of other things, I guess. We'll see what happens.

December 21, 2013

There isn't a lot to report today considering I spent my whole day trapped at the theater. I had planned to crochet at least one hat, and made sure I had everything I needed, including a couple hat patterns that looked promising. But then I left the yarn on my bed. The yarn happens to be one of the most important aspects of a crochet project, in case you weren't aware. So no hats were made today. Instead, I played a bunch of Animal Crossing and read half of a book that I got my brother for Christmas, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It looked interesting and it has been so far.

Normally I would have a dinner break and have an hour away from this place but there were reports of heavy snow today so this morning I made an extra peanut butter sandwich and all the other stuff I made for lunch, just in case. And it came in handy because there were at least a few inches of snow on the ground by the time I would have gone on break and it was still falling heavily. And it has continued to do so for the rest of the night. I'm not looking forward to digging my car out because even though I had the forethought to bring my dinner, I didn't throw in my boots or a hat or my raincoat to block the wind and snow. So my feet are going to freeze and my hoodie is going to get covered in snow. Good times. Hopefully it will stop snowing by the time I leave but I'm not holding my breath.

I am kind of glad that I worked a double today though because I got here before the snow started so I didn't have to drive through it to get here, and by the time I get off there shouldn't be too many drivers on the road. That is the one benefit to getting off work in the middle of the night. I don't mind driving in the snow but I do mind other drivers driving in the snow. Especially after my first truck was totaled by a lady who couldn't drive safely a tiny bit of ice.

–

And now a post-snow update. My car was buried beneath six inches or so of snow, with drifts at the front up to the headlights. It took me about fifteen minutes to clean it all off but it actually wasn't too bad, even with having to stand in down halfway up my shins. I think the Electronic music I was blasting from my car helped.

When I tried to pull out I got about two inches so ended up reversing out of my parking spot. For a second I didn't think I would make it out of the parking long because there was so much snow and my car is so low to the ground. There was a lot of tire spinning. I didn't even attempt going out the normal way because that was too much of an incline and I would have been there all night. Instead I went out through the trailer park and got incredibly lucky. I ended up driving behind a small pickup truck that was pulling a plow and clearing the road. Even though it was all flat ground, I seriously doubt I would have been able to make it through the back way if the plow guy hadn't been in front of me. I got incredibly lucky. 

The main road had been cleared at some point so there were only a few inches of snow and it was smooth sailing. Until I got to the side street that I turn off of to get to my street. It was still completely covered and I made it about halfway before getting stuck. I reversed and then went forward again, powering through until I got to my next turn. I was a little worried about it but I maintained my speed and didn't have any problems. My driveway was another story. It has a decent grade to it and it splits into a double-wide driveway halfway up, and I park on the second side so as not to block the garage door. I decided to maintain speed, but not too much speed, and just see what happened. I made it about halfway up and had just started to turn into the side spot when my car decided it wasn't having it. I knew that if I tried to back out into the circle and try again I would have gotten stuck in the circle, so I called it good. I put it in park, put my windshield cover on, got my backpack, and trudged through the snow to my house. At some point, maybe tomorrow, I'll have to dig my car out and pull it the rest of the way up the driveway. Unless the guys come and clear the driveway before I can get out there. That would be nice.

December 20, 2013

Yesterday on the way to work I heard Barry Manilow's version of "Frosty The Snowman". It got a little better as the song went on but the beginning was especially painful to listen to. It was a like William Shatner's acting cadence. There was no real rhythm to it and it felt like it was just coming out at random. He was like someone trying to jump into the double-dutch ropes that just couldn't quite figure out the rhythm.

I lugged the bags of popcorn to school. The teacher's loved it so it was definitely a good call to bring a bag for Boys & Girls Club and one for the staff at school. As for my day, I came so close to finishing another storybook. I ended up copying the files for the ones I haven't finished in case I get really bored over break and want to feel productive. They will be easier to edit on my larger monitors at home. I also managed to get Type To Learn 4 installed on all the computers in the lab, so that was productive.

This morning I helped out with literacy centers in one of the kindergarten rooms because the teacher decided to have them for some reason. In the middle of that I swapped out with one of the SPED interns or someone (I don't know what she does) because one of the SPED teachers couldn't get their projector working and they were trying to watch The Polar Express. When I got up there it seemed to be stuck in Standby mode so I unplugged it and plugged it back in and that seemed to work. I'm always amazed how often that fixes technology issues.

Second grade didn't really have reading groups. When I went in they were working on a Christmas ornament. They were looping yarn around rings cut from toilet paper tubes, then tying the tails together and trimming them down so they kind of looked like little stocking caps with a big poof on the top. For most of the time I just stood around and talked with the kids, offering helpful tips every now and then. Then I pretty much made one for the little girl with Down Syndrome. She came in from her group outside of the room and I got her set up with a bunch of yarn, and managed to hold her interest for the first several pieces, getting her to fold the yarn in half and pull it through the tube, and then helping her pull the tails through the loop, but then I lost her. The most I could get was her holding her arm out and I would fold the yarn over her wrist to get a loop. At the moment my through is swelling up and I'm a bit congested and I feel like it is from her but I don't know how quickly a cold can set it. And I'm in a building filled with sick kids. But she was dripping snot, her hands were covered in candy cane residue which she kept trying to clean off with her tongue, and she wanted to put every piece of yarn in her mouth. So now I'm interested to see how I'm feeling tomorrow. It was pretty funny when I mentioned her hands to her and she immediately perked up at the mention of candy canes. She is obviously a fan.

This afternoon we had the school sing-along. Last year I sat next to the library clerk who sang along (seems obvious) but it was distracting and I couldn't hear the kids. This year I ended standing next to one of the math enrichment teachers and she was talking the whole time with a parent standing next to her. That was even more distracting than the singing clerk. But the sing-along went pretty well. And it ended with a whole school dance-along, which seems to be a theme with music assemblies now. Something that I am cool with because the kids love it.

After school I talked with the librarian for a little while about graduate school. She asked about the schools I was considering and she told me she was going to text me over break to see which ones I had picked and what kind of progress I had made. She also told me she would write me a letter of recommendation, and write one for the principal and just have her sign it, which was pretty funny. I'm not working much at the theater over break and I would really like to finally sit down and get the graduate school ball rolling.

I got a few Christmas things at school today. The librarian gave me a small USB-powered LED Christmas tree, my fifth grade teacher friend gave me a card and my copy of The 'Burbs back, the principal gave me a card written in incredibly small print because she can't believe I write so small in my notebook, a big thing of trail mix from one of the kindergarten teachers, and I got a "secret" card from a couple first graders. I say "secret" because I have no idea who gave it to me, even though I was sitting there when they put it on the chair next to me (I was intently staring at my monitor editing a storybook), and the first grade class was apparently going around the building secretly delivering big handmade cards to different people. That was kind of cool. I feel a little bad but I ended up throwing it out because it was covered in glitter which was getting everywhere. I did take a picture of it first though.

Tonight at the theater I was exhausted. It is hard working from 8:00AM to 1:45AM with six hours of sleep beforehand. And on top of that I get to work a double tomorrow. Thankfully I can sleep in a little because we don't open until 11:30AM, but that is still going to be a thirteen or fourteen hour day. I like the old day when if you opened the next day you got to leave when we locked up, not at the very end of the night. I have a headache and I just want to sleep.

December 18, 2013

Today was my slow day, lab-wise, and I didn't have second grade reading groups because they were watching The Polar Express. I did help with literacy centers in kindergarten but other than that and a couple classes in the lab, I didn't have a lot going on today. I spent most of my day working on storybooks. I finished one and got a start on another. Progress.

After work I went and got gas and then got my car washed. It is supposed to rain late tomorrow and possibly turn into ice and snow by Saturday but my car was incredibly dirty and I was beginning to have trouble seeing out of my driver's side window and back window. I was talking to one of the second grade teachers after school and she said she had to wait in line forty minutes yesterday to get her car washed but I lucked out because there were only four cars ahead of me. The last couple of days were also nice so I hoped that most of the people got their cars washed already. I spent my time in line catching fish in Animal Crossing.

When my car was looking clean and new, I headed across town and picked up Chipotle. It was good but I did get one mouthful of incredibly salty rice. On my way home I was thinking about a random traffic violation and blew right through a red light. Thankfully it was a minor red light, not a major intersection, and no one was crossing the street. Though spaced out enough to miss to miss a person because I did see one standing on the sidewalk.

Tonight I didn't do much. Played a couple video games, watched a couple livestreams, and now I am watching Turok: Son Of Stone. I loved the first Turok game on the N64. The movie is animated but filled with animated blood and it doesn't really remind me at all of the video game. There are dinosaurs and an Indian named Turok, but that's about it. I need to play the game again.

December 17, 2013

Another day. Another dollar. As the saying goes. I had a lot more time to work on storybooks and made it through four or five pages today. It helped that they weren't too involved. I was able to erase a lot of the words because there weren't any drawings touching them, which meant I didn't have to take the time and erase all the stuff around them. It is easier that way and I can just add the text back in when I put the pages in Publisher.

The rest of my day was pretty much the same old thing. Second grade reading groups, classes in the lab, and nothing exciting. Nothing worth writing about really. At least that I can remember at the moment.

After work I went to Hastings to buy a couple books for my brother for Christmas. I also wanted to rent Fred Claus but they didn't have it. Too close to Christmas I guess. I thought I owned it but now I'm fairly certain I don't. It is going to be on TV this weekend though so I'm going to DVR it, now that my DVR works. I haven't watched any Christmas movies yet this year. I brought some upstairs from my DVD shelf but I'm behind on my YouTube videos and I just haven't been in the mood. Ever since I let my teacher friend borrow The 'Burbs I have been in the mood to watch it. So hopefully she'll get to it before break so I can watch it sometime over break. Anyway, I also stopped by Sears to get my dad a gift card.

Tonight I was looking for a book that the librarian at school sent out an email asking to borrow. She never got back to me so I assume someone had it in their room but I looked nonetheless. And found it. The sixth Lemony Snicket book. And as a bookmark I was using a concert ticket. A concert that never was. Because instead of seeing a Fall Out Boy concert in Kansas City, we ate at a McDonald's in Hays. It was a sad day. Partly due to me sitting in the backseat, reading a book, rather than paying attention. I don't remember what book I was reading but the evidence seems to suggest it was the sixth book in the Lemony Snicket series.

My friend is in town so he stopped by tonight with frozen hot chocolates and we hung out for a bit. I felt sick almost immediately after finishing the frozen hot chocolate but it was delicious. It would have been nice to hang out with my friend longer but it is a school night. And at the moment I am up way past my bedtime. I'm tired. And tomorrow I need to wake up and exercise so I can feel a little less guilty about the frozen hot chocolate goodness. So good.

December 16, 2013

Today at work I put a little work into the storybooks but not a lot. I didn't even finish a page. Instead I worked on other stuff. I made a new lab schedule because people have been writing on the old one for weeks and it started to look kind of crappy. I lost my old design when my work computer was randomly reformatted so I had to make up a new one. The old one was in Word or Open Office but I made the new one in Excel because it was faster. I like the look of the old one better.

I also learned that in Publisher you can save files as jpegs. We're doing an SOS thing at school where a kid is assigned to a staff member. I got a kid and I have no idea what the whole thing means. The teacher who asked me to help out by emailing everyone a picture of their kid acted like I already knew all about it and when she emailed the school telling them to expect my email she didn't mention what exactly the SOS thing was. So I'm still in the dark. But today I used Publisher to add in the picture of the kid with their name, grade, and teacher below it, then saved it as a JPG because I figure that is the easiest format for people to open, and it keeps all the information in one place. Rather than typing the information in an email and then attaching a picture. After I got all the pictures made I inserted them into emails to each of the staff members involved, rather than attaching it in the email so no one should have to worry about opening attachments. We'll see if that works out.

This afternoon there was an orchestra recital. The orchestra is not very popular, with five sixth graders and one fifth grader. Last year there were five fifth graders and one sixth grader. The fifth grader is a beginner so she played basic songs along with one of the sixth graders, and then had to sit there while all the sixth graders played their songs. It had to be incredibly awkward to just sit there. Thankfully all the songs were really short so the whole thing only lasted about twenty minutes, but she still just had to sit their politely. The coolest part of the whole thing was that they played Jingle Bells and one other song and a good majority of the kids quietly sang along with them, with no prompting. It wasn't obnoxious or anything, just really nice. It kind of reminded me of a Peanuts moment.

Today I got a bag with some cookies and things from one of the second grade teachers and at the end of the day one of the first graders brought me a bag with some chocolate and a gift card to Starbucks. I also got chocolate from her last year. Her dad works for the district and I can't decide if they give Christmas bags to a lot of the staff because he knows the effort the staff puts in or if they are just really into Christmas. Either way it is pretty cool. One of the third grade teachers also gave me a pipe cleaner spider ornament. I believe it is based off a lucky German Christmas spider or something. They made them as a class and the ribbon she had to string through the body (which was a wooden bead) didn't fit very well with the pipe cleaner legs already through the bead. I made a bit of a crochet hook with a paperclip which she was able to push through the bead, snag the ribbon, and pull it back through. It was my MacGyver moment of the day.

After work I went to Hobby Lobby to check on yarn. They had the dark blue yarn I needed but the color was way off. I knew it varies with different lot numbers but this stuff wasn't even close. Well, it was close in that it was dark blue, but it was quite noticeably different. So I need to think about what I want to do. The trip wasn't a complete bust though because I got a sketch pad and some pencils for the new volunteer kid. His birthday is Thursday so I don't know if we'll have a visit but then there is Christmas. I usually get books for people but I know he is into drawing, at least he was, so maybe he'll get some use out of it. Also, when I went up to pay the lady at the register asked me in a very conspiratorial way if I wanted to use my coupon that I got on HobbyLobby.com on one of the items. I said yes, playing along. And it saved me four bucks. It turns out that I have the app on my phone (I wasn't sure if I had it installed on my new phone) so it wasn't really a bad thing, but it was pretty cool of her.

From Hobby Lobby I went to the cable place and got yet another DVR. This one looks completely different than the ones I have seen but I care more about it working than I do the looks. When I got home I plugged it in and it showed up on my TV but it was missing most of the channels and there wasn't any data showing in the guide. I ended up calling customer service about it and talked with a very nice lady and got it all sorted out. Turns out I basically just didn't wait long enough for everything to be set up. Normally I am more patient and probably would have figured out the fix on my own but I had a headache and I was tired of messing with DVRs. The good news is that I can now watch TV in HD on my TV. Hooray. The hardest part was actually trying to remember all the stuff I used to record on my old DVR. I probably should have written that down before I swapped it out with a new one.

A good chunk of my night was spent building an elliptical thing for my mom. It wasn't hard but it was a huge pain thanks to my headache and the amount of tape they used. So much tape. My theory is that whoever was in charge of packaging also has a bunch of stock in a tape company. It was ridiculous. But I got it all put together and the wiring worked and I only forgot four washers. Sadly they were the washers on the bottom of the foot things so it was a bitch getting those nuts off but I managed it. The major flaw in the instructions was putting the foot things on after the arm things that the foot things go on. It would have been much each to put the foot things on first when I could have done it in an easier position, rather than blindly without much room to maneuver. It appears to be a fairly solid piece of equipment so hopefully it holds up.

The rest of my night was spent figuring out what to record on my DVR, watching more of the livestream I recorded yesterday, and pretending I didn't have a headache. Now I am going to go to bed because I have wanted to do that for at least an hour.

December 15, 2013

This morning while sitting in my chair, I moved my head ever so slightly, and ended up with a kink in my neck that has persisted throughout the day. Very annoying. What is the world coming to when I can't even turn my head without hurting myself. Shameful.

Today I was slightly productive in terms of Christmas stuff. I came up with a list for my mom, gave a few ideas to my dad, and asked my mom and sister what they wanted. My sister got back to me but I'm still waiting on my mom.

This afternoon I went over to my grandma's house to help her with the formatting for her Christmas letter. She wants to print it on paper with a fancy border that isn't uniform around the paper. I messed around with it a bit, with several test prints (and a break to replace her ink cartridges), and finally saved it as a template so she can just click on it in the future and not have to worry about messing with the margins.

Due to various things I missed most of the Yogscast livestream today but I did record it so I'm watching it now. They are/were playing a live MoonQuest, which is one of their current Minecraft series' where they are trying build a rocket and get to the Moon. From the bits I saw, there were a lot of technical difficulties in the beginning but maybe it worked itself out.

Throughout the day I played Animal Crossing off and on and made a whole bunch of progress. The shoe store opened and I was able to get the rest of the Santa costume. I also got to go to the island for the first time and spent the rest of the day going back and forth. I caught a bunch of fish and bugs, donating the new ones to the museum and selling the rest. I also took the various tours and was able to collect different fruit and planted those in my town so I have more than oranges. All-in-all, a whole bunch of progress and I made about 50,000 bells.

Tonight I played a bit of Skyrim, finishing up the quest I nearly started the last time I played. I had one jump scare when an undead something came out of nowhere, I learned a new shout (but I don't know if I can use it yet), and I upgraded my Archery and Sneak. I found it to be very effective to go through the whole dungeon in sneak mode so I could get shots on bad guys before they knew I was there. Which had the added benefit of 2x damage when I did manage to hit them while hidden.

I tried my new DVR on another TV today, with a different HDMI cable, and it didn't work. Just to see, I tried it with a composite cable, and it worked. But that kind of defeats the purpose considering I got it because the old one only had the composite cable option and I wanted HDMI so I could watch stuff in HD. So, I'm fairly certain the HDMI port is messed up. I'm going to take it back tomorrow and see if they can swap it out or tell me that I am doing something wrong.

December 13, 2013

When I was a kid, Friday the 13^th seemed like a rare and significant event. Now that I am no longer a kid, it seems like they happen all the time and I could not possibly care less.

At work today I made progress on the storybooks. That was a major part of my day. And the rest of my day kind of happened. During the second grade spelling test this morning I very nearly sent one of the kids back to the room during the test because he wouldn't stop talking. Next time they will all get one warning and after that someone is getting sent back.

Second grade reading groups weren't really a thing because one of the mom's came to talk about Christmas traditions in Germany because she is full-on German. After her talk there were only fifteen minutes left so I watched a group work on a worksheet but they didn't really need help.

The sixth graders came back to the lab this afternoon to work on their Stock Game spreadsheet. The teacher went over the steps on the projector and I walked around and helped the kids that had questions. I am an Excel god when it comes to adding, subtracting, and multiplying cells.

Eventually after work it was time for the work Christmas party. It actually wasn't too bad. Pretty much another party, and I did a lot of standing around waiting for time to pass, but I did talk to people. After they started talking to me. One of the third grade teachers was telling me about her afternoon, which involved her redneck son killing a deer on his way to work, cleaning it at work (not an office job, I asked) and then asking if he could hang it in a tree when he got home. Later on her other son came home, who is not a redneck and tends to be more clean cut and put together, and all he could say when he walked in was “What the fuck?”. I also listened in on her conversation with some other teachers and paras about getting thrown under the bus by her student intern. The student interns this semester were all just kind of awful, if not at their job than as people. Both of the third grade interns had horrible things to say about the teachers they worked with, and one had horrible things to say about the woman in charge or her at the school and all the other supervisors on up the chain. And both of the teachers were pretty much blindsided by it because they thought the semester had gone pretty well and both had very good things to say about the interns. It is believed that the one coaxed the other into doing it but she still did it. Everyone's initial reaction, after disbelief, was how do these girls expect to get a job, when they just dragged all their potential references through the mud. Anyone who could possibly give them a professional recommendation will now be completely honest if they receive a call from a potential employer. And that is not going to end well for them. I don't really get it. Kids are just stupid these days I guess.

At the end of the night we did the white elephant gift exchange. It was fairly entertaining and their didn't seem to be any malicious stealing. I ended up with two grapefruits, and I don't like grapefruit, so that kind of sucks, but their wasn't anything else I would have wanted so I didn't really care. I wrapped my potholders in newspaper and it got picked close to the end because it didn't stand out very well next to all the colorful bags, but one of the receptionists got them so hopefully she has a use for them. Even if they are regifted. I'm just glad I relearned the waffle stitch so I can start on my blanket again. Possibly tomorrow during my double at work.

December 12, 2013

I finally finished all the scanning for the storybooks and now I am left with editing the pages. I got a start on that today. I'll finish eventually.

Other than that, I had second grade reading groups and a couple classes in the lab, one of which was one of the sixth grade classes who I helped get a start on their spreadsheets for the Stock Market Game. I'm gotten a lot of practice with Excel at the school and years ago in college. And the only formulas the kids need for their spreadsheets involve addition and multiplication so they're a piece of cake.

This afternoon we had a choir assembly and it involved choreography. Kids doing choreography is the best. It is interesting to see which kids get it and which kids don't. It is often surprising. There was one quiet girl today who was in front and she was going all out with the dance moves. There was also a sixth grader in the back who is generally very quiet and reserved but he was by far the most outgoing kid in the whole choir. He will definitely go into Pops Choir in a few years.

Tonight I finally had a visit with the new volunteer kid. It has been at least three weeks, maybe four. Sometime before Thanksgiving. He seemed to be doing alright. Mostly. He recently started wrestling, which he missed out on last year because he broke his wrist. He said it has been kicking his butt and he keeps getting sick. Or he might just be getting a cold. Other than that he said he is liking it. The wrestling part, not the sick part. We first stopped at the gas station to get him stuff and then went to Sonic because I wanted a strawberry shake. I instantly regretted it. But it was delicious. We sat there and talked for about an hour. An above average visit.

On my way home I took a slight detour to look at Christmas lights, including my doctor's house with all his blue lights. When I got home I watched YouTube videos and finished my potholders. I think they turned out pretty well. Well enough to give away at least. I'm still not looking forward to the white elephant thing. Hopefully everyone is nice and there isn't a lot of stealing.

December 11, 2013

Despite today being an early-release day, I was able to make decent progress on the storybooks. I only have half a book left. And then I have to go back into serious editing mode, making everything look nice before turning them into PDFs. I'm getting there.

Other than the storybooks, I didn't really have much going on today. I gave a spelling test to a group of second graders, helped out with kindergarten literacy centers, and had second grade reading groups. All went relatively well.

After work I thought I would try and figure out the DVR situation but instead I watched the Yogscast livestream and worked on the crocheted potholders I am making for the white elephant thing at the work party on Friday. On the livestream they were reading a choose-your-own-adventure book from the 80s, one of the grownup ones, not like the ones I used to read as a kid. It kind of reminded me of the text-based RPG games like Zork. Lewis played the role of the dungeon master, reading the story, while Simon was the adventurer. It also involved rolling dice kind of like D&D. And they had another guy on the stream, Teutron, who was drawing the adventure on the screen as they went. So the people and things they encountered, and a map as they went along. It was very cool.

Chipotle tonight was good. When I was ordering the quesadilla for my mom they thought I asked for a quesarito, which is apparently a thing. My guess was a burrito inside a quesadilla, and according to the internet that is pretty much it. As for my burrito, delicious. Taking the week off last week made my heart grow fonder. We also used the Chromecast for the first time and it worked wonderfully. I only had a couple YouTube videos to show but we also watched a little bit of the Yogscast livestream.

And the rest of my night was spent watching YouTube videos, crocheting a potholder off and on (making it about halfway through), and playing a bit of Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I paid a bunch of my home loan off but I still have 18,000 bells to go. It would be nice to have more than one room. I think a fully upgraded house has four but that is still a long way off. I also made my first snowman. Or snowmama to be more precise. You pay her in snowflakes to get ice furniture. That's a thing.

December 10, 2013

Today at work I made a bunch of progress on the storybooks. I now only have one and a half left to scan. Then I can go back to staring intently at the screen, giving myself a headache, as I clean all the pages up. Good times.

Second grade reading groups went well. I had two groups and they each picked a vocabulary word and then filled out a worksheet based on that word (definition, sentence, synonym, antonym). Then on the back they could draw a picture related to the word, before trying to use all the words from the list in sentences. One of the kids drew an 'immense' diamond because, in his words, when he grows up he “wants to be a diamond miner so he can be rich in gold.” Interesting second grader logic. I was talking to him about it and we got off on a discussion about Minecraft, which he sees as being pretty much a factual game. “It's just like real life, but it's different.”

There was an assembly this afternoon but it was just to give out the prizes for the fundraiser. And the dude who runs the fundraiser is kind of weird and I wanted to work on storybooks. Which was good because one of the PTO moms came in and gave me a tin of homemade cookies with a Thank You note for my help on the cart art. The cookies are really good.

After work I went to the cable place and asked them about trading out my DVR for one that has an HDMI port. Had I thought ahead I would have brought my old DVR with me, but I didn't, so I had to drive all the way back across town to get it, and then back to the cable place, and then back home. But I got a new DVR. Unfortunately it appears to be a dud. I've tried two different ports on my TV and two different HDMI cables but only managed to get the cable signal to come up twice (there was something with two in the air tonight). Every other time the TV acted like nothing was plugged in. The two times the cable did show up I wasn't actually getting channels, just the screen saying I needed to call the number and subscribe or whatever. Which is dumb because I just had a DVR plugged in. I imagine that problem can be solved by calling that number and having customer service tick a box acknowledging the new DVR. But I don't think that will solve the issue of the DVR not showing up on my TV. Unless there is something else they need to do to activate it. I don't know. I'm going to try hooking it up to another TV tomorrow and if that doesn't work I'll call customer service and see if it is a simple fix or if I need to go back and get another DVR. This is all a lot of work when I barely watch TV once a week. But it is annoying that it doesn't work.

Dinner was delicious, consisting of the stuff I made last night, with the lettuce in an actual salad form rather than mixed with the other stuff, a bit of sourdough bread from Panera, and a homemade PTO cookie. As for the rest of my night, YouTube videos, and I eventually started to relearn the waffle crochet stitch. I would like to start working on my blanket again and I figured good practice would be to make a couple pot holders, which I can use as my white elephant gift for the work Christmas party on Friday. I hate the whole white elephant thing. Despise it. Always have. Always will. But hopefully it won't take up much of the party. I don't really like parties either, actually. Even though I work with all these people and talk with them all the time, I find myself not really talking to anyone at the party. I just stand around and wait for it to be over, like any other party. So yeah, Friday will be fun. And it seems that in exchange for me getting Friday night off from the theater, I get to work a double on Saturday. Hooray.

December 9, 2013

I slept late this morning and kinda felt tired all day. I'm ready for Christmas break. I want to sleep more at night. And take more naps during the day.

At work today I spent most of my time scanning storybooks. I've got four and a half to go. And then there will be all the editing. The majority of the books at this point have mostly white pages so there is going to be a lot of editing. Fun. I will be happy to see the final product when I am done with all of them. Whenever that may be.

The teacher was out of the room again today doing DIBELS testing so second grade reading groups weren't really a thing today. They were reading a story about different animals as a class when I got there and then I helped out with a worksheet about 'er', 'ir', and 'ur' words. There was a sentence and the kids had to fill in the blank with the correct word, without that help of a word bank. Most of the kids were able to get most of the words, some with a little extra hinting. The word I had to give all of the kids I helped was 'churn'. The sentence was something like “What you do to milk or cream to get butter”. None of the kids had heard the word let alone had any idea what it meant. And it took me about thirty seconds to bring it up in my memory, which lead to a brief moment of panic.

One of the sixth grade teachers is starting the Stock Market Game and asked if I would be able to help him teach the kids how to set up an Excel spreadsheet using formulas to track their stocks. He gave me a printed example of what he wanted and I was able to knockout an Excel version pretty quick using basic formulas.

And that was pretty much my workday. When I got home I did a whole lot of nothing. I always have big plans of what I can get done but then I get home and lose all motivation to do anything. I really just wanted to take a nap. Which I didn't do, so I just kind of zoned out. For dinner I made a version of taco salad with rice, fake hamburger, a can of diced tomatoes, and tater tots. I forgot to spray the inside of my rice cooker so the bottom had rice cooked to it. PAM cooking spray is a miracle worker when it comes to rice cookers. All the rice just slides right out.

After dinner I eventually got around to playing a bit of Skyrim. I didn't really make that much progress, spending most of the hour I played just trying to get to my next objective which was all the way across the map. Dying several times along the way. Then I got distracted by a vampire lair so I went through there and killed all of them and only just made it to my objective before deciding to call it a night. I'll be good to go the next time I play.

Now I'm going to go to bed. I have typed a lot of this entry with my eyes closed. I should have gone to sleep an hour ago. Maybe two.

December 8, 2013

Not a lot going on today. A typical lazy Sunday. Most of my day was spent watching the Yogscast livestream. And that was about it. I played a little Animal Crossing but still no slingshot. The gardening store opened so I got a watering can and went around and watered all the flowers. I did actually manage to pop a balloon but the present was over water and was irretrievable.

This evening I played more Skyrim. I had to wait until after the stream because I was recording the stream, which meant I couldn't do anything else on my computer that involved sound because it would have showed up in the recording. In Skyrim I helped kill my first dragon and learned two shouts. I also chopped a bunch of wood just because.

On completely unrelated notes, I got a call from my friend out in California and a call from my friend down in the Southeast corner of the state. I haven't heard from either of them in quite awhile and it was good to get the calls. My friend in California wanted to tell me about a crazy lady that sat in front of him at church today. Well, she was either crazy, mentally handicapped, off her meds, or afflicted with a Benjamin Button-like condition. My other friend was telling me about the goose jerky he is making. It involves two year old frozen goose meat so it will be interesting to see how that turns out. I also heard from my in-town friend for the first time since last Monday. It was a day of briefly catching up with friends. With a little bit of exercise, laundry, and chip making mixed in.

December 7, 2013

Today I went over to my grandma's house to help my dad, sister, and brother move furniture and other things. I was about ten or fifteen minutes late getting over there but I'll blame my dad. The last I heard he said he was aiming for noon today and I wanted to check in on that because there have been times (or at least time) in the past where I was about to head out the door and then found out my brother had handled everything himself or that something came up and it wasn't happening. So twenty minutes before noon I texted my dad. Never heard back. Shortly after noon I texted my sister and found out everyone was already over there. So yeah.

When I got there we started by moving one of the chairs in the living room into my grandma's bedroom. Then we moved the other living room chair into the office to make room for the Christmas tree. And we moved the loveseat from the office, back into the living room, which we originally moved out of the living room when my grandma broke her leg. We moved it out of the office to make room for the twin bed that we moved out of my grandma's bedroom. Another remnant of my grandma's broken leg. Moving the bed out made room for her old bed, which we wrestled up from the basement. There may or may not be scratched on the wall on the stair landing from my sister and I trying to make the turn with the bed frame. Right when we laid it down in the bedroom the whole thing fell apart. Had I known it came apart that easily I would have taken it apart in the basement and made a much easier trip of it. There was a brief worry about where the bolts for the headboard were but those were found and the bed was quickly put back together. Relatively quickly. Then we set the Christmas tree up and hung the Christmas wreath outside the door. There was a hunt for nails after getting the wreath hung because the cord for the lights had to go over the door frame and at least a couple of the old nails had disappeared. But nails were found and we got the cord safely pinned out of the way of the door.

All of that took about an hour and a half I'd say, maybe two hours. When I got home I started recording the Yogcast live stream and then took a nap. I was still a little tired for not getting enough sleep last night and I knew there was a midnight show tonight so I would be at work at lest until midnight. The nap was a success.

Work went more smoothly tonight than last night. Not because things were fixed, because they weren't, but I was aware of them so I could handle it. And I knew about the midnight show, so I could actually get that started at midnight. Which was worth it because we doubled our audience from last night. So, two people came. Silent Night, Deadly Night is a definite draw.

I spent my night playing video games. Starting with Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The slingshot and ax have still not shown up in the shop. I'm beginning to think that they won't show up until after the store is upgraded. Which will be awhile. Despite that, I made some progress. Selling things, buying things, paying off some of my home loan, and donating fish and fossils to the museum. Then I played a bunch of Pokemon Y. It is a pretty addictive game but it also reaches a point where it get really annoying just trying to get from point A to point B and being constantly interrupted by battles. And when that happened, I moved onto Ocarina Of Time. Such a fun game. I finally made it to the fishing pond and it only took me a few tries to get a ten-pound fish, which was bigger than my small child body.

Oh, I also made a paper flower out of strips I cut out of a magazine. I knew length would be an issue so I cut the strips just under a half an inch wide to help a little (the strips we used in sixth grade on Friday were about an inch wide). The flower was pretty much a success but I was only able to do the 3D part on one side because there wasn't enough length on the other side. It still looked pretty cool though.

December 6, 2013

Today I have been overly tired. All day. I even ended up sleeping later without even realizing it. Not to the point of being late, just missed my exercise time, but for the rest of the day I was just exhausted. Almost like I'm getting a cold or something. But hopefully not.

Today I made some progress on storybooks but nothing to brag about. My favorite sub was in second grade again today (she was also the sub for them yesterday afternoon) and I ended up spending an hour and a half in the room during reading groups instead of the normal hour. And instead of having groups the class listened to the story and then filled out their worksheet. After that the sub had all the kids cut out mustaches (the story was The Big Bushy Mustache) and then she took a class picture, with me in the center, I guess because I have an actual mustache, attached to the rest of my facial hair. I remember all the kids having mustaches last year but I never knew what it was for. Mystery solved. The sub and I were going back and forth giving each other crap and at one point one of the mom's that comes in to help asked the sub if she had worked with me before because of all the grief she was giving me. It was kind of funny.

During part of the morning I updated and downloaded apps for the Gifted teacher on both of her iPads. And in the afternoon I dropped the firewall for one of the para's advanced math group so they could continue working on their Million Dollar Project. She was worried that the kids would stumble across something inappropriate because they were logged into the computer under her name. I was more worried about my name being the one used to drop the firewall. But I didn't hear anything bad about it so I think we're safe.

I spent the last hour or hour and a half of the day up with one of the sixth grade classes because the teacher asked if I could help out. He was showing them how to make a flower out of strips of paper and he needed backup. He had me with one group, a para with one group, and a SPED teacher with another group. He showed the class how to make one all the way through, then went step-by-step, and we would separate into our groups after each step, then coming back for the next step. For me and the other two adults, it was the first time making them, so we were in the same boat as the kids. In the end, my flower was a success, and it was pretty fun to make. Although cutting out all the strips of paper would be a pain. I might give it a shot with my trash magazines. As for the kids, most of them got it, or had at least started to get it by the time it was time for school to get out. I was able to help several of them fix mistakes which made me feel pretty good. I was worried I was going to completely screw them up.

At work tonight I played video games. It was the first time I really got to sit down without any distractions (minus my job) and play my 3DS. I did some orange harvesting and shell collecting in Animal Crossing before the shops closed, and then moved onto Pokemon Y. I ended up having quite a bit of fun with that one. It is pretty repetitive but I couldn't stop playing. Right now my first Pokemon, the frog, is my best one and he had already changed form once. I managed to get a Psyduck so I am currently trying to level him up using a tip from the game to lead off with him but then change to my better character as soon as the battle starts. That way he gets points for the battle. I also got something after I started that technique that give all of the Pokemon in my group XP after each battle. That was incredibly helpful because before I just had a bunch of really low level Pokemon. At the moment my greatest frustration is trying to catch Pokemon. I keep making them feint in one shot by accident and don't have a chance to try and catch them.

I ended my night playing Ocarina Of Time and I blew past where I made it on the N64 in the last week or two. It is a lot of fun. The graphics are also a lot better and I think it controls a little better. Except for the ocarina buttons because those really aren't intuitive at all.

The best part of my night was finding out we had a midnight show. At 12:30AM when the wrong movie had started. All night projectors were acting up and basically annoying the crap out of me so this was just the icing on the cake. One of the managers came up to mention the wrong movie playing for the midnight and I told him that the fact we had a midnight was news to me. I can't really get in trouble when that information was never even hinted at. Once again, projectionists being last to know about projectionist things. Makes a whole lot of sense. It was also a special show, played through the box that the preshow plays through, so we had to figure out how to do that again, meaning the movie didn't start until almost 12:45AM. On the plus side, for the one person who came to the show, he got a free ticket.

December 5, 2013

I started my day at work by installing printers on four of the SPED laptops. Figuring out how to do that at the beginning of the year is probably the single most useful thing I have learned so far this year. Later on I also helped one of the paras sort out the copier. It was nice actually doing productive things other than work on storybooks. But I did that as well. I have decided to knock out all of the scanning for the books so then I can focus on making them look better. Today I finished scanning the book I started yesterday and have one page left on the book I started today. I have noticed that most of the remaining books have copious amounts of white so I probably won't be finished editing any time soon.

Second grade reading groups were a little different today because there was a substitute but once again the kids were pretty well behaved. I like when they are well behaved.

During one of the classes in the lab a second grader came up to me saying there was music playing in her headphones and she couldn't concentrate on the assignment she was working on in Odyssey. I checked to make sure nothing else was open and there weren't any random tasks or processes, but everything appeared to be normal. Yet there was still elevator-type music playing in the headphones. I tried unplugging the headphones and turning on the speakers but the music could only be heard in the headphones. I even tried swapping headphones. I kind of felt like I was going crazy. I tried logging off and logging back in as a different person but the music was still there. Finally I turned the computer off and back on, and that solved the problem. My theory is that a kid this morning during Boys & Girls Club was playing a game on Cool Math, left the game running, and instead of logging off they switched users instead. So their desktop was still running somewhere in the recesses of the computer. But the only evidence of this was the music playing through the headphones. It was incredibly strange.

Tonight I didn't have a visit with the kid, but you can't say I didn't try. I text him a couple times, tried to call him, and tried to call his foster dad. No luck. I finally heard back from him at 8:41PM, about two hours I tried and he told me his phone had been dead. His loss.

I spent my time more productively, playing a bit of Ocarina Of Time 3D, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Pokemon Y, and Skyrim. I still have awhile to go before I catch up in Ocarina to where I made it to on the N64 recently, but I'll get there, and beyond. The game looks so much better on the 3DS, and the 3D looks pretty cool, for the few seconds I turned it on every now and then. It makes me feel like I'm going cross-eyed.

In Animal Crossing I picked a bunch of oranges and then planted a couple rows of orange trees. I was looking up the requirements to get bigger stores and that is going to take forever. What I really want is a slingshot because three or four times now I have seen a present floating by on a balloon but I can't get it without a slingshot.

I didn't get very far in Pokemon Y yet so I can't pass any judgment. I can say that I have finally played a Pokemon game. I need to figure out what all the numbers mean because at the moment I just kind of tap on stuff during a fight and hope for the best. My hopes are still high though.

In Skyrim, my modded user interface still isn't working which is annoying, but I did use a console command to increase the amount of stuff I can carry, and that makes me very happy. I'm not a fan of inventory management. I just want to pick up everything I see, especially all the worthless stuff. Or the seemingly worthless stuff. I still don't know what most of the little things are used for. If anything.

I think now I am going to do my monthly report for my volunteer thing real quick and then go to bed. I would prefer to just go to bed but the report is due tomorrow and I don't really want to do it after work before going to the theater.

December 4, 2013

Another fairly uneventful day at work. I didn't have reading groups because the second graders were schedule for Body Venture during their reading group time and throughout the day I only had a couple classes in the lab. This allowed me to work on storybooks, to the point of my right wrist hurting so that kind of sucks. I believe I have finished seven at this point and have started to scan the eighth one. With maybe seven or eight more to go. We will definitely be fully into the new year before I get finished.

Immediately after the first graders came into the lab one of them came up to me crying because one of the other kids was at his computer. There were at least ten other computer open but to be fair he does always sit in the same spot (while most other kids move around) and the kid who sat in his spot tends to be a dick and does stuff like that on purpose. I ended up just telling him to get on another computer because they were all the same. Not even thirty second later the kid who took the computer came up to ask a question and almost immediately started crying when he looked back and saw that the original kid had taken his computer back. I told him that the other kid always sits there and he could easily sit at another computer. He just kept crying about it and eventually the teacher said “Maybe now you know how it feels when someone else takes your computer.” It was pretty great.

While all of that was going on I was helping one of the kids log in because I have to help him log in every time. He always sits down, raises his hand, and says “What to do?” And I always walk him through the process by asking him what to do next. During the middle of it today I think he got tired of my questions and just looked up at me and said “You're too powerful for me.” It was hilarious.

On my way home from work I stopped and bought a newspaper for wrapping paper and gas. The gas cost $35.76. Then I stopped at Target for some bread before going home and wrapping my mom's presents. Minus the book because it hadn't arrived yet. I feel like there was something else after that but eventually it was time for dinner. We went to the same Chinese buffet we went to for my sister's birthday because it is maintained much better than the one we used to go to. I paid and the total came to $35.76. The exact same as the gas earlier. Insane. The chances of that happening are so slim. As for the dinner. I had a whole bunch of rice noodles, fried rice, green beans, and a little bit of macaroni. I ended up filling up my plate twice and I will say I regret that a little bit. It was so delicious though. I do plan on cutting back on my food intake though because I have been eating way too much lately. Healthier and in small portions. That is my new goal.

After dinner we went back to the house so my mom could open her presents. As we were walking up to the door I checked the front porch and commented on UPS having not arrived yet. And less than two seconds after saying that the UPS guy turned onto the street. Crazy timing. So I was able to open that up real quick, take out my games, and wrap the book up in newspaper.

When we were done with the presents we went over to my grandma's house for cake and ice cream. We sat and ate and talked about all the random things for probably an hour and a half and it was good times.

Last night we got a nice little covering of ice and my windshield cover blew over at some point so this morning the bottom foot of my windshield was ice-free while the rest of it was covered. This would have hopefully been reversed. My windshield cover is somewhat poorly designed and it was definitely not designed for my car or one with a windshield as big as mine. Tonight I tried something new. It as two elastic straps that go over the side mirrors so I put one over the side mirror and shut the other inside the door. I wanted to just role down the window so I could put my hand through to hold the strap while shutting the door but the window was frozen shut. So I had to get in, hold the strap, shut the door, and then climb over the center console to go out through the other door. It was a whole ordeal but hopefully it will get the job done. I need to just get one that is meant to be shut in the door. And maybe one that covers my entire windshield.

December 3, 2013

I finished the fourth storybook and made decent progress on the fifth, scanning it all in so I just have to edit it. The fifth one is fairly short and there isn't a lot of editing so I should be able to finish it tomorrow. Maybe.

And much like yesterday, my day was pretty uneventful. Second grade reading groups went really smoothly and it just felt off. They weren't terribly productive but they weren't awful either. It was a nice change of pace. All hell will probably break loose tomorrow.

Tonight I finally played Skyrim. I went through the long process of getting a mod loader so I could add in the improved UI mod because I have heard the interface was designed for consoles and isn't very PC-friendly. Well, the mod didn't work. And I was tired of messing with it so I started the game without it. I'll look into it later. The interface did feel like it could be better but I enjoyed my first journey in Skyrim. The only thing I really knew was that I wanted to be an archer so I picked a Wood Elf. Right off the bat I ran into the problem of wanting to loot everything. I can't help it. I want all the things. It's a bit of a compulsion. And in Skyrim there is a weight limit so I can't have all the things. Although I think there is a console command to adjust the weight limit. So that might be happening. It is a video game and I can survive suspending my disbelief at the size and strength of my pockets. I don't need that kind of realism. As for the story, I was following it for a bit but then I went off on a side quest for a family sword. And ended up playing way too long. But it is fun.

I also played more Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I ended up spending money on a shovel, net, fishing pole, and headdress, before I knew I needed 10,000 bucks as a down payment on my house. I don't think I'll have fruit again until tomorrow so I ended up collecting a lot of shells and doing a whole bunch of fishing to get the money. And I managed to do it before the realtor closed so my house should be ready in the morning. The best part about this is that the game couldn't progress until I had a house. If tomorrow is fruit day I think I will try and plant a lot of it to get more fruit trees. And either stagger the planting or not harvest it all on the same day so I can get fruit everyday, not just every three days.

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday and so far I have all but one of her presents. I got her the windshield sun visor, more screen protectors for her phone, and a USB flash drive because she was wanting to back some stuff up on her computer. The last present, John Grisham's latest book, should be here tomorrow. I am hoping it arrives during the day and not after dinner. There really is no telling what the UPS schedule will be like on any given day. Either way, it should be here tomorrow so she will still get it.

December 2, 2013

So, it turns out I'm an idiot. I bought Skyrim on Friday but haven't been able to play it because it never showed up in my library. Yesterday I finally emailed Steam Support and this morning the emailed me back. It was a generic reply with several possible fixes but the main thing I got out of it was the line: The Legendary edition of this game will appear in your library as “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.” Whoops. The whole time I was down in the 'S' section of my library. Never even crossed my mind to look up in the 'E' section. I am an idiot.

Today at work I was super productive in terms of storybook editing. Thanks to only small amounts of edits needed to be made on most of the pages I made it through nine or ten pages. I only have one left in the book I'm working on, which I can hopefully finish tomorrow. I think I am going to stick with scanning and resizing and stitching the pages together and adjusting the colors, for the entire book before going back and doing the erasing thing. It is nice being able to get all of that out of the way and then focus on making white areas white and any text edits.

Other than that, not a lot going on at work, hence the amount of work I got done on the storybooks. I had a couple classes in the lab and helped with second grade reading groups. During which we had a fire drill. It was the first time we've had one when I wasn't in the lab so I got to go out a different door. So exciting. It was verging on freezing this morning but thankfully it was fairly nice out by the time the drill happened.

After work I stopped and got a windshield sun visor thing for my mom because hers doesn't fit and her birthday is on Wednesday. The last couple of years I have asked her for a Christmas as a ploy to get ideas for a birthday list. It seems to be effective. But then I have to get her to come up with more things for Christmas. I also briefly stopped at home to get my headphones and a pair of pants, so I could take them to the UPS store. I am sad to see the headphones go because I liked them but it just wasn't meant to be.

So there was that loss but my Amazon stuff started arriving today, including my Chromecast and Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The first thing I did was set up the Chromecast in the living room. I didn't try it with my phone but it worked perfectly with a laptop. I was able to look at different websites as well as watch videos while browsing other tabs. Pretty cool stuff. Now when I show videos on Chipotle nights I can put them on the big screen.

I spent way too much time getting started in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I had my name, town name, and map picked out but then I mistakenly hit the power button and closed my 3DS to go eat dinner and lost everything. And then I learned that there are a crazy number of different map layouts, given four at a time. I really liked my first layout and none of the new ones were doing it for me so I kept restarting the game, I don't know how many times, getting four new options every time. I eventually found one that wasn't quite as good as my original but it will do. The town of Macaroni lives. I don't actually have a house yet because the realtor place closed by the time I got my location picked out, but I did pick all the fruit and dug up all the fossils I could find. Not a bad start.

I also took a random nap in my chair tonight, with my hands behind my head so I woke up with both hands asleep. It was one of those naps where you're just going to rest your eyes for a second and you wake up several minutes later. Or twenty minutes. I don't regret it because it was nice and I still think I'll be able to fall asleep tonight with no problem. Hopefully.