January 9, 2014

Today at school was pretty normal. Not a lot going on. I finished a couple storybook pages. Getting ever-closer at finishing that project. Second grade reading groups started off kind of awful, so nothing has really changed there. I started with the bad group at the listening center. I assigned them parts/characters and they were supposed to listen to the story once, then on the second round they would read along when it was their character. Three of the girls rarely paid attention on either read through, one boy spun around in circles on his knees most of the time (but he did manage to nail his part (the Fluency Tip because we ran out of characters) so I'll give him that, and another boy was off in his own world a lot but he wasn't disruptive. One boy and one girl were actually good. It was rough and reminded me of how much I don't like certain groups. Some kids are just not group people. And some aren't even individual people. It is interesting to see how widely personalities can very between kids when they're all made up of the same basic stuff, just in different combinations. My second group was better because it was the higher group so they pretty much handle themselves. I just have to prod a couple of them every now and then to get them back on task.

Even though most, if not all, of the classes were going outside for recess, we still had indoor lunch recess. I wasn't asked to help supervise but that was probably because the principal was gone today. So I volunteered anyway. I got there early again so I talked with the second grade teacher until the kids showed up. Thankfully the teacher stuck around for awhile because the kids were a bit nuts when they first came in and she had to lay down the law a bit. At one point one of the kids came up to me and gave me a hug, then she back up for a second before thrusting her body against me, like a body-check in hug form. Little kids are boney and surprisingly strong. I might have bruises. So I put an end to that and then had to break up a few other girls who were doing it to each other, first as a hug and then getting farther and farther back before running into each other. I don't have the slightest clue what started it or what compelled them to do it. Easily one of the weirdest things I've seen so far.

One of the kindergarten teachers was acting principal today so when his class came to the lab there was a sub and a brand new student teacher. And a lot of the kids seemed to have trouble operating the computers today so I spent most of their computer lab time walking back and forth across the lab fixing things or telling kids to stop what they were doing or start whatever they weren't doing. I have to say I was glad to see them leave.

After school I went and got my haircut. Possibly the second-to-last time with the lady who has been cutting my hair since my very first haircut. They end of an era. She owned the business but sold it to one of the other ladies and is staying on until at least the end of February. For awhile now she has been looking to get a small place of her own to continue cutting hair on a lighter schedule for a couple more years but hasn't had any luck. Now she is also looking at renting out a chair somewhere that is quieter because all the sound in the current place really messes with her hearing aides. Regardless of the outcome, I will eventually have to figure out what to do about my hair. I could either go with one of the other ladies at the current place or just start cutting it myself. At the rate my hair is thinning, cutting it myself might be the easiest option.

After dinner I had my first visit with the volunteer kid is weeks. We went to Sonic and it was a solid hour-long visit. I gave him his birthday present, a sketch pad and drawing pencils, and his Christmas present, a bag of all the candy I got at my dad's for Christmas. He really liked both gifts so I did a pretty badass job. We talked about all the usual random stuff, nothing new really, but it was good to finally hangout.

When I got home I set up the latest pair of headphones that arrive today. The Astro A40s. I went big, to see what all of the fuss is about. Right off the bat they are more comfortable than the Rosewill headset, maybe not quite as comfortable as the SteelSeries, and probably on par with my old ones, which are Skarkoons. The would be a lot more comfortable if the headband was wider. Looking at it from the outside it seems plenty wide but on the inside there is just a fairly thing bit of padding that is pretty stiff. I imagine this softens up overtime but it seems like a pretty poor design. They are a beefy headphone and it would be nice if the weight could be displaced over a wider area. The ear cups and similar to my old headphones but I have to find just the right spot for my ears not to be irritated. But they aren't being crushed so that is good. I can't really speak on the sound quality in games because I haven't played any games yet but music sounds good. I won't get to try them in a game until Saturday probably but my expectations are pretty high. I also thing the headphones themselves would be a lot cheaper if they didn't spend so much on packaging. It is high-quality stuff which I guess shows how high-quality the product is inside of it, but I'd prefer a cheaper box so I could get cheaper headphones. It is similar to how I feel about the ASPCA or all the other organization that ask for donations and in return give you a bag or a jacket or whatever else. How about you just spend all the money on helping the animals or the people or whoever I'm donating the money to help, rather than spending a crap load on cheap gifts? Anyway, now that all three headsets are here I can do some better comparisons between them and see which one wins out and which ones I will send back. Decisions, decisions.