March 13, 2014

Last night I woke up a little before two o'clock, maybe 1:45AM, because my throat was bothering me so much. And I ended up staying up past three o'clock drinking water and sucking on cough drops. Thanks to my throat it was a fairly restless night.

Today was regular day at work. I was exhausted but my kidney didn't hurt so that was nice. My goal for the day was to finish organizing test tickets. I ended up being at work an extra twenty minutes but I got the job done. The tickets are printed off by grade so after cutting them out I had to divide them into classes. Next I pulled out all the kids with accommodations that will be tested outside the lab. Then I organized each class in seating chart order so I can just walk along and put the tickets on the computers without having to fumble with them. I had to do this I think eight times for each class because of the different sections for each test. It took forever. Then I paper-clipped each organized section, the in-lab group and the accommodation group, and them paper-clipped both of those together because more often then not the accommodation kids take their tests at the same time as the in-lab kids. All of this is a very tedious process but it makes testing go a lot smoother when it is done in advance. It also helped me catch five or six kids who for one reason or another didn't have tickets printed for them. We had one kid like that last year that we didn't catch and it was a pain in the but trying to get her a ticket every time her class had a test.

The only thing I have left to do is finish putting the testing software on the laptop carts for fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. Pretty much everyone will be testing in the lab and I already put the software on two laptop carts, so there are more than enough computers, but better safe than sorry I guess. Now we just need to figure out the test. Some schools in the district have already tried taking the test because the window is open, but so far we have a 0% completion rate. Most kids can't log-in, others have had crashes, if a test is stopped it can't be restarted, and on and on. I think we still have another week after Spring Break before we start so hopefully everything will be fixed by then. And hopefully they can get the practice and formatives working over Spring Break so classes can actually experience the new test before they have to take it. Right now the formatives are a good simulator for the real test, in that they are broken.

On my way home I bought some Gatorade and Powerball tickets. When I got home I ate a banana and mixed the Magnesium Citrate with some lemon-lime Gatorade. I don't really like that flavor of Gatorade but I figured it made sense with the lemon flavored Magnesium Citrate. I guess it worked but the MC was so overwhelmingly tart. It's like someone dissolved Warheads and every other sour and sweet candy they could think of into carbonated water. I managed to down it fairly quickly but yuck. I washed it down with some deliciously plain water and then had a few crackers to cover it up. It took about two or three hours to kick in but it did eventually. I was reading about how it works and that is fascinating, but experiencing it is annoying.

Right now I want to go to sleep, and have wanted to since around the time I woke up this morning, but I am waiting to see if the anesthesiologist will call me back. I missed the call earlier and immediately called back and left my number on a beeper (which I guess is a thing still) but haven't heard back. I was a little surprised to even get a call because the last time I scheduled a kidney stone surgery, the more invasive one, I didn't get a single call the night before. And so far I've gotten three or four. I am feeling way more comfortable about this one. The only thing that I'm a little worried about is my sore throat. I called the doctor today at school and talked to the nurse. Apparently as long as I don't have a fever, chills, or upset stomach, then I should be fine. So I should be good if nothing drastic happens overnight. We'll see how I feel in the morning.