May 30, 2014

This morning I watched Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters and it was a lot better than the first movie. Like so much better. But I fear my opinion is very much skewed by the supporting performances of Stanley Tucci and Nathon Fillion. Fillion in particular because he was easily my favorite part of the movie and he was only in it for a few minutes. I want a spin-off where he is the lead.

I made more revisions to my statement of objectives. First I fixed the few words and sentences that were bothering me. Then I got a response back from my friend with all of her revisions. Some I had already fixed, and some didn't work for me, but I did use several of her suggestions and I think it made the paper better. I just read over it again and there are two more words I want to fix so I'm going to think about those for awhile. Never have I put so much thought and work into two, double-spaced pages. I just hope it's worth it. But even if I don't get accepted, writing this paper has given me some insight into myself.

Tonight I watched the first season of The Librarians on Hulu. It is kind of like an Australian version of The Office, set in a library. I wouldn't say it was great but it was interesting. It had it's funny moments. Maybe enough to watched the next two seasons but I could easily lose interest before that happens. Next I want to watch Moone Boy which I heard about awhile ago but never got around to watching. It is also on Hulu and it stars Chris O'Dowd who plays the imaginary friend of a twelve-year-old boy. It sounds pretty funny.

Overall, today was pretty boring. As tomorrow will most likely mirror. My goal is to make the final revisions to my statement of objectives and get that sent in. The deadline is July 1^st but I am wondering if my interview will be scheduled for sometime after that or if it is based on when they get all of my application materials. I guess I will find that out soon enough. Anyway, I want to do something tomorrow. I'll probably end up watching at least one movie and other things but maybe I will start cross stitching. There is at least one more pattern I want to design so that might come first. I also want to read. I am almost officially failing at reading a book a week because I finished one last week but probably won't this week. Although last week was the last week of school so maybe I can count last week's book for this week, it being the first week of summer break. Tweaking the rules of my goal isn't the best way to start. But life goes on. Although I do have plenty of short books so maybe I'll just pick one of those and knock it out by Sunday.

May 29, 2014

This morning I got up early for a summer day and headed to court. Normally we meet in a back office in the courthouse but today we actually met in a courtroom. One minus a judge. I think maybe an office just wasn't available. The meeting only took thirty minutes and the only real point was to set the next hearing, which will be in December, right before the new volunteer kid's eighteenth birthday and before he graduates from high school. During the meeting I also learned that the kid's sister is also no longer living with their dad. She is in a foster placement in another town but they are currently working on getting her moved to the same town the new volunteer kid is and having her live with the grandparents. As I said, this was all news to me. A funny thing during the hearing was listening to one of the attorneys talking about the sister. She has apparently gotten into a little trouble in her placement and I guess her foster mother explained that the sister and the other foster girl in the house are both followers and they tend to follow each other into trouble. That is pretty good.

After court I went to Hobby Lobby to get more string for cross stitching and to look at yarn for my blanket. I took a sample of the yellow I'm using and the skeins they have are still too pale. They had a couple different greens that I liked, so that might be an option. I need to pull the blanket out and see which color I would be ending on and make my decision based on that. When I was checking out I ran into one of the second grade teacher's and her almost toddler. She was holding him and asked him to say hello and wave. He raised his hand as if to wave and then kept going to rub his forehead instead. Close enough.

From there I went to Hastings. The plan was to rent the first season of Supernatural. Instead, a rented a bunch of other stuff. That is the problem with browsing the new releases and slightly older new releases first. Maybe next time.

When I got home I eventually finished the second draft of my statement of objectives, then sent it off to the librarian and had my mom read over it. I also asked and then sent a link to the librarian and the principal for the reference form to fill out. I got a call this morning from the college and the lady asked if I had any questions, among them was if there was preference between the online reference form and an actual reference letter. She said their wasn't, both were perfectly fine, but anything emailed would obviously be received faster than something sent through the mail. I also got confirmation today from the program director (and the lady who called me) that the transcript I had emailed to them would count as an official one. And, I received an school email address and login information for something else. I haven't logged into either yet but it is cool that I got them.

Now I just need to finish the statement of objectives and email it along with my resume. Tonight I had my sister read my statement of objectives and I also sent it to my dad and friend to read and critique. I also read over it again a couple times myself and found a few words and sentences that I want to change but I need to think about them for awhile. I still have a month to figure it out, which is crazy because I am never early for anything. It is also weird putting so much effort into the editing and revision process of the statement of objectives because I put very little effort into doing that sort of thing in high school and college. I tended to read over a paragraph once after writing it and then moved onto the next one, without looking back again. I'm scrutinizing this thing with a fine-toothed comb. As I should, because it is very important and will be my first impression for whoever reads it.

The final step in the process will be an interview. Which I'm nervous about. I think I'm better in writing. I also don't quite have a clear vision of my future yet. Like a concrete goal that require a degree in Library Science. I think it would be a lot of fun to be a librarian in a college library. After working at the school I also think it would be kind of cool to work with kids because they keep things interesting. But it would also be cool to work in a museum or in the private library of an interesting company or wherever else information needs to be collected and organized. There are just so many choices. And I feel like I should have a clearer idea of what I want to do. I don't want to come across in an interview like someone that just wants the degree because it's there. I underline some broader points in my statement of objectives but I also need a more focused view of my future with a Masters degree.

Moving on. Tonight was Chipotle night and I showed some YouTube videos, and then went for a visit with the new volunteer kid. We managed an hour-long visit. I learned that his sister has been in foster care for at least a few months, I confirmed that they have been having visits with each other every other week since she has been in foster care, and I learned that his mother was only sixteen or seventeen when she had him. He also said that he is only eight months older than his sister. I believe the derogatory term for that is Irish twins, but I'm not sure how the math works but I'm sure it's possible. We also talked briefly about college. He still wants to do the welding thing but is attorney is pushing for college because he's really smart and I think his social worker is working on getting him to the next ACT testing session. He said tonight that he still needs to upload a picture of himself but he hasn't figured out how to do that yet. I looked up some stuff on it tonight and it looks like there's an app for it (because there's an app for everything) and all he needs to do is download the up, sign in, and upload his picture. I'm going to send him the information tomorrow. If nothing else, I think the deadline to upload it is next Friday, so if we have a visit next Thursday we can get it done.

Tonight I continued looking over my statement of objectives and watched one of my rented movies, Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief. I really enjoyed that book series and it has been long enough since I read it so I couldn't remember all of the stuff that they cherry-picked from later books in the series and put in the first book movie, but it still wasn't a great movie. To be fair, the books were really good, so the bar was high right from the start. But even if it wasn't, I think the movie would have still fallen short. The writing was disappointing and a lot of the movie felt unintentionally cheesy. Sometimes that is a good thing but not this time. I also rented the second movie, so my fingers are crossed they did a better job. I'll find out tomorrow. Or eventually.

May 28, 2014

Things got done today. I can't really explain it.

I updated my resume, which didn't take too long because I updated it last year before getting the job at the school. I got rid of some things and added the stuff I do at the school. I also finished my first draft of my statement of objectives. I had my mom read it and sent it to the librarian at school to look over. Both of them gave me their critique and tomorrow I will work on getting my second draft finished and having them look over it. I am honestly shocked that I was able to accomplish that much. It only took me six years to get this far. But as the librarian said, it's better than seven.

I found out this morning that there is a court hearing tomorrow morning for my volunteer thing. I either had no idea or completely forgot about it. Both are equally likely. It is strange because they are supposed to be every six months and they just had one in March. Maybe since the kid will be turning eighteen in December they have increased the rate of court hearings. This is only my second case, and the last one didn't make it this far, so it's all new to me. Anyway, I wrote my court report, which was very short, and got that sent off to my supervisor.

I figured out my plugged up shower today. At least I'm pretty sure I did. After de-clogging it however long ago that was, it worked for a day or two and then went back to sucking again. Or not sucking because it wasn't draining very well. The plumber was coming today because there was water in the basement again and one of his stops was going to be my shower, so I cleaned it again. It wasn't that dirty but nearly-stagnant water leaves grime. So I cleaned, and at some point during that process, I noticed the little lever for tub-mode was halfway up. I never take baths so I never give that little lever a second thought. Turns out I should. I pushed it down, ran the water for awhile, and it all drained immediately. I don't know when it could have happened, other than some time when I was cleaning the first time, but then it shouldn't have drained fine for the next shower or two after that. I'm confused but happy that the shower is working again, at least for now. I am also happy that I figured it out before the plumber showed up. I already feel like an idiot but I would have felt like an even bigger idiot if the plumber just walked in and flipped the lever down.

I left the house long enough today to drop something at UPS and buy a Powerball ticket. While buying the ticket, my money clip broke. It was the best money clip I've ever had so it kind of sucks that it broke. It had a big metal clip that clamped down on a card holder. The card holder will still work, and the only reason for the clip is to hold paper money, which I don't really carry anymore, so I should survive. I can always fold some cash and put it in the card holder.

Tonight I did laundry (because the water in the basement turned out to be AC related, not washer related), started playing Cookie Clicker, and finished watching the second season of The 4400. Now, when I say I started playing Cookie Clicker, it's not really a game you play. You kind of just push that first domino and then watch the show. I buy upgrades and new things when they become available but really it is just a game of patience. It is intriguing.

Tomorrow morning I have the court hearing, then I may go to the store, and when I get home I want to edit my statement of objectives and get the next critique. Eventually it will be Chipotle night and then I'll possibly have a visit with the new volunteer kid. It shouldn't be an exciting day but it won't be boring.

May 27, 2014

Things were accomplished today. Not as much as probably could have been, but it wasn't an entirely pointless day. When I woke up I strongly considered cleaning my room, something that most definitely needs to happen. But not today. Instead, I made progress on applying to grad school. I filled out the online application and sent that in. I also had my undergrad transcripts emailed to the college I want to go to.

I got an email back from the lady I emailed yesterday and she gave me the email address to someone else. I emailed that person, and along with saying the emailed transcripts might not count (which sucks because I paid fifteen bucks for them), they gave me a link that showed deadlines and all the enrollment requirements. For the life of me I couldn't find that information when I was clicking around their site. Every time I went to a page about applying or enrolling or anything along the same lines, I got the online application page or a PDF about the library science program. But now I have the information I need.

I still have to update my résumé, get two letters of reference, write a statement of objectives, and eventually have an interview. The résumé should be fairly simple when I find my latest one, just needing to add my job at the school. The letters of reference should also be fairly simple. The hard part will be the statement of objectives. That has held me up in the past because I really don't like writing about myself. Granted, I write about my life every day, but that is different. Or maybe it's not. Maybe I'm just over-thinking it.

Either way, that is my goal for tomorrow. Back in January I started messing around with a personal statement so I'll have to look back at that and see if there is anything useful. When I get my first draft roughed out I'll let my mom look over it and send it to the librarian at school to get feedback. She actually texted me today to see how the grad school thing was going. So tomorrow I need to at least get a rough draft written out. And possibly email the program director (whose email I was given by the second person I emailed today) and see about the emailed transcript. The first lady thought I would need to be accepted into the program itself before I could take classes. It would be nice if I just needed to be accepted at the college and then take a class this summer, but that enrollment closes on June 1^st so that might be cutting it close. Enrollment for the Fall semester closes July 1^st, and it would be nice if I could get everything in and actually accepted for the Fall semester, rather than waiting even longer.

Other things from today. I finished another cross stitch pattern, this a quote I saw on a picture of Tom Hiddleston, so who knows where it actually came from: “I can't buy your happiness. But I can buy you cupcakes, and let's face it, that's pretty much the same thing.” A funny quote and I like the layout I came up with. It'll be a fun one to make.

I also watched stuff. Several YouTube videos and a handful of episodes of The 4400. I've got four more episodes left in season two, and then two more seasons after that. I want to start watching Supernatural, something I tried doing months ago but I could only watch the first episode because the second wouldn't show up. That might be one to rent because it has eight seasons on Netflix and if I get sucked in I would definitely go over my cable data limit. Tonight I watched The LEGO Movie and Thor: The Dark World. I saw most of each movie in bits and pieces while we had them at the theater but never got a chance to see them all the way through. I enjoyed both of them, The LEGO Movie more though, because it was really funny.

Now I'm going to go to bed. Tomorrow I am going to wake up with inspiration coursing through me so I can knock out my statement of objectives.

May 26, 2014

I didn't really have a lot going on today. Not surprising. So this will probably be short unless I start rambling. Likely but hopefully it won't happen.

I emailed a lady about grad school today. Seeing as how it is a holiday I was not expecting a response, and I didn't get one, so my expectations were met. But hopefully I will hear from her soon. And hopefully the ball will begin to roll.

I spent most of my day watching The 4400 on Netflix and making cross stitch patterns. Awhile ago, maybe even last summer, when I got really into Battlestar Galactica and watched the entire series in a very short time period, I managed to exceed the data limit from the cable company. I am afraid that is going to happen again because there are so many things on Netflix that I want to watch. And I have a lot of time on my hands. It should get better when I start working five days a week at the theater again but I don't know. I guess we'll cross that potentially inevitable bridge when we come to it.

Cross stitch patterns. I made several today. Or at least a couple, with two others that I need to pick a font for. The first is from an ecard I saw: “There are no limits to what you can accomplish when you are supposed to be doing something else.” That one took awhile, not only to find the font and then make it one pixel at a time, but also figuring out how I wanted to lay it all out. I'm happy with the end result. The second pattern is a sign from a Calvin and Hobbs cartoon: “A swift kick in the butt $1.00.” I think it is pretty funny. I also briefly experimented with making normal computer fonts really small so I could turn them into cross stitch fonts. A lot of them get very blurry around the edges but I think there is a chance some of them could work out.

Tonight we had a family dinner for Memorial Day. I ate way too much. A quinoa and black bean burger, deviled eggs, baked beans, potato salad, a corn and Frito's salad thing, coleslaw, pasta salad, and strawberry rhubarb pie. It was all really good.

I'm not sure what's on the agenda tomorrow. There are things I could/should/want to do but there is also a good chance I'll be incredibly lazy and do absolutely nothing.

May 25, 2014

I kind of did things today. Kind of. I finished my snitch cross stitch pattern and started/finished my wiggle one. I like making patterns, and want to make more, but at the moment I can't think of any. I also want to start making the patterns I already have. Soon.

I spent time today looking into graduate school stuff. Tomorrow I'm going to email some admissions people about some things. I want to see about maybe taking a class or two while I work on applying to grad school. And see if I should get all my application stuff together now and submit it or sit on it until Spring enrollment comes around. This won't be the first time I talk to people about grad school but hopefully it will be the time that takes. I'm tired of doing nothing with my life. Or at least being stuck I the same place in my life. Nothing has changed in years and something needs to be done about that. I hate the theater but I like working at the school. But both jobs combined don't provide me with the money I should be making as a twenty-nine year old college graduate. Hopefully grad school will be the answer. Or I'll be a thirty-something grad school graduate making far less money than I should be.

I briefly played Minecraft today but I couldn't think of anything to do so I logged off. Animals still aren't sticking around, at least the ones I want to stick around, and the island my house is on was overrun with donkeys. The last time I played it was overrun with horses. Who knows about next time. I need to think of something to build.

I played Tera for awhile, eventually leveling up. I am now at level thirty-four. Most of the side quests at this point don't offer enough XP to be worth it, at least in terms of leveling, but I still accept them because sometimes I like to just run around and attack mobs. Plus, a lot of times I'll be running by them on my way to complete quests with higher XP rewards, so I might as well earn a little extra as I go.

I made my mom a profile on my Netflix account. She has been interested in it for awhile and she figured this summer she would have more than enough time to kill. I first tried setting my Roku up on her TV but I've got an older model and apparently you can only switch profiles on the latest model. I would say my mom has almost no interest in most of the stuff I watch so, and I'm bad at removing stuff from my queue so she would have to scroll through a couple hundred things to find shows that she added to my profile. So I tried her Xbox, which she lost interest in shortly after buying it. I first had to wait for a system upgrade and then got hung up on signing her up for Xbox Live. Since I haven't played my Xbox in months I probably should have just signed in as myself but I didn't. And then I didn't sign her up either because I had already waited forever for the update and then would have needed to create a Windows Live account for her, and I didn't know if profile switching would be an option (further research makes me think it is a thing but whatever). Instead, I went the simple route, which I should have started with. I just signed in on her laptop and streamed it from there to the TV using the Chromecast. So much technology. The only problem with the Chromecast is it gives video the “realistic” look. Like you're watching a play rather than a show. I know there is a better way to describe it but it's late and it isn't coming to me. We'll see if it is a thing my mom finds annoying. Hopefully not because the laptop option is very convenient. But I will probably try the Xbox again tomorrow, signing in as myself, and see how that works.

Speaking of Netflix, today I watched Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 because I watched the first movie a little while ago and Netflix recently got the second one. Tonight I started watching The 4400. I was interested in the show back when it was on but never actually watched it. That has happened a lot over the years, especially back before I had a DVR because I was usually at work when the shows I wanted to watch were on. I have made it five or six episodes in and I am liking it so far. We'll see how I feel after the mystery behind the returned people is revealed. I tend to lose interest in shows after the main mystery has been revealed. That is the hook that gets people to watch a show and it is often hard for shows to keep their momentum after that mystery is gone. I could also lose interest for no other reason than I get distracted by something else. Who knows. We'll see.

May 24, 2014

Today at work I finished reading Grave Secrets by Annette and Gina Cascone. I liked it. It reminded me of Goosebumps books, were was my favorite series growing up. I also continued reading the Stephen King book and started reading another book fair book. I would list the title but I can't remember it and I don't want to dig the book out. Other than that, my workday was pretty boring. Which is generally a good thing at the theater, at least in terms of patron satisfaction. A busy day for me at the theater generally means a lot of annoyed patrons.

Tonight I played video games, something I haven't done in awhile. I started with Trials: Fusion. Just long enough to start feeling it in my fingers. I like being able to play forever with a mouse and keyboard and not regret it days later. I like the feel of a controller in my hands but my hands and arms can't take it for very long any more. The precision of a mouse is also nice.

The second game I played was Tera. I have gotten to the point where I don't even pretend to read the quests, including the main storyline quests. In the beginning I was interested in the story but then I got caught up in the grind and I just want to go out and kill mobs, find loot, and level up. Reading quests and storylines just slow me down. Tonight I visited a new location, killed a bunch of stuff, completed a few quests, and leveled up. I would say it was a pretty productive night.

I've been watching a lot of Minecraft videos recently and I have an incredible urge to get back into that game. It has been at least a couple months so I'll need to update all my mods, something I don't look forward to, but after that I'm not exactly sure what I want to do in the game. The last big thing I made was a nice house with a big garden and a tree orchard. I abandoned the stables because my animals kept disappearing, which also kind of defeated the purpose of the giant aquarium I made. So I will probably stick with build stuff and plants. But I'm not sure if I want to continue working with my garden, possibly setting up fields for each plant rather than just a row or two, or if I want to set off in a random direction and build another house from scratch, just for something to do. Sometime this summer I need to jump back in.

Tomorrow I want to do stuff. I want to finish a couple cross stitch patterns, look into classes for grad school, and play some video games. And maybe some other things, whatever those may be. We'll see if I can accomplish any of it. I would like to start this summer on a positive, productive note.

May 23, 2014

I didn't really do much with my morning but this afternoon I had my urologist appointment. It was nice not being there under the dark cloud of a kidney stone. Just inevitable future kidney stones I guess. The results from my tests came back and those were the topic of discussion. My blood test looked completely normal, so that is good. The 24-hour urine collection I did showed all the stuff my kidneys are outputting. Even though I drank a lot of water that day, I only had a volume of 2.2 liters, and it should have been at least 2.5 liters. Which means I need to drink even more water. I've said it for years but I need to get better at spacing the water out. I have a tendency to binge drink and then get stuck going to the bathroom every five minutes. Although, even if I space out my drinking, I still need to get to a volume of 2.5 liters, which means drinking more that 2.5 liters of water, or liquids in general. I probably drink at least two liters on any given day, sometimes more depending on what I'm doing, but if I'm just hanging out not doing much, it is hard to just drink for the sake of drinking. My kidneys might need it but the rest of my body sure doesn't.

The test also showed that my calcium levels are low, which is good. And they should be low because I don't eat much calcium. My previous urologist told me to cut out calcium completely, which I did, and just made more stones. From reading independently later on I learned that calcium needs to bind with oxalate in order to pass through your kidneys. If you have too much of one it has nothing to bind with and stays in the kidneys, forming stones. So when I got rid of calcium, I probably just caused more stones. My new urologist said that the old recommendation was to get rid of calcium but newer research showed that when you take calcium out of your diet, your body starts taking it from your bones, which isn't good for your bones and can increase kidney stone production. So my decision to get back into calcium in small ways was a smart one.

The main thing the test showed was that I need to work on getting more citrate in my diet. I started adding lemon to my water during this latest kidney stone but I have since fallen out of that practice. I have been meaning to add more fruits and vegetables to my diet, wanting to be healthier and a better vegetarian, and the urologist said that increasing fruit and vegetable intake was the best way to increase my citrate level. There are supplements out there but he said that usually means taking two giant pills a day and it would be better to get it from food. So I need to work on that. I'm going to do another 24-hour collection in December and we'll see if I have been able to consistently increase my liquid intake and output, and increase my citrate level, while maintaining the low calcium level.

These solutions won't get rid of the kidney stones I already have inside me but they should lower my risk of forming more and help inhibit the size of the ones already in there. The main suggestions from my old urologist were less sodium, no calcium, lemons and limes, and exercise. He was completely off with the calcium thing, and didn't do a great job at explaining all the other stuff. This time around, I feel better about things, especially with the recommendations being based on actual test results, not just a blanket statement. It still seems like I'm pretty much screwed for the rest of my life, or until they find out a better solution for kidney stones, but it would be nice if I could decrease the size and frequency of the stones I form.

On my way home from my appointment I saw a dude on roller skates. Not even inline skates. I didn't no roller skates were still a thing.

While watching YouTube videos today I started designing a cross stitch pattern. It took me awhile but I think I am finally satisfied with the wings of my Harry Potter snitch. Tomorrow I am going to play around with maybe adding the designs that are on the real snitch. Once I start back at the theater five days a week, which should be the week after next, I want to start cross stitching again. I have the snitch idea, which should be ready by then, and tonight at the theater I came up with another design idea based on the song Wiggle by Jason Derulo. Yet another awful song lyrically and the music isn't as good as Talk Dirty, but some of the lyrics are hilariously awful.

I spent most of my night at the theater reading. I continued reading the Stephen King book and started reading one of my book fair books, Grave Secrets by Annette and Gina Cascone. I had more than enough time to finish it because it is less than two-hundred pages long and reads really fast, but I took time out to watch X-Men: Days of Future Past. I really wanted to boycott the movie just for having a ridiculous title, but that idea didn't last very long. It was a decent movie, and much like all superhero movies, it left me wishing I had some sort of superpower or mutation. Although being a mutant in the X-Men world seems a tad dangerous. I need to go back and watch the other X-Men movies because I have forgotten a lot of what went on. There are just too many years in between the movies. And they better increase that output if they want to keep some of those actors around because they aren't getting any younger.

May 22, 2014

The last day of school has come and gone. And it went by really fast. The first thing I did when I got to work this morning was print off a card art card so I could write a note to go along with the scarf I made for the first grade teacher who is retiring. I tried to make the note both heartfelt and funny. When I was done writing my note I went down and gave it and the scarf to the teacher. I also brought a book to show her. We were talking about books yesterday and I mentioned S but I brought it in so she could get a better idea for how unique it was. I am excited to delve into it this summer.

When I was in with the first grade teacher I was called to the office, and I can't remember why, but afterward I got a yearbook, which looks really good. Then I went to the gym with the librarian to help set up the slideshow, making sure everything worked and looked alright. Before the slideshow they were playing a short video a couple sixth graders had made on an iPad, so there was the process of unplugging that and plugging the laptop in.

I had a little bit of time after that before the assembly so I went back to the lab to check on MAP reports. The final two still haven't gone through. Which is frustrating. Those are sent home with kids and the two missing kids got copies that aren't quite accurate. Neither of the affected kids' scores will change that much but they did go up a little and it would be nice if they could have taken home reports that reflected that. A copy of the reports also go into their folder in the office but I didn't include the reports for those two kids, with the idea of avoiding confusion later on. I keep checking the NWEA site so when the changed reports show up I can send them to the school. I could say screw it and just wait for when we go back to school, because the reports can be printed off whenever, but it would be nice to get all the loose ends tied up.

The assembly went well. I ended up standing up at the front of the gym for most of it, which felt weird, but there really wasn't any room in the back with all the parents and I needed to start the slideshow. The assembly started with the the iPad video and then we set up the slideshow, but didn't actually show it yet. Next, the last character awards were handed out and then some of the sixth graders got up to thank people and share their favorite memories. I think the slideshow was after that. When we set it up at the beginning of the assembly I had paused the menu screen so the music wasn't playing, and when I went up and hit play the screen went black, but I didn't panic. I just closed the video player, opened it back up, and all was good. The slideshow looked good on the big screen, better than in the library I think, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. To end the assembly, the sixth graders set up and performed the cup song from Pitch Perfect with rewritten lyrics so it was about them moving onto middle school. Some of the kids played guitars, which they learned how to play over the past few months, and the rest sat on the floor with cups, doing the cup portion of the cup song. It was pretty cool.

Right after the assembly was the annual sixth graders vs. staff kickball game. I didn't participate because physical activity and my knees don't mix, but I did watch the game and enjoy the weather. I wasn't keeping track but I think the staff one. After the game I went back to the lab and decided my last act of housekeeping was to clean out my Sent Astray box. I probably should have done that yesterday but oh well. It took awhile because it had been piling up since last semester. I separated out the paper that had one blank side so I can use it as scratch paper next year, and threw away the rest.

I finished that up just in time for the lunch in the library for the retiring first grade teacher. There was some brief talking and then we ate. And I actually had food to eat. I got a rhubarb thing, a big slice of bread, angel food cake with strawberry, baby carrots and broccoli, and potato salad. A bit of an interesting lunch but I liked it. I sat at a table with the two first grade teachers, one of the kindergarten teachers, and my mom. We had good conversations and the time went by fast. When most everyone was done eating the non-retiring first grade teacher gave the retiring first grade teacher her gifts. She was looking forward to having time to golf and to help with that pursuit was a plastic toy set of golf clubs. She also wanted to go bowling, so the second gift was a plastic toy bowling set. Hilarious. The last main gift was a card with money, not quite as good as the toys in my opinion.

I forgot to mention earlier, but my cutout was joined today by a cardboard standee of the fourth grade teacher who has been having so much fun scaring people with my cutout. She had left my cutout in the faculty bathroom last night, not sure if I scared anyone in there, but it was moved upstairs behind her desk along with her standee. I'm also not sure what her reaction was to seeing herself. She ended up moving both of them down to the entryway of the school to greet parents as they came in for the assembly. Hers ended up being a cardboard standee because apparently my wood cutout was a very special order and they have gotten out of the business of making them. So it truly is a one of a kind thing, not just because it is a picture of me, but because it is the first and the last. That is pretty cool.

Getting it into my car after lunch was interesting, and I scared myself. I didn't want to risk messing up my seats and I figured the easiest thing to do was lay down the back seats, throw a blanket over them, and slide it in through the trunk. While prepping my car for that I propped the cutout up next to my car and at one point and stood up from grabbing the blanket out of my trunk and got a little scare when I caught a glimpse of myself out of the corner of my eye. When I got it in, the head was poking between the two front seats, thankfully it was facedown.

My mom, her para friend, and the kindergarten teacher she works with were all going to get a drinks after and then thought I was joining them, so when I turned the other way my mom called me. I never set up the bluetooth in my car because my car is a phone-free zone, so I turned off on the first side street so I could pull over and answer my phone, but just as I swiped my phone to answer it stopped ringing. I tried calling her back but she didn't pick up and it went to voicemail, probably because she was leaving a voicemail for me. So I threw my phone on the passenger seat and went back to driving. And then the voicemail came so I pulled over again to listen to it, and then she called again. That is when I found out they thought I was coming and when I told them I wasn't. My mom later told me the call kind of freaked her out because one of our phones messed with my voice. She got off the phone and looked at her para friend and the kindergarten teacher and said “That was freaky, he sounded just like my father.” That is freaky.

When I got home I let the dogs out so I could bring my cutout in without scaring them and causing a bunch of barking. Then I took a picture with myself in the bathroom mirror, which is really hard it turns out, and then put it just around the corner in my mom's bedroom. A couple hours later I heard her go into her room and a few second after that... “Oh, god!” So that was a success.

I didn't really do anything with my afternoon, other than a nap. Eventually I went and got Chipotle. I caught that the cashier missed ringing up the burrito bowl I got, which cost raised my total about eight dollars, so that sucked, but I figured it was better to tell her so I didn't pay for what she rang up and then have to pay for the missing item when she noticed it as she was putting the stuff in a bag. And it feels good not trying to screw people over.

After dinner I showed several YouTube videos. It has been at least a few weeks since I was able to do that. And then I went to visit the new volunteer kid. For an hour. It has been awhile since we've had an hour-long visit. We picked up stuff at McDonald's and then went and parked my car at a nearby park. We talked about school, which he finished on Monday, getting straight A's, at least in the last quarter. And we talked about random other things, like video games and movies other random things I can't remember. It was a good visit.

When I got home, more nothing. I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos. And now it is way too late. My sleep schedule is already screwed up and the summer just started. Tomorrow I've got my urologist appointment in the afternoon, where I will hopefully figure out something useful in terms of preventing future kidney stones. And possibly dealing with the ones that are still in me. That would be great.

May 21, 2014

Today was a pretty boring day. At least the afternoon. In the morning I was saved by one of the resource teachers that had a project for me. She wanted me to update a couple books that she uses and it took me longer than it should have. I was only putting a few letters on each page, which was easy, but trying to figure out how to arrange them so they would print out in the correct order for the book was way too tricky. I had a couple failed attempts before I made a tiny, physical version of the book, writing in each page so I could unfold it and actually see which letters were on each page. So I eventually got it figured out and she really liked it.

This afternoon I had nothing to do. I looked through the bookshelf at the front of the lab, thinking I would clean it out. I threw away a few things but really didn't accomplish much. At least in terms of cleaning. I found an old STAR DVD, which is a reading test program that I think I had to take when I was in school. The copyright on it was 1999 but the instructions still had installations instructions for Windows 3.x. That is old. I was very surprised when I was able to get it to install. I then added myself as a student and took the test several times. The top grade was twelfth so I was a senior today, and managed to score between the 91^st and 95^th percentile, getting a reading level of 12.9 or 12+. That is the same reading level I had in ninth grade so I guess it is good I haven't gone down but it would be nice if I had gone up. At least percentile-wise, I think I topped out the reading level.

Later in the afternoon we had a tree planting ceremony for the first grade teacher who is retiring. A few people had things to say but the teacher doesn't really like being the center of attention so it went pretty fast. Unrelated, but earlier when her class was in the lab we sat and talked about books. I am going to miss talking with her next year. We always had good conversations when she came to the lab. She is also the teacher who I had as a reading tutor one summer. It pretty much sucks that she is retiring. I feel bad for the other first grade teacher because they were always hanging out before school and I think ate lunch together. Hopefully the new teacher next year is even a fraction as nice.

I spent the last bit of my day down in one of the kindergarten rooms because I was tired of taking reading tests and building my vocabulary on FreeRice. After school I went with my mom to the t-shirt shop owned by the parents of one of the kindergarteners because they came up with a few designs for school shirts. Hopefully it won't turn into the two other school shirts I have and I'll actually wear this one. Possibly tomorrow but hopefully more than just once.

Tonight I worked on the slideshow a little more. Not the slideshow itself but the DVD. I wanted to add a secret menu with a list of the songs I used, that could then be clicked on and listened to. And it took me awhile but I eventually figured it out. There is just a blank screen when the song plays, and I could add a picture or video but I'm fine with a blank screen.

And now I am going to go to bed so I can wake up and go to the last day of school. I'm excited at getting the chance to not wake up at six o'clock every morning but I'm not really looking forward to summer lasting more than a couple weeks. I'm also not looking forward to the first grade teacher retiring or one of the fourth grade teachers not returning next year. The one who I actually talked to a lot this year and who has been having way too much fun scaring people with my cutout. I'm pretty sure there is a surprise awaiting her tomorrow. With those two leaving, there are going to be at least a few changes in classes. The new first grade teacher is set, along with the new Math Enrichment teacher, but I'm not sure about fourth grade. Possibly one of the sixth grade teachers because there will possibly only be enough kids for one sixth grade next year. Who knows, that is stuff for next year. At present, I need sleep.

May 20, 2014

I'm so tired right now and it is kind of hard to think. Late nights are rough. And this will probably be a short entry because I want to go to bed.

I watched the slideshow in the library with the principal today and it looks pretty good on the big screen. I might possibly get paid for the time I put in at home, thanks to the librarian who mentioned to the principal how much work I put into it. The principal asked me to estimate how much time I put in and I told her I'd get back to her. Not counting the time I spent messing around trying to figure things out, I'm thinking I worked on it for about fifteen hours. That is probably a conservative estimate. It would have been interesting to keep better track of my time spent on it, including while I was at work. I spent so much time scanning and editing pictures. But I am happy with the final product. It took me awhile to come up with an idea but it looks just like it did in my head. Now I just need to cross my fingers that it will work on Thursday. There was one slide today in the library that went black for a couple seconds, and I'm not sure if it was something on my end or the hardware, but I'm going to burn at least one more DVD and I have a digital copy. My only problem with the digital copy is it doesn't have the opening menu, and I put a lot of work into that menu. I could always render it out or copy the DVD as an ISO file and it would have the menu on it.

One of the sixth grade classes performed their play today and it was really good. They wrote it collectively as a class and all the characters spoke in the way kids actually talk so it wasn't stuffy or boring. It was funny. One girl's character was constantly on her phone and all her lines were either text acronyms or preceded by “hashtag”. There was also a lot of movement, with kids coming in and out of the scenes on both sides of the stage and coming in from behind the audience. It was just really good.

After the play I was putting away chairs, along with the help of some kids, and one of the fifth grade teachers. My old pal from chair duty last year when she was a para. She mentioned that we were back at it. We kinda went full circle. I then found her sunglasses on the floor and returned them. And she was lucky, I only recognized them because I had just been looking through school pictures to add to the district-wide slideshow they make for the beginning of the year.

I spent a lot of my day going through folders and drives, backing stuff up, moving stuff, and deleting stuff. My organization isn't the best but I think I have all my important stuff backed up in at least a couple places. It would be nice to have examples and templates for next year. I also went through all of the papers piled on my desk, separating them into recycling, trash, and things that needed to be shredded. When I went to the shredder one of the fifth grade teachers was struggling a bit. I noticed that a red light was on next to the green light so I turned it off and opened up the front. My knowledge of the shredder is kind of like my knowledge of cars (and a Mitch Hedberg joke). With cars, if the needles is close to 'E', I can fill it up with gas. With the shredder, if the red light is on, I can open it up and see if the bag needs to be changed. In this case, it was pretty full, so I pulled out the shreds stuck in the cutter and then shoved everything as far down in the bag as I could. Then I got the door back on, which is a feat because it only has two hinges and the top one is broken so the door doesn't close when the bag is so full. And the shredder doesn't work when the door is open. And the bag was pretty full and the door wasn't closing. So I stood with my foot braced against it while the fifth grade teacher shredded and then took my turn. And almost immediately put too much paper in and jammed the thing up. It is impossible to pull out a half-shredded stack of paper that is wedged in a heavy-duty shredder. In case you were wondering. I pulled and pulled and only managed to rip some of the paper in half. Eventually I figured out that when you hold down the button used to turn the shredder off it will put it in reverse, which allowed me to get the paper back, break it into more manageable stacks, and finish my shredding.

After work I got gas and then went to Target, where I bought some things, ran into a sixth grader and her mom, and then went to buy a Powerball ticket. But I ended up not doing that because there wasn't a parking spot so I just drove by and headed home. Tomorrow.

I am still fighting with my shower. I bought a plunger at Target and went nuts on the shower but there wasn't immediate success. It eventually drained, very slowly, so a short-lived progress was achieved. It is time to call in the big guns, though. I'm tired of it.

Tonight I did nothing. Watched some YouTube videos, listened to a bunch of music on Youtube and Spotify, and now I am finishing this up so I can go to bed. I was going to mess with the slideshow some more but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was also going to cast-off the purple scarf and weave in the ends but I couldn't bring myself to do that either. I'm just so exhausted. And I have now been typing for forty minutes. I should have gone to bed an hour ago.

May 19, 2014

My favorite substitute pulled up behind me right after I parked so we walked in together. We got about halfway when we ran into two parents that the substitute knew. This is not surprising because she is very social and I'm pretty sure she knows everyone. There is apparently a painting of the father (it was a mother and father) that the substitute wants so they talked about that, and then about a flower arrangement that she wanted to buy from the coffee shop but they wouldn't let her and the mother said she could probably get it for her. Then she gave the father a doughnut and we parted ways.

I was worried that I wouldn't have anything to do today, and there were times where I was verging on nothing to do, but I managed to fill my day. Starting with making the class slides and coming up with a list of things I would need to do to finish the slideshow when I got home. That took most of the morning.

This afternoon I listened to music because I was pretty sure I would need another song for the slideshow. I ended up going with Brave by Sara Bareilles because it was upbeat and seemed somewhat inspirational and graduation-flavored. There were a lot of catchy songs in the last year but not a lot that made sense lyrically for a sixth grade graduation slideshow.

There were a couple classes in the lab this afternoon but when I wasn't helping kids, I was printing MAP reports. I gave up on waiting for the three remaining kids who still have tests that need to be deleted, and went ahead and printed reports for the remaining teachers. I actually did that this morning and handed them out but this afternoon I printed copies of all the reports for the office. It is surprising how hot paper can get going through the printer. Especially after a whole bunch of pages have gone through.

After school I had a haircut. It ended up being a very thorough haircut, and I like it, but when I got home I noticed for the first time that light can now reflect off the back of my head. That is kind of sad. I miss having a bunch of hair. I never took full advantage of having hair, like growing it long or getting strange haircuts. That boat has definitely sailed.

Before dinner and then for the rest of the night, I worked on the slideshow. I added in the class slides I made today and then started on the end credits. I had a screen for the teachers, then a scrolling screen listing all the students, and ending with a screen for the songs. It took me a little while to figure out the scrolling thing for the student names but I eventually got it working. I ended up putting two names on each line to make it go a bit faster, separating the names with a diamond. I quickly learned that the font I chose didn't have equal spacing for all the letters and it was impossible to get the diamonds to line up. To get over this, I made the diamonds zig-zag along and I think it looks pretty cool. All the end screens ended up taking longer than they should because my software crashed a few times but thankfully I have gotten in the habit of saving frequently and didn't lose anything.

When I had the slides added and got the music added I imported it into the DVD software so I could figure out a menu. That took me a bit to get into but I eventually got it figured out. It was definitely one of those inspiration moments where I'm just kind of staring at the computer but not really looking at anything, not getting anything done. I tried going with a school-themed background but it was too busy and the menu title didn't show up well. I got my mom's opinion and she agreed about the text being hard to read but didn't have much of an opinion on a different background. She did mention adding a teddy bear, a thought I had earlier, so I decided to look into it.

After several Google searches, and one attempt that didn't do much for me, I found a clip art bear that I opened up in GIMP. It was a cute brown bear but I didn't want that so I made it black and white and then put a mosaic effect on it. And it looked really cool. My mom also suggested glasses, also a thought I had earlier so I did another search and almost immediately found a picture that would work with a little tweaking. After getting the bear sorted out I looked for a black and white menu theme in my software and there was really only one. It was mostly black and gray and had a few old film canisters on it. It worked perfectly with the bear I made. I also have a font that kind of looks like something that would have been used way back in the day so I used that for the title and I really like the look of it. I added in the music I wanted to loop and then burned it to a disc. I'm thinking of maybe messing around with the menu a bit more, adding a sub-menu and including the songs, or maybe a hidden button that will play the Happy remix that I used for the menu song. But for now, the slideshow is done. With plenty of time for tweaks.

I got to bed late last night and tonight is no different. Twelve-thirty in the morning on a school night kind of sucks. But I accomplished my main goal for the day so I am okay with my decision to stick with it. I may feel differently in the morning. I'm going to go to bed now so I can fast forward several hours and see how things turn out.

May 18, 2014

Today my brother graduated from high school. Yet again I feel really freaking old. So very old.

I picked my sister up and we headed over to my dad's house around 12:30PM so we could take pictures. We ended up being the first ones there, which is a first, and after more people had shown up we went outside to take pictures. My brother looked about as excited as I did taking pictures before a graduation. I was proudest of the fact that he was wearing his green Chucks. Like brother like brother.

As for the graduation, we parked in the parking lot on the west side of the stadium and it was a breeze. The parking lot on the east side is the main parking lot and it is always a complete cluster. Avoiding that was nice. I ended up sitting with my sister, dad, and brother's girlfriend at the very top of the coliseum because my dad wasn't going to mess with the stairs. I didn't really want to either. The ceremony was boring, as all graduation ceremonies are. The best part was the lack of a boring commencement speaker. Instead, they just had two class speakers. Both tried to be funny and occasionally succeeded, but mostly I couldn't hear what they were saying. The sound system wasn't the best and they spoke too fast. Also, the second kid was not only Indian but I think he may have had a slight speech impediment. But there wasn't a boring adult so hooray. Then there was the handing out of the thing that will eventually hold a diploma when those get mailed out. There was something over three hundred kids, possibly close or more than four hundred. And my brother was near the end so there was a long wait. Eventually, his name was called and I could tell it was him by his unenthused walk, his green shoes, and the fact that they called his name.

After the ceremony we had about an hour before dinner so I dropped my sister off so she could let her dogs out and I went home for awhile. When we met back up at my dad's house I sat at a table with my sister, brother, and his girlfriend and talked for about an hour I think while we waited for dinner to be ready. So not quite the five o'clock we were promised but the conversation was good, covering high school pranks and music, so I didn't really mind. When one of my dad's friends from the fire department showed up he came over and gave my brother twenty bucks and said he didn't believe in cards. Then he dug in his pocket and gave my sister, brother's girlfriend, and I each a penny so we didn't feel left out. It was pretty funny.

Dinner was a lot more filling than at the work party on Friday. I had a baked potato, coleslaw, potato salad, veggies, and fruit. And then there was more sitting around and talking until about seven o'clock when my brother was getting antsy to leave so he was able to open his cards and the prints I got him. My sister made him candy and pitas because that is what he wanted. An odd request but to each his own.

Shortly after that my sister and I left. I dropped her off and then came home to work on the slideshow. I made progress but not as much as I would have liked. I ended up not having some of the pictures I worked on at school last week so I couldn't add those, and I hope it won't be too hard to add them in later. It took a lot of fiddling to get the length and overlap for each slide figured out. It is a fine balance between the slide going by way too fast and the transition feeling jerky and the slideshow being way too long. But I think I got it all decently figured out. I am having to go through and individually change the pan and zoom for each slide (and each kid has two slides) and that is taking awhile. I made it through twenty-four slides tonight but still have a lot to go. Then I will need to add the music and figure out how hard it will be to add scrolling credits with a list of the kids. And then throw it into the DVD editor software and see about making a menu screen. The goal is still to get all of this done by tomorrow night so I can show the principal and sixth grade teachers on Tuesday and have enough time to make any changes before Thursday. It is looking like tomorrow might be a late night. Later than tonight. It would be nice if I could work on it at school but I only have the software at home. If I win the lottery over the summer I'll buy a laptop so I can be prepared for next year.

May 17, 2014

Today was sadly unproductive. At least the majority of the day, anyway. I was in one of those moods where I knew I should be doing one thing but couldn't bring myself to do it so I avoided all the other things so I didn't feel like I was wasting my time. If that makes any sense whatsoever. It is kind of the same feeling as when I want to do twenty different things but can't decide so I do nothing instead. So rather than working on the slideshow today, I did a lot of nothing. And took a nap.

At work tonight most of my time was spent knitting. And ignoring the pain in my hand caused by knitting. I knew I wasn't going to have enough yarn to get to six feet but my goal for the night was to get to the end of the yarn that I had left. Which I did. Now I'm pretty sure I need more yarn. The scarf is somewhere over five feet, may four inches or so beyond, which is obviously shy of the six feet I shoot for when making a scarf. But I think this is the type of yarn that stretches over time, so after a bit of use the scarf my become a bit longer. Or maybe the stitch is tight enough that the stretching won't be a big thing. I'm going to get some other opinions and then maybe go buy more yarn on Monday and knit like crazy to get it finished by Thursday. I might actually have some yarn that is the same color. Maybe. But it was purchased several years ago so the odds of it matching aren't too high. So fingers crossed if I need more yarn that it will be in stock and of the right color. I'll be sure to take a piece from the scarf skein with me so I don't end up with a blanket situation where it looks similar until I put it next to the original yarn.

I watched the last twenty minutes of Godzilla tonight. I didn't know it was about Godzilla fighting other monsters so that was surprising. But it looked interesting. And maybe a little cheesy. I'd like to see the rest of the movie to see how everything fits together. There is a chance that it isn't cheesy and it all makes sense. I will say that CGI people have definitely gotten really good at destroying buildings. It is very believable.

Tomorrow is my brother's graduation. I got a text from my dad tonight asking me to come over at 12:30PM to take family pictures before the graduation ceremony. Hooray for family pictures. The ceremony is at two o'clock, I think, and then after we're having a barbecue at my dad's house. Hopefully it doesn't last too long so I can work on the slideshow at least a little bit tomorrow. My goal was to get it done this weekend but that didn't even kind of happen. I wasn't in the mood to work on it after the party last night or this afternoon before work. I think maybe if I had opened this morning things would have been different, but probably not. In the back of my mind I had the thought that Sunday would be the big day for getting it done, completely forgetting about graduation. So yeah. I need to get that done, preferably before Tuesday so I have enough time to show it to people, get their feedback, and have time to make any tweaks I need to before Thursday. I have messed with the software a bit but I still have yet to actually make a full slideshow. Hopefully it all goes as smoothly as I imagine it will in my head.

May 16, 2014

The fourth grade teacher was gone today so my cutout spent the whole day in the gym. It didn't scare anyone but it did confuse the professor who came to give a physics demonstration. Apparently as he was walking into the gym he said hello to the cutout before he realized it wasn't a person. Then before the assembly started, all the kids were seated and the music teacher was up talking to him when I walked in, and he mentioned that I looked a lot like the cutout. After the assembly when I was putting away chairs he came up to me and shook my hand, to make sure I was the real one, and told me everything that had happened. I also learned that the gym teacher had been frightened yesterday when the cutout was in his office.

I didn't have a lot going on with my day. I cleaned up my computer a little bit, deleting a bunch of stuff off the desktop and then going through all my folders and copying important stuff to Dropbox. Everything should still be on the drives next year but just in case, I wanted examples of everything so I don't have to come up with stuff from scratch.

Other than that, I had classes in the lab, I increased my vocabulary with a game on FreeRice, I edited some pictures for the slideshow, and took a picture of one of the sixth graders. I realized today that he didn't make it into the yearbook when I was looking for his portrait. He is one of three kids who didn't turn in baby pictures so I was going to put each of their portraits together on a slide, but I couldn't find his portrait. And then I checked my yearbook preview and he wasn't there. And now I feel bad. I thought I had done a better job this year by sending it out to all the teachers to check everything and this year rather than misnaming a kid (which may still have happened), I completely forgot a kid. I don't know how he didn't make it onto my list of needed pictures. Maybe because I only had new kids on my mind, not thinking of a kid who has been here all year but must have missed the first picture day. So I am annoyed at myself. As well as with his teacher and the principal and anyone else who looked at the book and didn't notice him missing. It's frustrating. But at least I got his picture for the slideshow, even though he refused to smile.

The physics assembly this afternoon was pretty good. He had some new demonstrations this year which were interesting. It is hard to bring a lot of that stuff down to the level where a kid can understand it, or even most adults without a physics background, but everyone can enjoy a good physics demonstration. Stuff flying across the room or knocking stuff over or making a loud bang. And once again, it all ended with everyone going outside and a liquid nitrogen bomb in a giant trash can of water. Last year it was a bit underwhelming but this year there was a much bigger boom and the geyser of water was a lot more impressive.

After school I went and picked up my brother's prints from the frame show and they look really good. Way better than I thought they would. There is just something about professional framing that can make anything look really good. I don't have enough room for the pictures and framed things I already have, but I kind of want to keep the stuff I had framed for my brother.

Tonight was the end-of-the-year barbecue at one of the kindergarten teacher's house. Last year it was in his backyard and it was supposed to be there this year too but it was drizzling off and on all day and it was somewhere in the 50s, so the party was moved inside, much like the Christmas party. Before going I ate a bunch of carrots and peanuts and that turned out to be a wise choice because I ended up only eating a few chips and a deviled egg. I need to be a better vegetarian and start taking a vegetarian dish to parties. Not only participate in the event but also guarantee myself something to eat.

We only stayed for a couple hours and I spent most of that time sitting on a couch with the library aide and her husband, talking about books and movies and other random things. I generally just kind of sit or stand in one place at parties and not really engage in conversation. So the seating arrangement kind of worked out because the library aide is very talkative so she pretty much kept the conversation going the whole time. I didn't really get to talk with anyone else (not that I would have) but it was kind of nice actually talking to someone at a social gathering.

When I got home I tried out the Wildstar BETA and I was instantly disappointed. The look of the game is so cool, the story seems fairly interesting, and it has a good sense of humor. But I hate the controls. I don't know if it has typical MMORPG controls (probably) but it feels nothing like Tera, which feels much more intuitive. In that game the mouse moves the camera and WASD move the character. In Wildstar, WASD still moves the character but the mouse just moves the mouse cursor around the screen (and off the screen and to another monitor if you go too far), unless you hold down the right mouse button. So almost the whole time I was running around I had to hold down the right mouse button. This also presented a problem with combat. I decided to be a warrior with a big sword and to attack people I had to right-click on them repeatedly. Not left-click. And it is hard to move around, move the camera, and try to right-click on a bad guy at the same time. I spent so much time clicking right next to a guy or ending up with a really odd camera angle because I was inadvertently moving it all over the place every time I clicked to attack an enemy. It just wasn't fun. The one benefit I could see to this system was that the mouse cursor is always active so I could click on whatever I needed to on the screen. In Tera you have to open something or hit the ALT or ESC key to show the cursor, which can be annoying but is way better than the Wildstar system. I didn't check to see if there was a way to switch it so it was more like Tera, mainly because I was trying to fight through it and see if it would become intuitive. But I don't think it will. I'll dive into some menus tomorrow and see if there are some settings I can change. I hope so because I do really like the look of the game. Not that I plan on buying it, or paying a monthly subscription, but like a lot of games it will probably go free-to-play at some point and it would be fun to jump into it, if I could wrap my head around the controls.

May 15, 2014

After school yesterday the fourth grade teacher found my cutout in her passenger seat. I don't think she was scared but she did find it hilarious and laughed all the way home. This morning she went back to scaring people. When you walk into the kitchen, the cooks' office is off to the left and you have to walk around the big metal thing that the food is put in during lunch. The fourth grade teacher put it right by their office door. It was discovered by the cook's granddaughters, who is a third grader (and probably shouldn't be in the kitchen). She walked in and immediately screamed. This brought the cook in, who also screamed. But they wanted to leave it for the other cook to find, who I will assume also screamed.

The cutout was then moved to the PE teacher's office but I didn't hear how that went. From there, the fourth grade teacher put it behind the milk case, which is in an alcove in the gym. I think that caught several kids off guard and a lot of them commented on it to me later in the day.

I scared a sixth grader today, much like I scared a fifth grader yesterday. I was standing just inside the computer lab when the sixth grader came in to get something out of the printer. I went to move slightly out of her way and she jumped because she thought I was the cutout until I moved. It was pretty funny.

Today was a pretty chill day. I had a class in the lab in the morning and the teacher gave me a list of websites and wondered if I could check them to see if they were still websites. It is a list that she gives the parent's of her students over the summer for ideas of safe and educational places for the kids to go on the internet. I was going to have to type everything in already so I asked her if she wanted me to make a new list that looked a little better. She said go for it so I did. I started by putting the list in Excel so I could sort them alphabetically because it was kind of annoying that they weren't in alphabetical order on her list. All but two of the sites were still around and I added a couple of my own suggestions. Then I pasted the list into Publisher, added a title with a fun font, a border, and a couple clip art pictures at the bottom. I saved it as a PDF so she can email it to parents and they can just click on the links. I also printed her out a copy so she can make copies and send it home that way as well.

When I was done with that, one of the receptionists asked me if I wanted to organize all the paper that just came in, and I had nothing to do so I said yes. Earlier in the year I reorganized all of the construction paper and it looked a lot better. I was a bit anal about it. The same held true for the cardstock and copier paper. I lined up all the loose paper in the shelves so it looked nice and organized the extra in the cabinets above based on color. I also came up with a better way of organizing the white copier paper that we generally leave in the box it comes in until we need more. The boxes are made to perfectly fit two reams of paper side-by-side, and that makes getting the paper out a little tricky. So I left two reams on the bottom but then put the rest of the reams in the box, on their side. The ones left on the bottom were so the reams on their side would come up over the edge of the box and be easier to grab. Genius stuff right there. I ended up doing this because there were a couple stacks of reams on the counter. The other day the sixth graders took a few boxes of paper to their classroom, I'm assuming it was science fair related, but when they brought it all back, there were a lot of loose reams. Enough for me to nicely organize two boxes.

The last two kids finished their MAP tests today. Better late than never. I'm still waiting for tests to be deleted but hopefully that will happen by tomorrow, Monday at the latest, so I can finish printing off reports and getting them to the teachers. We're down to less than a week of school left and MAP stuff is still a thing. Hopefully it won't be so late next year.

Before dinner tonight my mom showed me a picture of where my cutout ended the day. The science fair was in the gym tonight and someone had posted the cutout right as you come into the gym, with a sign around it's neck saying something about look with your eyes, not your hands. The sign was worded better than that but I can't remember it exactly. Either way, I thought it was pretty funny.

Chipotle was really good tonight. Probably aided by the fact that my burrito was only $1.80. I think the two girls working at the end of the line felt sorry for my burrito that only contained rice, beans, and cheese, and rang it up in some fancy way that saved me a couple bucks. I am totally cool with that and wish it would happen every week.

I found out right before dinner that my brother's prints were finished at the frame shop. I was tempted to go pick them up but I also wanted to eat dinner, and I picked dinner. I'll swing by and get them tomorrow. I'm anxious to see how they turned out.

I had a visit with the new volunteer kid tonight. A whole fifty-minute visit. When I got there the front door was open and all the boys were working on the floor in the living room. The carpet and pad had already been pulled up and was out of the house and the kids were working on pulling the tack strip up. My kid was eager to get out of a little work. We went to Sonic and talked about random stuff. Work, school, welding, movies, video games, books, the Holocaust. All the usual things.

On my way over to the visit I got to follow a pilot truck through a construction zone. I was stopped by a dude with a sign and waited there for several minutes until I saw a truck come over the hill with a line of cars behind it. He pulled over and turned around in front of me while the line of cars passed by. Then I followed the truck, along with all the cars behind me, into the other lane and up the hill. It was weird driving on the wrong side of the road, following a truck with flashing lights and a giant sign that said “PILOT TRUCK FOLLOW ME”. I kind of felt like I was in a NASCAR race, following the pace car. But at a much slower speed.

And now it is time to sleep. The last couple of nights have been midnight nights. It is just after 10:30PM and I have been ready for bed since the middle of the afternoon. I'm ready to sleep.

May 14, 2014

My cutout started its day behind the door in the workroom, right by the copier. But it didn't stay there for very long. I can't remember who it was this morning when I was clocking in that said we should put it in the fourth grade teacher's car because she is the one scaring everyone with it, but it happened. When the teacher wasn't paying attention a para borrowed her keys out of her purse and handed them off to one of the receptionists, who took my cutout and put it on the passenger side of the fourth grade teacher's car. I went out and looked at it with the the two second grade teachers and one of the third grade teachers. It was hard to see at first, and that was when I knew it was there, so I'm interested to see if it scared her. It was a really nice day out and the third grade teacher asked if we thought the principal would mind if we brought a six-pack and just sat outside. Pretty funny.

Before school started I went up to the third floor to drop off MAP reports and when I got to the first landing on my way down I stopped because two classes were headed up. One of the fifth grade girls wasn't really looking as she rounded the corner and got a few steps up before she caught a glimpse of me standing there and when I moved she almost fell down the stairs because she thought I was the cutout. So the cutout can scare people and apparently I can too now.

The school day started with a middle school band performance. It's amazing how much of a difference a couple years can make. It actually sounds pretty good when they play, compared to kids in their first or second year with an instrument. One of the songs they played was a lullaby and in the middle of it one of the adults traveling with the band accidentally hit the light switches and turned off all the lights in the gym. It was somewhat fitting given the song and luckily there are enough sunlight coming through the windows that the kids could continue playing.

I spent most of my day working on science fair certificates and handouts. I had the certificates how I wanted them and went to see if the principal wanted to sign all of them or if I should put her name on them in a fancy font. I was assuming the font, and she was busy when I went to check but one of the receptionists had a copy of the principals signature, in PNG form, so she sent me that and I added it in. I then spent way too much time and paper trying to get the microscope in the background of the certificate to come out the right color. It was supposed to be blue, and it came out blue on the first two, but them came out yellow or pink or whatever other random colors but no matter how I tweaked it, no blue. It then took me several more tweaks to get it to come out light gray. Several times I would get it just right and then when I would switch back to cardstock it would mess up again. It was quite frustrating but I eventually got it figured out. One teacher wanted blank ones so she could write in the kids' names and sign them. For everyone else I typed in the kids' names and left the teacher field blank for them to sign. I don't want to toot my own horn but I will because I think the certificates came out looking really good. Especially compared to an old example the receptionist gave me.

And the same goes for the handout. There were some examples and they just weren't doing anything for me. Especially the one with a giant misspelled word. The handout were kind of an afterthought but I threw one together pretty quick. It was simple but I think it turned out really well. I then guessed on how many I would need, copied them off, cut them out (because they were half-sheet handouts), and ran around the building handing them out to teachers. I ended up falling short, of handouts and time, before I reached third grade so I went back to the copier and made more. I caught most of the third graders as they were walking past me in the hall but I did miss a few when they went out a side door. I could tell some of the kids could not have cared less about the science fair or the handout, but I really liked the simplicity of the handout.

When I wasn't doing the science fair stuff I had one kid come for a MAP test and then a couple classes in the lab. So not a lot going on. It was pretty much all science fair today because the actual event is tomorrow night.

After school I went with the librarian to the last tech meeting of the year. It started off much better than the last one because they didn't lock us out of the building. And the meeting itself was going pretty smoothly in the beginning. There wasn't too much on the agenda and they were running through it pretty quick. Then the librarian had to leave and shortly after, they opened the floor for questions and everything went downhill. It quickly turned into personal questions that the lead techs obviously couldn't get answers for through email so they took the opportunity to ask the tech guys directly. One question never got a real answer and spun into a pity party about firewall troubles. That went on for several minutes. Content-wise the meeting should have lasted a half hour, and instead, it lasted an hour. Thankfully the next one isn't until September, which I assume I will be going to as long as the librarian is still the lead tech. I'm counting the days.

I didn't have a lot going on with most of my night. I started downloading Wildstar, an MMORPG, because for the next few days it is in open BETA and I like the art style. From the clips I've seen it doesn't really look like it will be my thing, plus it isn't free, but I thought I would try it out and see what's up. I'll have to do that tomorrow or Friday.

I got a call from my sister around nine o'clock to see if I could help my brother move a chair from her house over to my grandma's. My grandma is having a lot of back pain and this chair is a remote control one that my other grandma got years ago and sat in twice before deciding she didn't like it. So my sister had the idea of moving it over to my grandma's house. My dad backed up my sister's husband's pickup (because it is a manual and he is the only one of the four of us who can reliably drive a manual) and my brother and I picked the chair up and put it in the bed of the pickup. It seems like a pretty compact chair but the motor and stuff must be heavy because it was a very solid chair. They packed a lot of weight into a small space.

When we got over to my grandma's house, she looked pretty miserable reclined in her current chair. She just looked really uncomfortable. We got her up and then did some rearranging before my brother and I brought the other chair in. We went through the garage and got stopped by the kitchen door on our first attempt but after rotating the chair so it was facing forward we were able to squeeze it through. My sister and brother had to run back to her house to get a cable but after that my grandma was able to try the chair and she instantly looked better. The chair was firmer and offered a lot more support when she reclined, which took a lot of the pressure off her back. I think she was finally comfortable for the first time in days. She had to get back up while we moved it into place and got everything set up around the chair within her reach, but after that she was able to get back in the chair and relax. The chair also lifts up pretty high so she isn't having to lift herself out of the chair or fall back into it. My sister definitely wins for having the thought to bring it over.

I got home close to eleven o'clock and now I am almost done with this. So I will be going to bed shortly. I believe last night was also a near-midnight night. Not good. I need my beauty sleep.

May 13, 2014

I was sitting in the lab this morning before school started, checking MAP stuff, when I heard a loud scream. Not blood-curdling or anything but loud enough. It was immediately followed by the equally loud laughter of one of the resource teachers. A short while later one of the Boys & Girls Club staff girls came into the lab and said my cutout was at it again. She is the one that was scared by it on Monday I think. Across the hall there is an art closet and the fourth grade teacher had put the cut out just inside the door. And it scared the crap out of the art teacher when she opened the door. It has scared a lot of people at this point but that was probably the best one so far. Later in the morning it was moved to one of the second grade rooms while they were at field day, and then moved up to one of the fourth grade rooms while they were at field day. It gets around.

Other than the screaming, today was a pretty quiet day thanks to field day. The younger grades went to the park this morning and the older ones this afternoon. I still had classes in the lab but it made for a much quieter building. I had a make-up MAP test this morning but that took less than half an hour. Then I went around to all of the computers, updating Java and getting the latest version of Firefox. That took awhile because not only did I have to log into each computer as myself, I also had to authenticate to get around the firewall each time. But I had a lot of time on my hands.

Earlier in the morning I submitted a trouble ticket for one of the computer that had a trust relationship issue, and late in the morning an old smokey dude showed up. He had an ethernet cable in one hand and asked where the laptop was. I said I didn't have a laptop but I pointed out the computer needing fixed. So he was confused right off the bat because he was positive the trouble ticket had said a laptop, even though it was for a computer lab and there was no mention of a laptop. Then I threw him another curve ball because the computer I pointed out had a kid on it. With a trust relationship issue, no students or kids can log into the computer but I discovered that you can log in using the proctor log in. Because of this, I don't really know when the issue started because I've been logging all the computers in using the proctor login for weeks now. But this guy was convinced that you couldn't log into a computer when it had a trust relationship issue. I explained the proctor thing and then just shrugged my shoulders when he looked at me. When he finally started working on it, he was done three minutes later. Whatever they do to resolve the issue obviously isn't too involved but it isn't something they will allow us to fix. Today was the fastest turn-around ever in terms of submitting a trouble ticket and having someone show up, but it can take weeks or even a month or more for someone to show up for a three-minute fix. It's annoying.

With the rest of my morning and some of my afternoon, I designed a participation certificate for the science fair. It looks like a certificate and I put a microscope in the background, because that is sciency. I think it looks adequate. I emailed the teachers today to see how they want their certificates. Whether they want one for each kid (or one for a whole group for the ones with group projects) and whether they want me to leave them blank so they can write the kids' names and sign them or if they want me to type that stuff in. I've heard back from a few so hopefully I hear from the rest sometime tomorrow, because the science fair is Thursday, I think.

It seemed like all day there was a lot of banging around upstairs but at one point it was a bit more exaggerated. I found out later that the increased activity was one of the sixth graders going nuts. When he was coming in from outside one of the paras asked him to give her the basketball and he didn't want to. That eventually turned into him coming in and swinging his jacket around the SPED room, which turned into him throwing a chair around in the small room inside the SPED room, and I think breaking the laptop in there. This is the same kid that ran off a week or two ago and ended up in a tree and talking to a couple cops last week. All the paras that work with him and the SPED teachers are over it and today he left the building in handcuffs. Something that probably should have happened a lot sooner.

He has been violent before and made numerous threats of violence in the past. A lot of the adults who work with him are convinced that these are threats realistic and could be acted upon. More a question of when, not if. But not a lot has been done. Rather than kick him out of school, he gets to shadow the principal for a day or one of the SPED teachers has to follow him around. Last week a kid got a day of out of school suspension for hitting is younger brother. The sixth grader goes nuts and gets a break from school, shadowing the principal.

It is a very convoluted situation. His adoptive father is a teacher at the school and that probably plays a major role in the whole situation. And even though the paras and SPED teachers are over it and convinced the whole thing is a ticking timebomb, the principal appears to be overly lax about the situation. Whether she is just trying to get through the last several days of school or what, no one knows. Apparently one of the paras had previously wanted to file a police report based on the threats but the adoptive father told her he didn't want her to because he didn't want her to put a target on her back. And that seems to be a very real fear. This kid needs serious help and he isn't going to get that in a normal school setting. Just trying to survive the year and then be glad when he's at another school next year, isn't a great plan.

There is a great potential for dangerous activity and that isn't going to go away when he becomes someone else's problem. I keep thinking of Sandy Hook, where the shooter was a former student of the elementary school. That was a different situation, with the shooter apparently flying under the radar for most of his life, at least to those outside his family, coming across as a quiet kid. In our case, the kid is outwardly aggressive and very clear in his threats of violence. And it has taken to until the end of his sixth grade year for cops to get involved. I have never witnessed any of the violence, only seeing little fits here and there, and maybe there is a greater plan going on that I, and all the paras and SPED teachers are in the dark about, but it doesn't seem like it. Just hearing all of the stories makes obvious that the situation could easily take a turn for the worse and that is scary. Genuinely scary. All these adults are trying to help him but all of that goes over his head. Or he just doesn't care. Probably the latter. It all sounds like it will be a perfect case of looking back on things after an event and all the signs being blatantly obvious. And more than one person is convinced it is just a matter of time. We need a more accessible mental health care system and more support for people working with kids that are beyond their capability to actually help. It shouldn't just be a situation of managing until you hand them off to the next person. Some kids can be helped with accommodations in a normal school setting. And some can't. Rant over.

After school I took the two prints I got my brother to the frame shop. A lady came in ahead of me (actually a mom of someone I went to school with but she doesn't know me) and while she was picking out her frames and mats she told me not to worry because she would be quick. I told her not to worry but I was timing her and she had two minutes, so no pressure. As she was leaving she asked how she did on the two minutes and I looked at my imaginary wrist watch and informed her that she was just over the two minutes. It was kind of funny. As for my frames and mats, I think good choices were made. I'm really happy with the eagle print and I think I'm happy with the Halo print. I went with already made frames to save time and money, and if they get the one mat in that I picked, they could have everything done by Friday, which would be awesome because my brother graduates on Sunday.

While we were picking everything out I found out the lady was a huge nerd. She thought that Halo print looked familiar and when I told her what it was it jogged her memory and she said she had seen commercials for it and thought it looked pretty cool but she didn't really play video games. I told her that there were actually books based on the game and she said she was going to have to look at the library. She also mentioned that her sister was almost done writing her first Sci-Fi book and from the description it sounded pretty cool. Also, the first video game she ever played was Zork, a text adventure game, which I have actually played and sucked at. I never made it very far before getting frustrated at not knowing what to type. She said she actually made it pretty far but was then turned into a ghost, which effectively ended the game because you can't do anything as a ghost. We also talked briefly about Star Trek. It was a very interesting conversation.

Tonight I added several rows to my purple scarf and played a bit of Tera. Right at the start I joined the queue to get into a party to go into the mansion that I have been trying to get into for awhile now. Then I ran off to town to sell stuff. I hadn't gotten very far into the selling when I got a notice that I could teleport to the mansion, so even though I still had a pretty full inventory, I teleported. The inventory became a bit of an issue but it wasn't too bad. The mansion was a lot of fun with other people. I didn't actually chat with any one in my party but I did run around a kill mobs with them. It was much better with other people than it was solo. When you go solo, all the attention is on you, but in a group I can actually play the ranged archer that my character is supposed to be. Along with completing several quests while in the mansion, I also leveled up once and added more than half a level on top of it. It makes me want to do it again, and maybe trying to join a guild and make friends so I have people to quest with. I am a strange person. Usually people who have trouble making friends in the real world can make friends online. I struggle with making friends in the real world and I make no effort to do so in the virtual world either. I need to pick one and go with it.

And now, with all the ranting and rambling of this entry, it is way past my bedtime. I would say I need to get better at that but it is almost summer and I will be back on a theater schedule. Which is to say, an awful schedule. But one that generally doesn't require me getting up at six o'clock in the morning but often requires me to be up way past my bedtime. I like one of those but not the other. Take a guess.