Wednesday, May 14, 2014

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.

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