August 27, 2014

When I got to work this morning instead of jumping directly into cutting word cards I went around the lab and updated Java on all of the computers. It needs to be updated for some random test we have to administer to a random group of kids during MAP testing. Sucks to be those kids. It also sucks to be me if another update comes out before the test and I have to go around to all the computers and update it again.

One of the fifth grades classes was the first in the lab today and no one cried over having to use keyboard covers during Type to Learn, so that was an improvement. During the time they were in there the teacher asked about her password for Odyssey. It seems like teachers weren't given a new password. So I logged in and brought her information up and we attempted several times to change her password. For the kids I changed it to a single letter because that's what it has been for the past two years and it is easy enough to remember. We tried that with the teacher and it didn't work. It needed to be at least four characters long. Then it needed to have at least two letters and two numeric characters. Everything she tried seemed to miss some previously unmentioned criteria. She eventually managed to get one that worked.

And I bring all this up because when we were working on that the topic of my desk came up and how it was covered in permanent marker over the summer. She got kind of excited and wanted to try writing on it was an Expo marker because she read how if there was permanent marker on a dry erase board you could write over it with an Expo marker and then erase it and the permanent marker. So she grabbed the marker and drew on my desk. It didn't work and now I have a faded red circle on my desk. Then she ran upstairs because she also read that hand sanitizer could be used to remove permanent marker. It also didn't work but for awhile my desk was sanitized and I got a small bottle of sanitizer out of it. So not a complete loss.

I finished cutting all the word cards today and got a start on punching holes in them. I spent a long time coming up with a way to get consistent hole placement on the cards and ended up taping a couple pieces of cardboard on the hole puncher as a guide. I originally wanted to use two or three of the hole puncher punches at once but after some trial and error I found it was easier and faster to just use one. I got a pretty decent start and got three or four of the kids finished today. I'm pretty sure my shoulder will be at least a little sore tomorrow from pushing down on the hole puncher so many times. While I was in the workroom working on that I helped one of the paras fix the copier and I talked with another one (who was an intern last year) about her teaching future. She said she wanted to work with SPED but everything she wanted to do required a Master's degree and she didn't have anything specific in mind so she decided to take a year to think about it. Wise choice. Until that year turns into six.

I also helped format a resume reference page for one of the student interns and showed a couple of the resource teachers how to insert special characters in Word and Outlook. Along with helping kids in the lab with random computer things. Not a bad day overall. Depending on how sore I am tomorrow from punching holes.

After work the librarian and I went to the tech meeting. For real this time. It was a good sign when we walked in and there were lights on and other people around, unlike last time. The meeting covered a lot of stuff and lasted about an hour and a half. The meeting also covered a lot of stuff that didn't need to be covered and probably should have lasted well under thirty minutes. At least fifty percent of the talking was just bragging about crap no one cared about. My theory is that the tech guys are trapped in their little world all day and these meetings become a soapbox on which they can perch and go on and on and on about all the amazing things they do. All of which are covered under their job description and most of which everyone else doesn't need to know about. Another forty-five percent of the information might be mildly interesting to see in bullet-pointed email but doesn't need to be gone over in detail at a meeting where people are extremely indifferent to the details. And the remaining five percent is actually useful information. In the meeting today, that took the form of finding out that I could submit trouble tickets asking for certain links to be added to computers or taken off and they could run a script that would dump it onto all the computers at once. Who knows how long it will actually take to get someone to run the script but it is nice to know that I will potentially not have to go around and install Odyssey on all the laptop carts. I'm going to get the cart information tomorrow so I can send in those tickets and see how things work out.

The librarian dropped me back off at the school after the meeting and then I went to Chipotle. While I was waiting to pay I felt a tap on my shoulder and ended up turning all the way around because the person kept moving. That person being a sixth grader from school. We spoke briefly and then I headed home. My burrito was pretty good. After dinner I showed a bunch of videos and then later on in the night ended up standing in the living room for quite awhile talking with my mom and sister. It is interesting how liberal my mom and I are and how different my sister is.

With all the chatting, I accomplished very little tonight. So little in fact that some might even consider it nothing. Which is a more accurate description. I'm definitely going to be screwed when we can start moving into the new house. Tomorrow after work we're going to go for the final walkthrough. It will interesting to see the house pretty much finished.

And now it is somehow midnight. What the hell. I still haven't quite gotten back to my school year sleeping schedule. I seriously need to work on that. After the move maybe.

Lastly, because I just remembered and listened to the voicemail again, I got a call from one of my friend's mom's friends about dog sitting for her. I need to call her back tomorrow. It would be next Wednesday or Thursday through Saturday afternoon. I will probably still have a lot of crap to move into the new house at that point but if she hasn't found someone before I call her back I will probably take her up on it. I'm not getting shifts at the theater so the extra money is nice. It is also way out of my comfort zone which I am always trying to expand (though often with very little effort). I guess it could also be considered networking, which I will need someday. It is a good skill to develop and I will need it to find a job after grad school so I might as well start practicing now. We'll see what happens.