November 7, 2014

My throat hurts, I'm tired, and I want to go to bed. Sadly, that may not happen for another four hours, sometime after three o'clock in the morning.

Work went alright today. I helped out with second grade reading groups this morning. I started with one group reading a story, which took forever and they ended up not even being able to finish the story because it took them so long to get settled down. It was kind of annoying but not really because I've experienced much worse. They weren't malicious in their lackadaisical mood. Not all of them anyway.

My second group was a higher group and they were working on a presentation about earthworms. Awhile ago I was with the larger version of this group when they began the earthworm project. Today I just had three of them, the three who wanted to make a presentation on the computer, rather than make a poster like the other small groups. They were using an online presentation building tool that is kind of like PowerPoint but much more simplified. I kind of liked it but three different times today the girls managed to make everything they had disappear and they had to start over. I found out later where they were being autosaved to and they had at least five partial versions of their presentation. They'll have to sort that out later.

The adult, and current graduate student, in me cringes a little bit every time they would write something verbatim from the earthworm article they read because of plagiarism and all that. I also kind of feel like second grade isn't the time to be teaching about plagiarism or how to paraphrase what they have just read. I think that takes a level of thought and vocabulary that isn't quite there yet. It's just good that they're being exposed to the whole research process at such a young age. We can worry about original thought later.

My favorite substitute was in today for the library and one of the first grade teachers. She stopped by before lunch and we talked about grad school. I showed her my infographic, which she really liked, and we talked about textbooks. Later on in the afternoon I went down and helped her figure out how to work the overhead thing and the DVD player. And then at the end of the day I ended up walking out to her car with her. She was driving a new car because when she was at the dealership someone backed into her. They ended up giving her the keys to one of their corporate cars while they fix hers.

This afternoon I had one of the kindergarten classes because they had a sub and it is easier to schedule computer lab time. They were actually pretty well behaved. I can't say the same for the fourth grade class who came in after them. They were all talking almost the entire time they were in the lab. I wasn't going to waste my breath trying to get them to shut up because it's like wack-a-mole, as soon as I turn my back another conversation has popped up. In the last ten minutes maybe the sub asked me if they were supposed to be quiet and I told him that was the goal. He then announced that everyone needed to stop talking, the first person to talk would get a warning, and after that people would have to start pulling sticks (which is something kids don't want to do). They all became very quiet and there were only a few whispers after that. I would like to have that kind of authority but I can't really threaten them with pulling sticks. My only threats are kicking them off the computer and making them sit by the wall, sending them back to their classroom (if the teacher isn't in the lab), and sending them to the office (also if the teacher isn't in the lab). Those vary in their effectiveness depending on the kid.

After work I stopped by the volunteer office to drop off a couple forms they couldn't find in their records. They are being audited next week and are trying to get everything sorted out. I vaguely remember signing both of those forms when I first volunteered and went through training but if they can't find them, better safe than sorry.

From there I went to the old house for a little bit to check some things on the internet and then headed to the new house so I could eat dinner and then get ready for work. I had the second half of my Chipotle burrito, which was pretty good despite the builders of it yesterday. It would have been better had I gotten all of the rice that I asked for. Anyway, after dinner I went down to my room, which was dark because the curtains were closed, and just laid on my bed for a couple songs. I could have stayed there for the rest of the night. It sucks being back at the theater.

And speaking of, I am sitting there now. I ended up not going down to help clean tonight but I did have to take a bunch of trash out from upstairs. Empty boxed and shredded paper mostly. All the stairs didn't make my knee feel any better but I survived. My night was divided between looking at old funny internet pictures I have downloaded on my phone, and doing the reading for my research class this week. I still need to watch the video but I'll probably do that after I finish typing this. I may even add that bit on afterward but for now I haven't gotten that far.

We have a late show of Interstellar, which is over a three-hour movie with all of the crap attached to it. That means I will be here until at least three o'clock probably. When everything is said and done this could easily end up being a twenty-two hour day for me. And then I'll get about five hours of sleep before I have to get up and come back. It could be worse. There is an employee meeting tomorrow morning, which would mean about four hours of sleep at the most, but I don't have to come to it. Always a bright side.

And I'm back, at three o'clock in the morning. I spent the rest of my shift watching Interstellar. Not only because I was too tired to do anything else and it was the only movie playing, but also because I was interested in seeing it. It is too late to make any definitive verdict but I want to say I liked it. I missed the first thirty minutes so that may sway my vote, but as it stands now, I liked it. It was very epic in scale. I like epic sci-fi things and this fit the bill. I also liked the ending. Or at least the ending that was alluded to.

Now I'm going to go to bed. I'm sitting here now in the driveway at the old house because I didn't want to waste time going in but I needed the internet. And I can get it in the driveway. So there you go. But I need to stop typing because time continues to pass and I am tired as hell.