December 4, 2014

This morning I was supposed to have a meeting with the principal about Compass Learning but she got distracted by other stuff so we had to bump it back. An hour later it was time for me to go down and help with literacy centers in kindergarten but the college kids were there so I wasn't needed. I headed back across the building and ended up running into the principal outside the computer lab so we had our meeting. She wants to set up a competition over winter break so whichever grade level has the most assignments completed in Compass Learning over break gets a pajama day. My job will be running the report and doing the math to figure out who wins.

My favorite substitute stopped by the lab this morning while her class was in PE. She wanted to know what I was up to and I ended up giving her the hard copy of my reflective journal so she sat down and started reading it. I handed her a pencil and told her to act like a teacher and tear it apart. She read it off and on throughout the day and managed to get about halfway through and had a lot of good edits. I feel good about that but it also makes me a little worried for the second half that she didn't get to.

This afternoon we had an assembly for the school choir. It was alright. There was some fun choreography. I would write more about it but it is almost eleven o'clock and I am tired. I have been lacking in sleep this entire week.

After the assembly I talked with the librarian for awhile before heading back to the lab. The schedule this afternoon got switched around a bit because of the assembly so third grade came in early and they were followed by one of the kindergarten classes. The kindergarten teacher left me in the lab with the kids so he could go back and help the other kindergarten teacher with the foster family Christmas gifts. It is normal practice for me to be in charge of his class when he's out of the lab doing stuff but today was mildly exhausting. It felt like I never got a chance to stand still because I was constantly going from one kid to the next putting out small fires.

After work I went down to the mall to get my mom a gift card for her birthday and I also got one for Christmas to save me a trip. Then I went to Target to get her a card and a clock. She wanted a small clock by the TV because the old DVR used to have one and she got used to being able to see the time there. She bought a small alarm clock the other day because it looked like it was illuminated but it turned out that you have to hold down a button for it to illuminate. And when it isn't illuminated you can't really see the time. So I got here a bigger one (although the smallest one they had) that has light-up numbers, not an illuminated background.

When I got home I wrapped everything and when my sister got there we all went for my mom's birthday dinner at the Chinese buffet. Delicious as always. Dinner ended up lasting about two hours and then we headed back to the house for cake and ice cream and presents. I actually had a little bit of ice cream and it was delicious. I miss ice cream. The books and gift card weren't really a surprise but she liked the clock. It ended up fitting in pretty well with the TV and everything. I was afraid it would be too big but I think we're good.

When we done with that, I headed over to the old house so I could make the edits on my reflective journal. I was going to submit it tonight but I couldn't come up with a way to reword one of the things so I am going to think about it some more. I also want to read over everything one last time. I should have plenty of time to do that tomorrow at work and get it submitted before I clock out. If if I run out of time I can still submit it as it is now and should be able to get a decent grade.