January 30, 2015

I think I'm getting a sore throat. It is in its infancy right now but I feel something. Not surprising considering my mom has been sick for a week and now has bronchitis, and I'm constantly coming in contact with sick kids at work. It was inevitable.

Today was the last day of MAP testing. Winter MAP testing, at least. This morning I went and got the one first grader who still needed to finish her reading test (not counting the two absent kids). While she worked on her test I wrote random things with my left hand. I also helped her out a few times when she had a question. Not giving her answers but slowing her down and having her sound things out and read out loud when she got longer passages. When she finished I walked her back to her room just in case her class wasn't there. She told me before we left the lab that she knew her class was in the room, and she was completely positive, but then she spent the whole walk back telling me about one time when her class wasn't in the room. She went up to the SPED room and the teacher wasn't there so she went back to her classroom but the class wasn't there anymore so she went to the office and they called for the SPED teacher but they couldn't find her. It sounded like quite the ordeal. We managed to avoid all of that this time because her class was in the room.

After I walked her back to her room I went down to the second grade room to see if she needed any help because I usually go down there on Friday for reading groups. I was just in time to go get iPads. They are in the music room now and the music teacher wasn't there so I had to go borrow a key from the office, let myself in and get iPads, take the key back to the office, and then go back to the second grade room. Where I had to authenticate all of the iPads and then bring up the website the kids were going to. There were extra iPads and they were all lost in their own worlds so I sat down on the carpet with them and played some random, connect-the-dots game for a little bit. When they were done I went back to the office to get the key, put the iPads back, dropped the key back off, and then went to the lab for the other second grade class.

This afternoon I retested two first graders from the other class. They were the two who went too fast when they first took it and didn't get scores so they had to take it again. And then the first nonexistent score for one of the kids showed up in his overall score and the second score for the other kid disappeared. So just to be safe we retested both of them. One did slightly worse on one section and slightly better on the other. I was sitting right by him and tried to get him to slow down several times but even when he appeared to be completely focused his actions proved that false. The other kid, however, really took his time and did way better. I was glad to see that. I think part of his thing is the kid he sits next to, who has been annoying since last year. I'm going to try separating them for the next test so they don't feel the need to race each other.

When I wasn't testing or working with classes in the lab, I finalized my MAP spreadsheets, minus first grade and one of the fifth grade classes because I'm waiting for final scores. Then I printed off reports for the teachers, along with the two spreadsheets I made and the pie charts. When all the final scores are in I'll be able to make pie charts showing the change from Fall to Winter for the school as a whole. I'm interested to see that one.

After work I remember to go to Target. There was a group of high school kids behaving like high school kids, and I managed to be in their presence multiple times. The whole time they were listening to music, being played out loud from one of their phones. They were talking loud, not only to be heard over their music, but also because the things high school kids talk about in Target is very important and needs to be heard. And at one point one of the girls was standing in their cart to read bottles of pop. I think I like elementary school kids better. Anyway, along with other things, I also bought a broom and dustpan for my bathroom. I'm kind of excited about that. Which makes me kind of sad. That is way too adult.

I don't work at the theater this weekend but I did get my paycheck today. I don't know if $0.49 is a record for the company but I'm pretty sure it is the smallest check I have ever seen. I actually earned $0.62 but taxes. And $0.08 when into my 401k, so I'm probably set for retirement now.

My sister dropped off cookies tonight. They were the leftover cookies, that wouldn't fit in the container, from the ones she made my brother for his birthday. She had her dogs with her so instead of coming inside she just left them on the little table thing outside the front door and texted me. And after I grabbed them I confirmed the drop. I told her that it was exactly the same way my drug dealer does it. The cookies are really good. I don't know exactly what kind they are but based on taste an appearance they are chocolate chip with sprinkles baked into them. They are also nice and chewy, not hard, and my sister said that was probably due to her using brown sugar instead of regular sugar. I'm all for that.

I spent my night watching some YouTube videos and then a lot of DVRed stuff. I'm all caught up with Sirens and The Twilight Zone. It looks like the first season of Sirens is on Netflix so I'm going to need to check that out. It is one of the shows that looked really good, and I may have seen part of an episode at some point, but I have been kind of out of TV for awhile, only recently getting back into it with the lack of internet and YouTube. So far it has lived up to my expectations. It is very funny. It kind of makes me want to be a paramedic but I've heard too many horror stories from my dad.

Now it is late so I'm going to go to bed, with my fingers crossed that I don't wake up with a serious sore throat.