February 27, 2015

Today happened, I'm sure of it, but it also seems so long ago. I forgot to mention a couple things yesterday so I'll start with those.

Yesterday morning the school librarian asked me about setting up a Twitter account for the library. Several of the other school libraries have one and she wanted to try it out. So I set up an email account and then used that to set up the Twitter account. Fairly simple after finally finding a username that made sense and wasn't taken. I gave her all the information but I'm still going to help her out until she's more comfortable with it. We both have personal Twitter accounts but neither of us really use them so it will be a good learning experience for the both of us. I came up with some ideas for her today in terms of a tweeting schedule just so she can get in the habit of doing it.

Last night I found my house key. I was sitting in my chair, watching the Neebs livestream and I put my hands in my hoodie pockets. That's when I felt a key in my left pocket. It turned out to be my old house key but I have absolutely no idea how it got there. Like not even an inkling. My mom said the other day she put it on the counter which I never knew about and never saw it there. But then it shows up in my hoodie pocket. It has to be one of the freakiest moments of my life. Not in the scary sense but just the freaky sense. I can't even imagine a scenario where that key ended up in my pocket. None that make sense anyway. It is just so strange.

This morning I kind of helped with reading groups in second grade. A couple kids were working on the teacher's iPad making a cartoon. They had a story all laid out, which was pretty detailed but quickly turned into a very loose guide. They would pick a scene, drag characters onto it, and when they hit 'Record', they could drag the characters around to animate them and then they would speak the parts. We sat in the hall as they worked and I had to stifle my laughter several times because they were speaking in really high voices and they had some pretty good improvised dialogue.

I got a few more sixth grade baby pictures and had time to scan and edit all of the ones I have gotten so far, fixing the colors, adding in the border and the shadow. Slowly but surely. I still need to go through and edit the pictures I found on the faculty drive.

This morning I learned that one of the second grade teachers is missing the two teeth on either side of her two front teeth. I don't know if they just never grew in or what but they used braces to move her incisors and the rest of her teeth over and then ground down the incisors to make them look like regular teeth. I never would have guessed because she has nice looking teeth.

I think I figured out the testing dilemma. I emailed the principal ideas on how to move things around if she wanted to go that route and I also counted up the free spots based on how the schedule is now. There are at least twenty-two MAP tests (based on each class needing to take two tests) and there are forty-four spots available for testing. So we should be good. I don't know about my sanity having to test all day every day for a couple months, but at least in terms of getting the test done, we should be good.

After work not a lot happened. I eventually got around to responding to a discussion post sometime after dinner. I'll respond to at least one more tomorrow and another one on Sunday. I spent a large portion of my night messing around with a thing for the library Twitter account and watching a livestream. The same guy I started following after he was raided by Neebs a couple weeks ago. The last game he streamed, and is still streaming now, was Minecraft on the PS4. I assumed there would be some differences but I was able to help him out a little bit. It helped that there were only about six people watching the stream at the time and I was the only one offering advice. While I was offering tips on the building of his first farm another person joined in and I'm pretty sure they were an idiot. Or just a kid. Probably both. I still threw out some tidbits but it was like trying to argue with a kid, and arguing with a kid, or anyone really, is pointless, so I didn't.

I took a break from the stream to go pick my mom up from a bar. That makes her sound like a drunk but she's not. One of the paras at work is getting married soon so tonight she had her bachelorette party. They went to a place to paint paintings and then went bar-hopping. My mom didn't really drink much but she rode down with a couple other paras so she needed a ride home. Which I was glad to provide.

But now it is way too freaking late and I'm going to end up sleeping through most of tomorrow. Something I don't want to do because I need to come up with a resource for my group project. We'll see how it goes. If I wake up before lunch it will be an achievement.

February 26, 2015

This afternoon while kindergarten was in the lab working on Compass Learning, I was walking past one of them when this very animated girl came on his screen. She always makes big gestures and must enunciate very well because I can easily read her lips and tell what she's saying. I've never actually heard her but she looks annoying. And apparently she is because when she came up on screen the boy put is head on his hand and in a very exasperated tone said “Not Bethany.” It was hilarious.

Coming back to the present for a second, I'm going to jinx myself saying this, but it is late so this will be a short entry.

I helped out with literacy centers in kindergarten this morning and had a yearbook club meeting before lunch. There aren't any pictures loaded up on the website yet for the kids to play with but we did have them log into the site and play around with the design features.

Throughout most of the day I worked on transferring the information on testing schedules we came up with yesterday into my spreadsheets and calendars and then printing those off. Near the end of the day we learned they were moving the MAP window up a week, which is nice, but it is still in the middle of State Assessments. That had me double-check the MAP window and I saw that it actually only goes through the first week of May. Not good at all. I was assuming it went later than the State Assessments, and I think everyone else did to. The way we made the schedule would only leave that last full week, which has an early release day in it, for uninterrupted MAP testing. That isn't nearly enough time. The State Assessment window goes through the second week of May so we will probably try to move some of the assessments back, into May, and try to start MAP testing in April when the window opens. This is all ridiculous. Starting next month we're going to have two months of wall-to-wall testing. Good thing the point of school is to test kids on what they're learning, and not teaching them new things so they can actually learn. We're nailing it.

Tonight I got completely distracted by the Neebs livestream and it took me the entire night to write my discussion post about metadata. I didn't even attempt to write responses because it took all my distracted focus just to write my post. I am happy with it though. I had a bit of insight at the very end that came to me right as I was about to call it good.

And now it is bedtime. I'm looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday. And Sunday. And maybe Monday because we all have our fingers crossed for a snow day.

February 24, 2015

Hopefully I can make this short because I want to go to bed.

This morning I had one of the fifth grade classes in the lab and I got the teacher playing on FreeRice. She wanted to do math but after the first math question it switched to English vocabulary. We spent the rest of the time her class was in the lab making it up to level 41 out of 60. Not bad.

After that I had both second grade classes but they came in reverse order because the teacher who usually comes first had to take her daughter to a doctor's appointment. They got a hamster from an acquaintance and last night there was an incident. They had just about got the hamster back in the cage after letting it walk around in its ball, when the doorbell rang and the teacher went to go answer it. When she came back she saw drops of blood leading to the bathroom, and in the bathroom there was a whole bunch of blood on the white shower curtain. The hamster had either bitten or clawed the daughter. Its name is Fluffy, and they were going to change it to McFluffington or something, but now the daughter is referring to it as Killer. Initially she wanted to get rid of the hamster but now she thinks is was just an accident. The doctor appointment was just to make sure the daughter didn't need an antibiotic. Which she doesn't because it wasn't a wild animal, just a pet hamster.

So the other second grade came first and the first second grade came second and stayed a little while longer, until lunch recess (which they have before lunch), at which time I walked them back to their room and they got their stuff to go outside.

Throughout the morning, when I had time, and this afternoon because I didn't have any classes in the lab, I worked on the yearbook. I reorganized the portraits, got all the teacher portraits on the individual class pages, picked out a font for their names and typed those (which I might change later), and went through and made sure everyone's name was spelled right. I ended up going through and renaming a handful of kids and adults who generally go by a different name.

It was an early release day but I had a testing plan meeting after school. It was the principal, the SPED teachers, the Title teachers, and myself. I didn't really contribute too much but I will be deciphering the schedule notes and typing up final schedules so it was good that I was there. It was also a pretty entertaining meeting, so that was enjoyable.

It was only 3:30PM when I got out of the meeting, which I thought was a bit early to go to Chipotle, and I had to pee, so I decided to stop by the old house. That didn't work out because the plumbers were still there so I ended up just coming home for an hour.

Based solely on the two girls that now work the line on Wednesday I am considering moving Chipotle night to Thursday. There is no urgency or real purpose to their movements and it is like watching the hour hand on a clock when they are assembling a burrito or tacos. They also aren't that great with portions, erring on the side of not nearly enough considering the price of the food. And they get distracted by the new jackass working in the kitchen who talks loud and never shuts up. It is evident that the boss, or anyone with authority, is working when I go in on Wednesday and it is getting kind of old. There is a learning curve to any job, and I probably couldn't jump in the line and do any better than these two girls, but they have been working there for a little while now and they should have developed more speed and skill at their vocation.

Tonight I read one of the PDFs for one of my classes. I ended up switching out the 24” monitor I had in my bedroom with the one I had hooked up to my desktop in the other room, mostly because I wanted to do that anyway after messing with the streaming stuff the other day. But also because I wanted to try propping the monitor up on its side so I could read the PDF in Portrait mode. I figured as long as I was moving the monitor in my room I might as well switch it out. And I was trying to delay reading more of the PDF about metadata. It's an interesting topic but it's still metadata, which doesn't make for a very thrilling read. The sideways monitor ended up working out pretty well because I was able to see an entire page of the PDF at once. That makes it a lot easier and more natural to read compared to reading one column on a page and scrolling back up to read the second and then the third. I was also able to easily look back at stuff without having to scroll around. I need to get a stand so I can mount my monitor in Portrait mode. Maybe for my birthday in a few months.

I wanted to write my first discussion post for the week after finishing the PDF but I was kind of wiped out. I think a lot of it had to do with staring at a monitor and reading for so long. I'm not a fan of reading long things from a computer screen. Physical paper will always be better. Or maybe an E-Ink device, like a Kindle, but big enough to show a whole page of a PDF at a time.

Tomorrow I'll have to write my discussion post and probably respond to one or two. I also need to start thinking about my contribution for this week to my group project. None of my fellow group members have posted anything yet either so at least I'm not the only one.

February 24, 2015

Today. Things happened. I helped out with literacy centers in both kindergarten classes this morning. My groups had to write about and then draw something they treasure. They have apparently been talking about the word 'treasure' and how in this context it doesn't mean gold or jewels or some other pirate treasure, but some of them obviously haven't picked up on the concept. I was running out of ways to explain it. Only a couple kids ended up going with something that I would deem worthy of being treasured, but they did all manage to come up with something that could arguably be treasured, even if only superficially.

I started working on the yearbook today. We had another yearbook meeting with the fifth and sixth graders, this one to show them the website they would be using to create the yearbook, as well as tell them what grade they were assigned to so they could start talking to those teachers and figuring out when they could come take pictures. I uploaded all of the school portraits and started figuring out the layouts. The sixth grade class currently has twenty-six kids which really screws things up. Their pictures are going to have to be smaller than all the other classes just so I can fit them and their teacher on the same page. We may also only have one page for staff portraits so those are also going to be tiny.

This afternoon I had both kindergarten classes and one third grade class in the lab. That was all pretty uneventful.

After work I went and bought a Powerball ticket and then went over to the old house to get some stuff. I remembered as I got to the door that I let my mom borrow my house key yesterday and she never gave it back. When I got home and told her this she said it was on the counter and acted like I somehow knew that even though she never told me. And it wasn't on the counter. The key from the door was there (because she took that out yesterday) but my key was not. It was nowhere to be found. So that is kind of annoying. I told her it all seemed like a very passive aggressive way to kick me out of the house but several months too late.

Tonight I finished reading one of the textbook chapters I have to read this week. That leave one to go, along with the PDFs. So much reading. I also still need to write discussion posts and figure out the group assignment that is starting this week. I'm still not entirely sure what I am supposed to be doing. All I know is that world domination is not our need, which is still disappointing because not only would have have been fun, it would have also been a lot easier.

Now I'm going to go to bed, much like I do at the end of most of my entries, because I'm tired.

February 23, 2015

The majority of my day was spent finding and editing photos of the current sixth graders when they were younger. I finished going through all the old pictures on the faculty drive, picking out the ones that show the current sixth graders, and added white borders and shadows to all of them, along with a little editing on some of them to make them look better. I also found old school portraits for some of the kids and still need to add borders to those. Next will come actually assembling the slides.

I had two classes in the lab this morning and one in the afternoon, along with a mix group this afternoon of sixth graders for math enrichment and second graders for Khan Academy. Overall it was a pretty slow day. Mostly just the picture editing.

After work I did laundry and laid down for a little bit before dinner because I knew if I didn't there was no way I'd be able to do any textbook reading tonight. Which is what I did after dinner. I finished the textbook reading for one class but still have two PDFs to read, and started on the first of two chapters for the other class. Progress. And not bad for a Monday.

And now I think I'm going to go to bed. Even with early release on Wednesday I feel like this week is going to be a long week. Hooray.

February 22, 2015

January flew by and now February is doing likewise. Where is the time going.

I slept in until 9:30AM this morning but I was still able to finish reading the textbook chapter I needed to before lunch. I planned on eating lunch at noon and finished reading a minute or two after that. I still had my phone on silent and when I checked it I saw a text from my brother asking if I wanted to go to lunch at one o'clock. So instead of making lunch I hopped in the shower and eventually headed down to Chipotle.

My brother ended up being postponed about twenty minutes but it ended up working out because had that not happened I probably wouldn't have gotten to see my friend who was a few people ahead of us in line when we walked in. She jumped back to us and we talked while we worked our way through the line. She was having an issue at work and they were disrespecting her pretty hard so she decided to take a half-day and pick up some Chipotle on the way home. Hopefully things are better for her when she goes back.

My brother and I talked a lot about video games because that has always just been our go-to conversation but we also expanded that today and probably spent more time talking about other things than we did video games. That was pretty cool. Through these lunches I feel like I'm finally getting to know him a little bit.

When I got home I messed around with my Elgato and played with streaming on Twitch. It took me forever to figure out the sound and in the end I still haven't quite gotten there. At first the sound completely crapped out on my desktop. Even when I plugged everything back in how it was I couldn't get any sound, despite the little green bars bouncing up and down showing there was sound. And it worked just fine through my headphones and through the TV (which I'm assuming was going over HDMI). Just not the built-in speakers on my monitor. It also worked when I plugged in external speakers, so I don't know what was happening. After some tweaking I got the sound to come out of the built-in speakers but I think it was just playing the sound that was going through my headphones because it was also outputting the microphone sound. But I couldn't find out a way to turn the built-in speakers off, even when I turned the volume all the way down on the computer, without also killing the sound that the Elgato was recording. I think my solution will be switching out my monitor with the one I have that doesn't have built-in speakers. That is the monitor the Elgato was hooked up to before so I think that is why I didn't have this issue in the past. We'll see.

I had the Elgato hooked up to my laptop because I've heard that is good for taking some of the strain off of the computer you are playing your game on. In my experience the Elgato doesn't really effect gameplay too much, at least compared to other options, but every little bit helps. I eventually ignored the sound issue and did a little test with Minecraft, just running around a little bit and seeing what it looked like on Twitch. It looked like crap because the quality was so low, but I think that is because you have to be a partner or have so many followers/viewers before you get quality control options. I don't know. It was still cool though. I don't know that I will ever really stream because the idea of sitting alone in my room and talking to myself seems weird, but the fact that it can be done is cool. I'm also vaguely toying around with the idea of doing something in Minecraft for one of my assignments and making a video out of it, so I wanted to get the Elgato working, but I probably won't end up doing that anyway.

After dinner I went over to my brother's house to play video games. We were supposed to do that last Sunday but it snowed and I slid into a curb, so it didn't work out. There was no snow tonight though so it was all good. We started off taking turns on BF4. I had one halfway decent round but I think my K/D was 0.5 so it still wasn't great. Then we played Call of Duty: Advanced Warfighter. We started with a gametype where you face increasingly difficult waves of enemies. I generally do bad at though but we ended up doing alright, despite me not having played a CoD game in a really long time. Then we tried a round of zombies online and that didn't go very well. I suck at zombies and our other teammates also sucked so we were doomed from the start. I did alright with a shotgun but it didn't take too long before I became completely overwhelmed by zombies. After that I played a couple levels of the campaign, which I enjoyed. The game itself looks a lot like a mash-up of CoD, Halo, Blacklight, and maybe some Gears of War. And the story kind of reminded me of Resident Evil. But it was fun. It was also fun getting to play video games with someone. I very rarely get to do that and it makes games way more fun.

And I stayed over there way too long so it is now after 12:30AM and I need to wake up in the morning for work. Not looking forward to that. I'm going to stop typing now so I can maximize the small amount of sleep I'm about to get.

February 21, 2015

Despite going to bed pretty late last night I was awake at 7:30AM this morning and decided to role with it instead of laying there until I fell back to sleep. I'd say that was a pretty wise choice because it allowed me to get a lot accomplished today. Before lunch I was able to make a few more discussion posts and nearly finished reading the chapter and watching the corresponding lecture videos. I was able to finish up the chapter and the videos after lunch and posted again to the discussion thread. I also threw my two cents in on my group project. I think it would be fun to make our need world domination, and a few other people like the idea, but we'll probably go with something else.

And I guess that pretty much sums up the productivity of my day. Doesn't really sound that impressive but I was surprised I didn't put that off until tomorrow.

I made some delicious pasta for dinner, something I haven't done in a little bit, and then I decided to take the rest of the night off. I couldn't really decide what I wanted to do but I ended up watching some YouTube videos, watch a stream for the guy that Neebs sent people to at the end of their stream on Thursday, listened to music, and played some of Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs. I decided to go all out for that so I put my headphones on and turned the lights off. I did full-on jump once and got some chills a few times. It is definitely a creepy game.

I'm trying to come up with potential songs for the sixth grade slideshow so I'll probably stay up awhile longer listening to random stuff before heading to bed. Tomorrow I need to read a textbook chapter for my other class and I would like to get that done before lunch. I might also try to sleep in so we'll see what happens.

February 20, 2015

Today was another day. I didn't have my regular morning classes in the lab because the tech guys were updating computers. They were in the library most of the day but one of them, the guy I graduated high school with, came down to the lab in the morning to update the handful that still needed it.

I came very close to getting in trouble because of my colorful desktop background images. The tech guy commented on them and I showed him a picture of what it looked like with the lights off and all the computers logged in so he could see the whole rainbow. He thought it was pretty cool and asked how I did it. I told him I had to use a group policy and he asked how I got one of the head tech guys to let me do that. And I said I didn't. I don't know that it ever really crossed my mind to ask for permission because I was only changing the desktop background. The tech guy said he knew I wouldn't do anything malicious but the head tech guys don't really like people messing around with the computers. Whoops. I didn't think he would rat me out because we know each other and he also gave me the heads up that I wasn't supposed to be opening the towers and cleaning them (which I still think is a tad ridiculous. Despite that, I did have a bit of a fear the rest of the day that the head tech guy would come in and chew me out. But he didn't.

A little later on the tech guy said I should change the 'Log Off' button to 'Restart', which I can do next week. I didn't tell him that doing so will require me to go back into the group policy options because that's how I had to do it when I was switching the 'Shut Down' button to 'Log Off' so it would show up for all the users on each computer.

I also didn't mention that I had to change a group policy to set the homepage for Internet Explorer to the Microsoft Office page I made. Apparently I am walking a very fine line and the odds are good at some point before I quit I will get chewed out by someone in the tech department.

I spent a lot of my day working on slideshow stuff for the end of the year slideshow for the sixth graders. I went through all of their school portraits and added the white border and drop shadow to them. I also played around with the idea of adding a teddy bear to the background of the slides. That might be a thing that happens because it looks kind of neat but it also might be distracting. I'm missing one picture of the newest sixth grader but I did a rough layout for each slide that will just have the portraits on them. If I remember right from the one I made last year, each kid had a slide with their baby pictures on them (along with the school portrait just in case they weren't immediately recognizable), then I had random pictures I found on the faculty drive of them in younger grades, and I ended with slides that just had their portraits. I'll have to see if I still have the file from last year on my computer. I am hoping it isn't on the hard drive that won't show up.

I started going through the old pictures on the faculty drive and picking ones that had the current sixth graders in them. I'll have to continue that next week and start editing them. I also need to start thinking about songs for the slideshow. Last year the sixth grade teacher suggested a couple and I added one, along with a clip for the main menu. I might take an informal poll of the sixth graders and see what their favorite songs have been this year.

Going back to this morning for a second, the sixth graders came down to the lab first thing to enroll in classes for next year. Or at least request their preferences for electives. Things have changed a lot from when I was in middle school. They can even check all their grades online. They will have one or two visits to the middle school during the school year, I think, and then over the summer they'll go for a day. I vaguely remember getting my schedule in the mail and some time before the beginning of the year there was a night where we could go and walk our schedule. Maybe there was an orientation or something but I don't remember one. That was long before I started keeping a daily journal so I can't go back and check.

Tonight my mom and I went over to the old house to check on the work that has been going on the past few days. The back sliding door has been fixed so it actually slides, one of the walls in the laundry room has been fixed and new flooring was put in, a shelf was fixed, and new caulking was put around the tub in my old bathroom. Progress.

On the way home we stopped at Dairy Queen and I got a frozen hot chocolate. So good. I could probably have one of those every day and never get tired of it.

Tonight I did a whole lot of nothing. I posted a PDF of a report to the discussion post to help some people out if they hadn't read it already, but I didn't actually respond to anything else. I had planned on it but I didn't. I'll do that tomorrow. Instead, I watched a couple sad, short documentaries on YouTube and cried and got all stuffed up because they were sad. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so empathetic. I would like to be more stoic when it comes to sad things.

Lastly, I think I experience motivational anhedonia, which as far as I understand, is basically a lack of motivation. Pretty much the story of my life.

February 19, 2015

Today was boring. I went down and helped with literacy centers in kindergarten this morning and then didn't have a single class in the lab. I spent the rest of my morning making two posts on the discussion thread for this week and I feel like I am slowly getting better at wrapping my head around FRBR. It is also nice reading other people's posts and seeing that I'm not the only one that didn't immediately grasp the concept of the model. I will admit, though, that it is kind of fun trying to figure out the examples that the professor is posting.

This afternoon I messed around with some ideas for this year's sixth grade slideshow. I need to email the sixth grade teacher and make sure that is still a thing that is happening. And maybe have him start collecting pictures because things are going to get real busy before too long. I'll be juggling state assessments, MAP testing, and assignments for school. Along with the yearbook and the slideshow. Not looking forward to all of that.

There ended up being two classes in the lab this afternoon, the only two all day, but by then I was down in the library, talking to the librarian about library things because I was bored sitting in the lab by myself all day. It was a good conversation so I'm glad I stuck around for that instead of going back to the lab.

After school I stood around and talked with the principal for awhile before packing up and heading home, with a brief stop for gas.

Tonight I did not accomplish a thing. I could have posted on the discussion thread but I already posted twice today and we're supposed to spread our posts out throughout the week. So maybe I'll do that tomorrow at work if things are equally boring.

I did watch the Neebs stream tonight. That's about it. I wanted to do something productive but I always want to do something productive and I very rarely do. Tonight was not one of those rare occasions.

February 18, 2015

I started my workday by emailing one of the SPED teachers. She has sent out numerous emails about a certain para being absent from work. The para seems to be a bit of a malingerer. Another email was sent out today so I decided to reply and said I would also be absent, but only in spirit. That started a brief chain of emails about her saying she has been absent in spirit since coming back from maternity leave, me saying that was obvious but I didn't want to say anything and make things awkward, her saying she can take the truth and she would even give me a Milk Dud for my honesty, and me feigning exciting for a whole Milk Dud all to myself. And that was the end of it and a quickly forgot all about it.

Near the end of the day I was standing in the lab talking with the fifth grade teacher who's class was in the lab, and a little second grader came sneaking into the lab with a big smile on his face and handed me a box of Milk Duds with a note that said “You are worth more than just one Dud!” Hilarious. I was completely caught off guard and it was a brilliant response.

My morning was filled with classes. I had fifth grade, both second grade classes, and then third grade. I had good conversations with the fifth grade teacher, the second grade teachers, and a para. It made the morning go by faster.

When the fifth grade class was in the lab they were working on Type to Learn for the first thirty minutes and one of the computers had the fan going full speed the entire time. Once the girl logged out of Type to Learn, there was another copy running, and another behind that, and several more behind that. She must have gone to town on clicking that icon because she had at least seven or eight copies running. But, as soon as she closed out of all of them the fan calmed down. Like immediately. It was kind of funny.

Right after lunch there was an assembly for a middle school choir performance. Unsurprisingly, none of the boys had solos, but several of the girls did and they were really good singers. I was impressed. And a tad envious because I have always thought it would be cool to be able to sing. I can play musical instruments but singing doesn't really happen.

When I didn't have classes, I was able to read most of the last article for my organization class. And I was able to finish it up before dinner.

Speaking of, Chipotle was pretty good tonight. I changed things up a bit and got brown rice, black beans, corn salsa, sour cream, and cheese. I opted not to get the sofritas because it has kind of lost its novelty. I also haven't had the corn salsa in a really long time. I got it last weekend when I ate there with my brother and it was a nice change so I decided to get it tonight. I'll get tired of it soon enough but for this week at least, it was good.

After dinner I showed my mom and sister a bunch of YouTube videos and then I came downstairs to work on school stuff. I was really unproductive most of the night, hence me still being up at this late hour (11:30PM). To write my first discussion post this week I had to reference a few different PDFs so I decided to use my desktop so I could have them open over both monitors. It would have been even better had I had my third monitor hooked up but I didn't.

My discussion post ended up being really long but I think I did alright. The FRBR model is sort of kind of starting to make sense. At least Group 1 that talks about works, expressions, manifestations, and items. It is still tricky but it makes a lot more sense than it did when I first started reading about it. So that's good.

February 17, 2015

Right now I am watching a livestream of the very talented artist Alice X. Zhang, or alicexz, draw or paint the dragon lady from Game Of Thrones. I imagine she has a name but I'm not going to look it up right now. Awhile ago I bought a couple of her Doctor Who prints. She's got a very cool style and she is ridiculously talented.

I really didn't have a lot going on at work today so I spent my morning using the infographic site we learned about this weekend, Piktochart, to make infographics for the whole school MAP info. At some point I might include other stuff but today I kept it simple and just transferred the data I used to make the pie charts and turned it into a chart thingy with a bunch of basic icons of a man to represent the percentages. It looks simple and nice. I'll probably play with it more though because I still don't have much going on at work and I haven't asked for any extra work because I could be using that time to read articles for class.

Real work things did happen today. Not really productive things but I had first grade in the lab this morning, along with both kindergarten classes and a third grade class this afternoon.

We had a brief yearbook club meeting before lunch with the fifth grade volunteers. Sixth grade was supposed to come after them but they never showed up. The fifth graders split into small groups and they will eventually be assigned a grade and they will be responsible for contacting the teachers and finding out when they can come in and take pictures. I will still be doing the individual class pages but the idea is to have the kids design the candid pages.

The afternoon was broken up by a character assembly. This month's character trait was Caring. Once again I did not receive an award but to be fair, the adults in the building are not eligible to receive an award. So it's not all my fault.

It looked like a blizzard outside for most of the afternoon but none of it really stuck to the ground. I had some snow on my car but nothing that I had to scrape off. When I got home I swept off the back porch and all the stairs to lessen the slipping chance for the dogs. I like to think they appreciate that but it probably went unnoticed.

Tonight I read half of the chapter for my organization class and watched the two corresponding videos that went with it. I also read one of the PDFs. Tomorrow I need to read the rest of the chapter, watch the videos for it, and read the second PDF. I think that second PDF holds most of the info I need for the discussion posts this week so I might try and get that read at work tomorrow.

I also texted for awhile with my old friend who moved down to Texas a few years ago to become a chiropractor. He kind of fell off the edge of the world after he moved and until last Saturday I hadn't heard from in since the Christmas before last. It's good to know he's still alive and doing well.

The drawing stream is still happening and I am still jealous of her talent, but it is after eleven o'clock and I need my beauty sleep so I'm going to call it a night. I like sleep so freaking much.

February 16, 2015

 Today was kind of pointless. I slept through half the day but made up for it by having a donut with my lunch. There was a rumor that there was jelly in it but there wasn't, which is good because I think donuts are better without jelly in them.

I emptied out most of the stuff in my car but had to stop with a bunch of books still in my trunk because the loose piece of cartilage in my right knee started to really bother me so I called it good for the day.

I looked over the stuff for class this week and for the organization class we have to read so much this week. One big chapter along with two PDFs. I should have started on that today but I just felt out of it, I was tired most of the day and had a headache, which doesn't make reading a textbook sound appealing. I did track down the PDFs, one of which was a bit of a pain and took way longer to find than it should have.

I also did laundry. For one round I forgot to put the lid down on the washer so it filled with water and then just sat there. I found that out a half hour later when I went to switch loads. Annoying. Now I'm waiting for my last load to dry so I can get it out and go to bed. Pretty much from the time I woke up this morning I have been looking forward to going to bed.

February 15, 2015

 I slept in this morning and it was so nice. Then I replied to a couple posts on the discussion for this week. I also posted an article that I found this weekend that talking about knowledge management, which was the topic for the discussion this week. When we were setting up our Zotero accounts this weekend we were supposed to look something up in a database just so we could practice adding articles to Zotero. So I looked up “something” and one of the first articles, if not the first one, was called “I Know Something You Don't Know” and it talked about tacit knowledge or knowledge that isn't written down and only exists in the minds of employees, which means it is lost when that employee leaves the company. It fit in nicely with the discussion this week and it was a complete accident.

I had lunch with my brother today. We went to Chipotle and I got a burrito bowl. I haven't had one of those in awhile and it was pretty good. I would like to get those more often but I get lettuce and that doesn't really keep well for round two. But maybe I'll consider it without the lettuce.

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the old house. I brought up a bunch of stuff from the basement and loaded my car to the bursting point. I think I've got pretty much all of my stuff out of the house except for one or two things. Progress. We're almost there.

For dinner we finished up the breakfast stuff from yesterday. Thankfully there are still plenty of blueberry muffins left.

Tonight I was supposed to go play video games with my brother but that ended up not happening. It started snowing sometime after dinner and there was an inch or two on the ground when I left the house. I applied the brakes pretty heavily at the end of the street just to see what I was dealing with and the anti-lock brakes when nuts. I also took the turn a little fast and slid a little but it wasn't too bad. Or maybe it was. Less than a mile from my house I went to turn onto another street and instead of turning all the way I only made it about a little bit before sliding, coming to an immediate stop when I hit the curb. That is when I texted my brother and told him we'd have to reschedule because I wasn't going to risk the rest of the drive, which involved a lot more difficult maneuvers than a simple turn. I backed away from the curb, turned around, and made it back to the house without incident. And the curb hit was full on tire, no bumper, so everything looks good, although I might want to get my alignment checked at some point.

I spent the rest of my night watching the 40^th anniversary of SNL and then a marathon of Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory. Such a ridiculous show but I enjoy it. I also played a bunch of Bejeweled 3. That game. It sucks you in. It's definitely one of those “just one more game” kind of games.

And now I'm going to go to bed because it is way too late to be up. Tomorrow I'm going to unload all the crap from my car. I avoided doing that tonight, which I don't regret, but I don't really look forward to it tomorrow. Oh well.

February 14, 2015

 Turns out I didn't need to worry about forgetting my alarm clock because I ended up waking up before six o'clock and didn't need the alarm clock in the room or the one I set on my phone. I wasn't feeling entirely confident in my assumption that class started at eight o'clock so I dug around on my computer and found an agenda for one of my classes last semester which showed class starting at nine o'clock. I probably should have looked that up last night. An extra hour of sleep would have been nice.

Rather than going back to sleep I took the extra time to practice my presentation. Then I got ready, checked out, and headed to campus. We spent the first half of our day in our groups, rotating around to different stations. My group started by giving out two-minute presentation. All of my practicing was pretty pointless because I ended up forgetting to say most of what I had practiced and adding in other random crap. That was pretty annoying because I could feel it happening but was helpless against it. But I started with a joke that go a laugh and ended with a laugh because I was done but no one had clapped and the video was still recording so I said “tada”. It was interesting how we were all working off the same basic topic and all of our presentations were different.

The next station was learning how to use Adobe Connect but that was kind of pointless. My partner from last semester was leading the training and she really isn't that comfortable with technology. I don't know how long she had to familiarize herself with the program but I know she ran the same station last semester for the other section of the class. That brief experience wasn't very apparent however. I did learn some things, despite that, but it was probably mostly due to just clicking around or my other group mates figuring things out and informing the group.

After that group we went up to play with the SMART Board, which was pretty cool. It is way more advanced than the ones we have at school and it was fun messing around with it and seeing all the different things it could do.

The final station was to learn about Picktochart, a website for designing infographics. Something that would have come in handy last semester when we had to design an infographic but Canva ended up working out for me so I can't complain. I really liked the look of Picktochart, though. It's got a lot of need features, especially the charts and graphs, which I might look into for visualizing data at school.

We got an hour and a half for lunch and I took my time at Jimmy John's. Then drove around town for a little bit before heading back. Most of the afternoon was taken up by another guest speaker. She presented a lesson on refining search terms and using databases, which included a small group activity. After all that she went back through and explained her thought process behind the lesson and how she came up with everything. I really like the behind-the-scenes look and I think it will be very helpful for the future.

The last bit of class was spent discussing the assignments and group project and then deciding on some of the details for the group project. We got out of class an hour early because the professor was sick. She looked awful all day and class only lasted as long as it did because most of our day didn't involve her having to stand up front and teach. She was a trooper though.

I stopped by Spangles for the usual fries and orange juice slush and then headed out of town. The return home was briefly more eventful than the trip down on Friday. At one point I got tired of driving behind slow car so I went to pass them. There was another car in front of that and it was maybe four or five semi-truck lengths ahead. Just as my back bumper passed the front bumper of the car that had been ahead of me, the car in front of us decided he was going to turn left. A little ways out there was oncoming traffic and I wasn't sure if the turning car was going to make the turn or wait for the oncoming traffic. If I pulled back into the right hand lane and the turning car stopped, I would have been the meat in a steal and fiberglass sandwich. I thought about hanging out in the left lane until the car turned, assuming he turned in front of the oncoming cars, and then going back into the right lane. But again, if he stopped, I would have been stuck in the left lane with oncoming traftic because the car I just passed would have closed off the right lane.

So I gunned it in the hopes of passing the turning car before it turned. Just in case he hadn't checked his mirrors I moved as far over in the left lane as I could to give myself as much room and time as possible to get by the car before it turned. Thankfully he didn't turn into me and I made it back into the right lane with plenty of time before the oncoming traffic came. As that first car went by me both the driver and the passenger had their hands up and were looking at me in a “what the fuck” kind of way. I imagine from their point of view I was an idiot who decided to pass a car that was planning on turning

My sister came over tonight and made breakfast for dinner. That included homemade waffles, cheesy mashed potatoes (not very breakfasty but delicious), scrambled eggs, and blueberry muffins. I had seconds and I ate way too much but it was worth it.

My mom and sister both liked their flowers, and my mom claimed she hadn't seen them on yesterday when she was giving her friend the house tour. My mom got me a book. It ended up being one of the same books she got me for Christmas, which was pretty funny. Even funnier was that she had a backup book just in case, and it was a book I didn't have so it all worked out. It is The Innovators by Walter Isaacson, a book I actually have saved for later in my Amazon cart.

With the rest of my night I watched some YouTube videos and TV shows, looked at internet things, and posted another response to this weeks discussion post. It shows my original post and all my previous replies as happening on Thursday even though the original post and at least one of my replies were made late on Wednesday night. Hopefully that doesn't negatively impact my grade.

February 13, 2015

 I just realized as I was typing the date that today is Friday the 13^th. I went all day without that realization.

I woke up this morning and eventually got up and around. After a quick lunch I went and got gas and picked up the Valentine's Day flowers I bought for my mom and sister. I won't get back into town tomorrow before they close and I didn't know what my mom and sister's schedules would be so I couldn't have them delivered. I asked the florist if they could just leave them outside but they said they couldn't, so I picked them up today and put them in a closet downstairs. My mom ended up giving a tour of the house to one of her friends today so there is a good chance she saw the flowers. Oh well.

This afternoon my mom and I picked up another para from work and we all went down to the staff pub crawl, or “fun run” as it was referred to. I spent most of the time watching the US vs. England women's soccer game that was on one of the TVs but I did engage in a little conversation. I learned that the new PE teacher is the younger brother of a girl I went to high school with. I wasn't friends with that girl but I did know who she is. I only got to stay for the first bar so as they were transitioning to bar number two, I headed back to the house so I could pack up my stuff and head out of town.

The drive was thankfully uneventful but I did yawn a whole bunch. I never really got stuck behind any slow drivers, including on the final stretch of highway where I always seem to get screwed, so I made it down here in record time. It was about the average estimated time but it was still faster than I have ever made it.

Right off the bat the professor started talking about systems and processes or something, sailing through it, and I was pretty much completely lost. And this is the class that doesn't have the convoluted textbook. But then a librarian (who is actually the current president of the KLA) came to teach us how to use Zotero. The ultimate goal was to demonstrate how a reference librarian would teach a class but Zotero is actually a pretty cool program/website that helps you collect and organize all the various sources and files you find online, which would come in handy when working on a project or paper or even a PhD. Hopefully I start using it.

Near the end of class we were given the information we would need for our first assignment, creating a handout and giving a presentation as if we were a reference librarian and teaching a class. My topic is Basecamp, a website that allows group members to work on a project at the same time. At least I think that's what it is for. I'll figure it out eventually. There were several other options that would have been way easier to make a presentation about but I wasn't that lucky when I signed my name next to a random number.

Then, we were broken up into random groups for the two-minute presentations we are going to give tomorrow over some aspect of reference service. It was very confusing at first because the professor went about the whole thing like we already knew what was happening and nobody did because she never really told us. My group got lucky because one of our group members is actually in charge of recording everyone tomorrow so she had a little more insight. As a group we picked a service, we went with outreach and marketing because none of us were to familiar with it and we wanted an even playing field. Then we went back to the computers (we met in a computer lab) and individually made a single slide that will be the basis for the presentation. Tomorrow, groups will take turns going into a separate room and they will each give their two-minute presentation, using their single slide, to their group. These presentations are going to be recorded so afterward we will have to watch ourselves present. I'm not really looking forward to that. The idea is so that we can see how we present, which wouldn't even be fun for a presentation we had time to actually work on and practice, but it certainly won't be fun for something so spontaneous. I believe this is also going to be our group for the real group project later in the semester so this is also a chance to get to know each other better.

Now I am in my hotel room and I am tired. I'm going to try and plan out my two-minute presentation a little bit and then watch some YouTube videos before I go to bed. The only thing I forgot to bring was my alarm clock. I'm going to try setting the one in the room but I will also set the one on my phone as a backup. I'm assuming class starts at eight o'clock tomorrow morning but that is only a guess. Seven o'clock sounds too early and nine o'clock sounds too late, and that sounds like Goldilocks. We'll hope I'm right.

February 12, 2015

 Today was a day that happened. I responded to a couple more discussion posts for class. I finally emptied out my car. I loaded up all my pictures and framed stuff yesterday and got that out of my backseat, along with all the stuff in my trunk that I put in the day before. I also watching things on TV. And that was pretty much the extent of my day.

The best part of the day was the Neebs livestream tonight. The guys were playing Minecraft and put up the name of the multiplayer server so viewers could join them. It had the map that they used for their show Mob Squad. I ended up having to to re-download Minecraft on my desktop because it wasn't working on my laptop for some reason. Nothing has changed so I'm going to need to look into that. Anyway, other than getting killed numerous times by dicks who were just there to be dicks, it was pretty cool to run around and see things. And, along with being in the background several times during the stream, I was also referenced twice.

The first time they were showing people an area from the show and I was walking down some stairs holding a blue flower and Neebs' avatar (which I think was being played by Doraleous at the time) was standing at the bottom of the stairs and just staring at me. I paused for a second and then turned around and headed back up the stairs. Not long after getting back outside I was killed by some dick. A couple minutes later I looked up at the stream and I saw Neebs/Doraleous looking at a floating blue flower on a set of stairs. It then started floating back up the stairs and Neebs/Doraleous followed it outside until it fell into the water. Apparently, someone had hit me with an invisibility potion that I was unaware of. That is why I was getting stared at, or I guess the flower I was holding was getting stared at, because it did look pretty strange.

My second cameo was when I was standing around watching Neebs float around and throw down TNT to people for the grand finale of the night. I got distracted by people building with TNT and didn't notice Neebs hovering right above me until a few minutes later on the stream when I saw my avatar standing there and Neebs said “Look at that, [my Minecraft name], he's a very dapper fellow.” That was pretty cool.

After getting killed a bunch I ended up going off on my own. I built a little fort way up in the air and then I went underground and started building something but I lost it all when the server crashed. After that I just sort of ran around and looked at stuff, trying to stay away from people. The stream ended with most of the town being destroyed with TNT while the guys sang “Uptown Funk”. It was really funny.

February 11, 2015

 Holy balls, it is after two o'clock in the morning and I need to go to bed.

Today was boring. This morning I “fixed” the gifted teacher's laptop by turning the wi-fi on and installed some software for her. Then I had fifth grade, both second grade classes, and third grade in the lab before lunch. The third grade class actually ended up coming in three separate times today to take Reading Counts tests. I assume because this was such a short week the teacher wanted to get them in.

This afternoon I had the group of second graders for Khan Academy and that was it. I spent a lot of my time reading articles and watching YouTube videos. I didn't like it. Near the end of the day I went down and hung out with my mom and one of the kindergarten teachers because their class was in PE and we just stood around and talked. The human interaction was a nice change of pace.

After work I got Chipotle and then stopped by the old house. I took my TV wall mount off the wall and loaded up all by framed pictures and artwork. I have way too much.

Dinner tonight was good. The same girl was working the line so my burrito was small. Next time I'll have to ask for extra everything just to get the normal amount. Her and the other girl working were too busy awkwardly flirting with the guys behind me so that didn't help.

The YouTube videos I showed tonight were successful, I would say. My mom actually sat through all of them, including a long one with Neebs and the guys playing a CoD game. And several extra videos tagged on at the end that I hadn't planned on.

After dinner I watched a few episodes of The Twilight Zone and the first episode of the two-part season finale of Transporter: The Series. I didn't get to watch the second part because for some reason my DVR didn't record it. I'll have to look it up sometime. Maybe.

Eventually I got around to writing my discussion post for this week. I started that way too late for some unknown reason. It also ended up being really long. Last week's post was supposed to be under 500 words but this week a length wasn't stipulated so fingers crossed. I also responded to one post. I have a response for a second post but I think it will come out better tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

February 10, 2015

 I got a full night of sleep last night and it was pretty great. Until I had to get out of bed. I could have done without that part.

Once again, not a lot going on at work today. This morning I went down and helped with kindergarten literacy centers. My group was working on opposites. They had to write down to opposite things and then draw a picture of them. One kid wrote down the infinity symbol and zero. And it was a struggle to get another kid to write up and down. I'm glad I was in that group though because it lead to a realization later in the day. I don't know if it is an accurate realization but it seems like it could make sense.

I had an extended lunch today because my grandma and aunt were in town so I met them, along with my sister and dad, and we had lunch. It was really good to see my grandma and she seems to be doing well. They recently got a new cat because the old demon one died. I can't remember how. Or maybe it is a why question. He attacked my grandma and years ago attacked my uncle. Not a great cat. But the new one sounds nice and my grandma doesn't seem to mind her. It was funny when my aunt said that grandma should tell us about her new cat and my grandma's first comment was that she has never had a cat and she still doesn't. As for lunch. I had a blueberry pancake and scrambled eggs. So good.

On my way back to work I had my opposites realization. I was sitting at a stoplight by Pizza Hut and they had a sign that said something soft was a dollar during a certain period of the day. I could only see the word “soft” and not the word immediately after so as I was waiting for the light to turn green I was trying to figure out that second word. The only word I could think of was “pretzel”, which I thought probably wasn't correct, even if they do have pretzel crust. But I don't eat there so I don't even know if they still have that. Anyway, after the light turned green I turned in front of the sign was able to see that it was advertising one dollar soft drinks. I then had a quick thought about that being a weird name for something, and then I went into opposite mode thanks to kindergarten this morning and thought “hard drinks”. It would make sense that the opposite of a hard, alcoholic drink would be a soft, non-alcoholic drink. I don' know if that is the origin of the term but I'm going to go with it.

In my downtime today, which there was a lot of, I read a PDF of a chapter for the class I'm having a face-to-face with this weekend. It was all about teaching as a librarian, mostly as a reference librarian at an academic library but example were given for other librarians as well. It was interesting and kind of made me excited/scared at the prospect of having to possibly do that for a job interview. I remember back in college when they were interviewing new Psychology professors and the prospects had to teach a class. There would be so much pressure. Granted, that is what they want to be doing, but still.

After work I mailed a bill, bought a Powerball ticket, and stopped by the old house to pick stuff up. My sister was there painting so I ended up talking to her for quite awhile before finally loading my car up and heading home for dinner.

The rest of my night, after unloading half of my car because I'm leaving the trunk for tomorrow, was spent reading a textbook. I finished reading the chapter for my other class. There was some interesting stuff in it dealing with the internet and digital resources but the majority of the rest of it went way over my head, as per usual with this textbook. I feel like this could be a somewhat interesting topic if I had any idea what the hell was going on. But I don't because this textbook has just thrown me into the middle of the ocean, forgetting that it should have been teaching me how to swim first.

At the moment it is nearly eleven o'clock so I'm not going to get the amount of sleep I enjoyed last night. But it is also like a Friday because of teacher conferences so I can sleep late on tomorrow night. Something to look forward to.

February 9, 2015

 I think I finally got my Microsoft Office shortcut working at work. I'm pretty it worked originally and then it broke when I redesigned it. I am certain it was working because I checked each one as I went but then when I went back later nothing worked. So today I worked on it, tried something new, and once again worked my way around the lab through all twenty-six computers and fixed everything. At least I hope so. If it isn't working tomorrow I'm going to say screw it and just put individual links for the individual programs on the desktops and call it good.

Along with all the work on that shortcut, today was a fairly relaxed day. I made some nonsense word cards for one of the resource teachers, printed off Reading Counts reports for one of the third grade teachers, and had classes in the lab. I somehow managed to fill my day but it doesn't really feel like much was going on. Although it is entirely possible I have managed to forget something.

After school I went and got a haircut. I set two reminders and the lady who cuts my hair also texted me. Better safe than sorry.

Tonight I carried a hay bale to the backyard, having to throw it over the fence because the gate was stuck, and then I ate dinner. I continued the excitement by reading a textbook. I found I have to stand up and move around a bit while reading, out loud, The Discipline of Organizing because I start nodding off if I'm sitting down. And I still find parts of it confusing. The intended demographic still seems to be professors or professionals who already know everything there is to know about the subject matter. That is frustrating.

Last night was a late night and tonight I plan on going to bed by ten o'clock, 10:30PM at the latest but I really hope it is closer to ten o'clock.

February 8, 2015

 Today could not have been more uneventful. The only productive thing I accomplished was reading a chapter out of a textbook. That is a somewhat sad accomplishment considering how many hours are in a day. I really need to get better at time management and my motivation. I am far too lazy. I don't like it.

When I wasn't reading, I watched things and played other things. I watched the last half of The Calling, which is about a serial killer who is killing people in order to bring back Jesus. At least that was the original intent of the prayer but the killer is actually trying to bring back his brother. That is already a spoiler but at the very end of the movie, when everything is resolved, the brother's body is missing, and then the credits roll. It is apparently based on a book so I'm curious if there is a little more resolution.

I played a little more of the Battlefield: Hardline beta because I thought yesterday was the last day but it wasn't. I tried a round of Conquest and I still suck. I also played a few rounds of Hardwire but I had a huge ping on every server I got into so the lag sucked. The only good thing about lag is that you can blame all of your deaths on it.

I was still in that mood though so I decided to play some BF4. I still had the old download on my desktop so I didn't need to download it again but I did have to download the latest DLC. While I waited for that I replayed the last level of the campaign and picked a different ending. I think that unlocks something in multiplayer. There are three possible endings, even though each is really the same. I have one more to go, which I would have had time for but I had to sit through the credits, and those take forever. By the time the credits were finished, the DLC was finished downloading, so I jumped into multiplayer. Rather than going with one of the maps from the last DLC, I went with a huge ticket game on Metro because I wanted to feel kind of good about myself. And I did alright. I died a lot but I killed slightly more.

I also played some more Bejeweled 3 and a little Tera. It was a poor day for productivity but it was a good day for video games.

I ended the night by watching the tail end of White House Down. A bad movie but also a good movie. And as I write this I am watching the beginning of it On-Demand. It is streaming and the framerate sucks so I'm trying to only listen to it, not actually watch it because it is giving me a headache. Maybe when I watch it again it will have downloaded or something and actually be watchable.

Either way, I am going to go to bed now. Got to get my beauty sleep for a long,