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.