April 27, 2015

 Today was uneventful and my brain has kind of shut down. There was more testing. The first two tests doubled up so instead of having a second test this morning we got it over with all at once. I didn't mind.

This afternoon there were two tests, one state assessment and one MAP test. During the MAP test, which was for second grade, one of the girls in the front row fell off her stool. The girl next to her immediately asked if she was alright. When the girl on the ground responded that she was, the girl next to her then asked if the girl on the ground could hand her the icepack that the falling girl had knocked to the ground as she fell. She obliged, handing it up to her before slowly getting up off the ground. It isn't nearly as funny in text but it was amusing how quickly she asked for the icepack back after finding out the girl was alright.

When I wasn't testing, I did other things, like filling in my MAP spreadsheet. I realized that I accidentally tested one of the third graders twice in Reading, rather than once for Reading and once for Math. On the plus side, his score went up five points the second time he took the test. On the down side, he still needs to take the Math test.

The principal will be gone the rest of the week I think, so myself and a couple other people learned how to reactivate tickets today in case we need to do that. And it will probably be a thing. It would have made things easier had I been able to do this earlier but it also meant less work for me, so I can't really complain.

Tonight I eventually managed to decide on my last resource for my group project. I went with the ERIC database. It needed to be an index or abstract resource, and I wanted to do something interesting, but I settled for a plain old database because I wanted to stop thinking about it. And all of my thinking hadn't gotten me anywhere. I should have also been able to summarize bibliographic resources but I didn't. Tomorrow. I also want to come up with a theme or design for all of our pages but we'll see if I get around to that. It will probably happen if I am still avoiding my research paper. But I did find a couple sources tonight for my paper while trying to decide on a database, so I have been productive.

Now I think I'm going to pull the trigger on a graphics card and some new fans for my case. I have been leaning toward the Sapphire Vapor-X 290 because it got the best reviews over all of the reviews I looked at and I found the price to be acceptable. Then I came across the Sapphire Tri-X 290x on Newegg and it was cheaper than the Vapor-X, even though the 290x is a beefier card than the 290. But with Newegg the only return option was to get a replacement. I didn't feel comfortable with that because if I ended up not liking it I wanted to option to send it back and get the Vapor-X. So I found the card on Amazon, and it was more expensive, but I added it to my Wish List just so I wouldn't forget about it. I think that was yesterday and it has since dropped $25. Bringing it to just $20 more than the Vapor-X 290. On top of all that, I got my two Amazon gift cards in the mail today that I got with my hotel rewards points. It's like all the stars have aligned and it was meant to be. So I'm going to buy the card, and the fans, and then give them to my mom so she can wrap them for my birthday, which is next week. My group project is due on Sunday, my research paper the Sunday after that, and there will be at least a few other things mixed in there, so I don't need the distraction of fiddling with the insides of my computer. And even though I plan on unwrapping them on my birthday, rather than when they arrive in the mail, I won't actually mess with anything until classes are over. Because I'm a responsible adult.