May 6, 2015

 Two things from yesterday. The first, going back to the fifth grade teacher encountering the firefighter. She mentioned that on top of just standing there staring at him while in her pajamas and eating a big bowl of pasta, her apartment was also messy. I asked her if she picked things up when he left, just in case. And she did.

Also from yesterday, when loading the tests for the second graders I forgot to remove the sixth grade test on one of the computers. The teacher and I learned about this when the boy on that computer raised his hand because he was confused why he was given a calculator on a question when he didn't need a calculator. The calculator was the first clue because he was supposed to be taking a reading test. Also, second graders don't get calculators on their tests. So I looked and sure enough, it was a sixth grade math test. So I closed out of it and brought up the second grade reading test. The best part about the whole thing was that he had made it to question eleven. Probably didn't come anywhere close to getting a single one of those right, but he was sure going for it.

Last night I went to bed late but got to text a little with my dad, who was the officially the first person I heard from on my birthday (my friend had texted me a Happy Birthday at 11:30PM, so not quite yet). I think last year, maybe the year before, I didn't hear from my dad at all on my birthday. Sometime later I got a belated Happy Birthday. Needless to say it was good to hear from him.

It wasn't too bad waking up this morning but I did feel the lack of sleep in my eyes for the whole day. Same as yesterday, actually. That has become the normal state of my eyes. Only a few more days and I can get back to a normal sleep schedule.

There was more testing today. Just in the morning but it was all morning, 8:45AM until 11:30AM without a break. We're that much closer though. Two more days for MAP and only a few students that need to finish a state assessment.

Yesterday I touched up the Book Fair flyer I made for the librarian for the last book fair. Today I made another version that could be printed on the back of the big clip art movie tickets that were going home with kids to advertise a school movie night. The tickets were printed two per page and it only took me two attempts to get the Book Fair reminder to be perfectly centered on the back of both tickets. I was slightly impressed.

I also scanned some yearbook pictures of the sixth graders from their kindergarten yearbook. One of the office ladies wants to put them up along with their pictures from this year. Or rather, she wanted me to scan them, print them, and mount them on construction paper. Along with all the other crap I currently have going on. I'll be much more willing to engage in those pursuits next week when my school semester is over. Hopefully with a well written analytical research paper under my belt.

It was an early release day but I ended up clocking out and going back to the computer lab to finish up and post my discussion post for this week. I knew I would get distracted at home and I wanted to get it done. All the other graded discussion posts have been worth twelve points and then averaged out to equal a quarter of our overall grade. I can foresee this one being worth that much because it is optional. But maybe it would cancel out one of the weeks where someone dropped the ball. Thankfully I've gotten full points on all of the previous posts. I'm just hoping it will be worth a few points to give me more of a buffer on the research paper.

After work I went and bought my PowerBall ticket and I stopped and got a gift card to a local market for my mom for Mother's Day. When I asked what she wanted one of her ideas was potted plants. I would have no idea what she wanted and asking her directly would kind of defeat the purpose, so I got her a gift card so she can go buy her own potted plants. That way everyone is happy.

Before dinner I read part of a journal article about linked data. Then we went to the Chinese buffet for dinner. I at a whole bunch of fried rice, rice noodles, macaroni and cheese, and french fries. A Chinese buffet of champions. Most of the main dish options have meat in them but some time I need to spend more time browsing and see if I can expand the scenery on my plate a bit more.

After dinner we came back to the house for cake and ice cream. I partook in the ice cream because it was gelato and my sister got double chocolate and pistachio, which I have always been curious about because I like pistachios, but had never tried. Both were really good.

When we were done with that, I opened presents. I got the graphics card and fans, a book: The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition, which I have wanted for a long time, and my sister got me something that hasn't arrived yet, and she got me a birthday song from the Battlefield Friends, similar to the one I got my brother. But this one is personalized for me and it is pretty great.

After all that, I accomplish zero work on my research paper. I am at a complete standstill. My frustration is through the roof. I have become completely paralyzed. It's ridiculous. I have written thousands and thousands of words since we were given this assignment and now I can't manage a measly seven or eight double-spaced pages. I don't get it. I mean, I do get it because the exact same thing happened to me in college, but I don't remember it being this bad. Really makes me want to rethink wanting to work in an academic library. Especially one that is research focused. I think tomorrow I might stay after work again, maybe see if the library will be free so I won't be distracted by all the Boys & Girls Club kids. Somethings got to change though. I can't keep coming home and spending hours just sitting and staring and becoming more and more frustrated. I've definitely never been more crippled by a school assignment before. It's kind of bullshit. I need to suck it up and get it over with. Then I can play video games and read fairy tales and got to bed at a decent hour.

Tomorrow will be different. Actually different. Not like the different I have been going on about in my head all of these previous days when thinking of the coming day. For real different. I'm three decades old now. Still not an adult but certainly capable of writing a stupid paper.