May 8, 2015

I got so much sleep last night. I woke up numerous times throughout the night but I still got a lot of sleep. It was glorious. Until I had to get out of bed in the morning.

Today was the final day of test, not counting that the state assessment window is still open through next week. And only one kid still needs to finish that, at least in the lab, so I'm not counting it. Next week the lab will be back to the normal schedule. And I can finish all the projects I currently have started. And I won't have school looming over my head so I can focus on those projects.

This morning we wrapped up the final MAP tests. There was a full class and then a few miscellaneous make-ups thrown in the mix. Not too bad but it did take up the majority of my morning.

This afternoon my favorite substitute stopped by. She brought me a birthday card, which featured laughing zebras on the front, and she also brought me a birthday present. Three rolls of quarters, or $30 worth of quarters. If only I had turned 100 on Wednesday. Still, I thought it was pretty funny. I'm just glad she didn't give me pennies or nickels. I wish I had an urgent need for quarters but I don't go to the laundromat, park in metered parking, or go to the arcade. I'll come up with something.

I ended up only having one class in the lab this afternoon, and I wasn't really apart of that class, so I worked on other things. I found maps of the Burma Road for my favorite substitute because she is reading a book about it and the book didn't have a map. I worked on the appreciation card I scanned for one of the fifth grade teachers. I made a really cool Mother's Day card for my mom. I got the idea from the second graders who were in and out of the lab all day picking up the Wordle's they were making and printing off. I decided that would be cool but I used Tagxedo because I wanted to do a fun shape, not just a bunch of words all over. After a bit of searching I found a tutorial for using a picture of a rose as the shape, so I followed that and added in my own words and it turned out pretty great. Then I made an ecard on Someecards. I got into Publisher and put the ecard in the lower right corner and the rose, upside down, in the top left corner. Then I printed it out and folded it into a card. Not bad.

At the very end of the day I started on the last participation assignment for my class involving the group guides. I scanned through them and wrote down the gist of them. I was going to stay and finish it but I wanted to leave, so I left. After dinner I was able to answer the first question for the assignment based off my notes. Then I had to pick one thing I learned from the other three group guides. I am assuming she meant to pick an interesting resource that the other groups mentioned, so that is what I did. There were some genuinely interesting resources but I didn't actually have time to go through all of them so I just picked the first one in each group that caught my eye and wrote about it. I also replied to a discussion post. I might do one more tomorrow or Sunday but that is only if I have made significant progress on my research paper.

Speaking of which, I have done nothing for that tonight. I thought about it, as I have almost every waking hour for the past week or two, but did nothing to further my progress. My throat is still bothering me, my headache has moved from behind my left eye to behind my right eye, and I kind of have the chills every now and then. I'm probably getting sick. But I'm not giving it quite yet. Although if I am getting sick, thank goodness it held off until the end of testing, and almost the end of the semester. I just need to be well enough for the next two days so I can write my paper. That goddamn paper.

Once again I am going to call it a night before eleven o'clock, mostly because my head is killing me and I know I'll end up just staring at my computer and accomplishing nothing. But also because I want to set my alarm and wake up early so I can put in a full day tomorrow. I need to have the paper pretty much if not completely written by tomorrow. I can maybe save the abstract for Sunday but those are always a bitch and I'd prefer to save Sunday for an edit day. It would be nice to be done by dinner so I can actually enjoy Mother's Day a little bit and not have to duck out right after dinner to work on my paper. If I can't get the paper figured out by tomorrow, I'll be pretty much screwed. I have faith that I have all the resources I need, I just have to get everything sorted out and into a semi-coherent paper. I have never crossed my fingers harder.