July 19, 2015

 I somehow forgot that I also watched Dark Knight Rises yesterday. I also forgot about the twist in the movie. I don't know if I ever watched the movie straight through from the beginning to the end when it was in theaters but I do know I saw the whole thing. But it has been three years so maybe I can be forgiven for forgetting the twist.

Today I lost half the day by staying in bed until lunch. This was partially due to the fact that it took me over an hour to fall asleep last night. And it was partially a subliminal thing because I knew I had plans to do schoolwork and I kind of didn't want to do that. Self-sabotage.

I didn't finish the grant proposal like I had wanted to but I did a significant amount of work. I wrote the executive summary and filled in the basics for a lot of the other fields based on further research that I did today. That research included emailing the public library to see if they could find a better statistic for the literacy rate of the community, which was one of the questions on the grant proposal. I found a kind of answer but it was from 2003. Turns out that was the same statistic that the library found, which makes me feel good about my own fact-finding abilities.

I also emailed my old friend who is involved in the theater (she is the one who was in the quick change video from the Tony Awards). I needed to come up with a budget for the grant and I needed to know how much I should put in for costumes and props for the play I want the kids to do. I barely buy clothes for myself, let alone costumes for a play, so I didn't even have a clue where to start. Thankfully, she knows her stuff and she was able to give me an estimate around $600. I found a site for buying books in bulk and I can get twenty-five books for around $120 before taxes and with free shipping. I think that is going to be my budget. I've had some other ideas, like maybe doing a pizza lunch at the end or other little things, but for right now I'm going with that.

I need to come up with specific activities for the kids to engage in beyond reading the book because the idea is that the program will increase their literacy skills. I had the idea for the play, and watching the movie and then pointing out the differences, but I need more, like worksheets or something. So I emailed the school library and the fifth grade teacher to see if they had any suggestions for what they do for activities when kids are reading a novel. I also texted the librarian because I didn't know if she checked her school mail during the summer and she said she would take a look when she got back into town tomorrow.

When I figure out those activities I need to state how those will help with literacy skills and also come up with a way of quantitatively measuring the benefits of the program. Not quite sure how to do that yet. I don't know that a before and after test would really work. I need to keep thinking. Something will come to me. Or I'll ask someone for ideas.

Tonight I talked with my friend out in California for a couple hours on his four hour drive home from San Diego. I held the phone to my ear for so long that my elbow hurt when I tried to straighten my arm out. But we had a really good conversation. He's nearing the end of his commitment to the NAVY and he has to decide whether he wants to commit to another five years to get a nice monetary bonus, stay in but not commit to five years and miss out on the bonus, or get out all together. He is interested in going to law school so that is a compelling reason to get out. Through our talk tonight we realized how similar we are, not only in our current place in life but also in our way of thinking about life. We both live incredibly different lives at the moment but there are a lot of similar themes in both of them. It was really interesting to hear someone else voice the exact same thoughts that I have going through my head all the time. It is nice to know I'm not alone but it is also kind of depressing because they aren't always great thoughts and I'd prefer if my friends didn't have to deal with them, too.

It's two o'clock in the morning now and I'm going to try and go to bed. Hopefully I'm genuinely tired so I won't just lay there and not fall asleep. Tomorrow I need to make progress on my grant project, possibly figuring out what needs to go on my poster so I can focus on getting that done. We also have a budget assignment that is also worth 20 points and I haven't even looked at it yet. I downloaded all the files today but I should probably take a look at that tomorrow, even though I feel it will be a little overwhelming on top of everything else.