August 31, 2015

It's eight o'clock but I'm going to write this and then seriously consider going to bed. I'm struggling to keep my eyes open.

Today was kind of boring. I had classes in the lab, I redid the pictures I made for one of the third grade teachers last week because she wanted them landscape instead of portrait, and I emailed the librarian I am interviewing for class and asked him another question. And that was pretty much my day. I could go into more detail but again, I'm tired.

After work I went and got my haircut. Then I came home and eventually ate dinner. After dinner I read a short article for class and downloaded and glanced at another. I also briefly looked at a possible collection development policy for a group project. I got an email today from one of my classmates asking if I wanted to be partners for this project where we need to analyze a collection development policy. He said he was a little behind the curve and wanted to know if I had a partner yet. I told him if he was behind the curve than I hadn't even seen the curve yet because I had no idea the assignment even existed. But it's cool because I've got a partner now and as far as I can tell, he actually puts work in on group projects.

Hopefully tonight I will get plenty of sleep and tomorrow I can spend more time doing schoolwork. Some of which will probably take place at work unless I get more work from the teachers. I randomly helped a few today but I'm getting back to twiddling my thumbs. It does give me time for schoolwork but I like being busy with work while I'm at work. And any excuse to avoid schoolwork is good with me.

August 30, 2015

Today was a pretty lazy Sunday. I started watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. because I remember liking it. Based on the episodes I watched today, I think I made it through four episodes when they originally aired before I stopped for some reason. But now I'm back and I'm enjoying it. That might become my new elliptical show until I finish it.

Agent Coulson was my favorite character in the Marvel movies and I like how important they made him in this show.

One thing I don't like about the show is the woman in the flower dress. I have a particular hatred and disdain for manipulative women. Can't stand them, even a little bit. I want bad things to happen to her. I would go into more detail and ramble on for awhile about it but for once I am not in the mood to rant. I just don't like manipulative women.

I didn't do any reading for school today but I did write a few responses to discussion posts. In one of them I was able to make a reference to the library planet in Doctor Who. I was pretty proud about that.

And that's about all I've got for today. My mind has kind of been turned off today. Maybe tomorrow will be better. I need to start the readings for school this week so my mind will have to be at least partially back on.

Right now it is just after eleven o'clock but because of my weird sleep schedule on the weekend I'm not that tired. Which will make getting up in the morning to run that much better. I'm going to finish the last fifteen minutes of the show I'm watching and hope that tiredness suddenly overwhelms me.

August 29, 2015

Today was a pretty laid back day, filled with a lot of Nicolas Cage movies and a bit of school work. I've had a itch to watch a Nicolas Cage movie for awhile now and today I decided to scratch it in a major way. I watched Outcast, Rage, Seeking Justice, Next, and Lord of War. I hadn't seen any of those movies except Lord of War, not counting parts of Next when it was in theaters.

Out of all of them, Rage was probably the most ridiculous. Cage plays a former criminal turned legitimate businessman. His daughter is kidnapped and killed and he gets the crew back together to find who killed her. They think it is the Russian mob so they go after them, which pisses them off, as it would. In the whole process the Russians find out that Cage and his crew was responsible for the death of the Russian boss' brother way back in the day so they turn their sites on him as well as the mob he used to be a part of. The Russians kill one of Cage's friends and then Cage kills the other one because he thought he ratted him out. Turns out he didn't. Cage eventually learns that his daughter hadn't been kidnapped. She and her friends were playing with some of his old guns and one of the friends accidentally shot her. They hid her body in the woods and tore up the house to make it look like a kidnapping. So the entire movie, the feuding mobs and the killing of friends, was all based on a single lie told by a teenager to save his own ass. Maybe it sounded better on paper.

I also started my day by watching The Machine, which is not a Nicolas Cage movie. It involves building human-like robots and it was interesting. Not great but interesting.

As for school stuff. I wrote several responses to discussion posts. And that was about it. It required a bit more effort than can be conveyed by that short description but basically, that is what I did. I'll have to do it again tomorrow as well to insure I get full points.

I think it was today that I watched a Buzzfeed video that had people going back and looking at the first email they had ever sent. That inspired me to check my old Yahoo! account. For some reason it didn't go all the way back to the beginning of the account, at least I don't think it did. Maybe I ran out of space at some point and it deleted old sent messages. Anyway, it went back to 2006 so I started reading through some of them. One contained a document of an old message thread I had going with one of my old friends who was briefly my girlfriend. The messages were before we dated but were leading up to it. It was back when each message could have it's own title and all of our titles were two words that started with the same letter, and often times they actually made at least a little bit of sense in the context of the message. I am a big fan of corresponding with people, especially people I like, and just writing in general so it was fun going back and reading through them. Prior to those messages we had a long string of messages that always contained a random number corresponding to a reason why we couldn't be friends, like my false perception of her cooking ability was reason 43. It was fun. I don't know if I got all of the messages with the double letter titles but I'm glad I got the ones I did because that was part of the fun and during one of the updates to Facebook they got rid of the option for message titles and all of the old ones were erased.

In my relationship after that one we wrote actual letters to each other. They started as short notes and morphed into letters that filled notebooks. That was also fun. I thinking writing witty messages and letters back and forth is one of the things I miss most about being in a relationship. I need to find that again. Someday. Maybe.

Now it is after one o'clock in the morning and I need to go to bed. I should probably try and stick with my weekday schedule on the weekends because staying up late, especially on Saturday, encourages me to sleep in on Sunday, which makes it hard to go to bed at a decent hour on Sunday night, which makes it even harder to wake up on Monday. Maybe next weekend.

August 28, 2015

Today I experienced a moment of genius. I'm not afraid to say it. I impressed myself.

The printer issue was only getting worse this morning. We were up to at least six printers showing as offline and people were unable to print to them. I think those six printers accounted for all of the color all but maybe one or two of the color printers in the building. So it was kind of a big deal but of no real concern to the tech people, even though they caused the issue when the rebooted everything earlier in the week. Several of the teachers weren't able to print at all because they didn't have any printers added to their computers that were actually working. I was down to just the copier because the black and white printer in the lab was also showing up as offline for me. This led me to a lot of thinking.

The printer in the library was working yesterday but one of the first grade teachers said she wasn't able to print to it today. I went back to my computer and added the library printer (by picking it out of the list of printers) to see if it was also offline for me, and it was. Then I saw on my devices and printers page that I had a printer called 'Library'. The only time a printer doesn't have the annoying network name is when it is manually added using an IP address. This printer wasn't grayed out like the library printer I just added, so in theory it should be working.

While I was thinking about that the color printer in the lab kicked on and some papers shot out. A short time later one of the third grade teachers came in and said that she was finally able to print using the other computer in her room. That information got the gears turning even more.

I went through the steps to manually add the color printer in the lab using the IP address. The icon for it showed up looking just fine while the icon for the same printer that had been added by picking it out of a list, was still grayed out and offline. Then I tried printing one of the labels that I made for one of the first grade teachers yesterday, and it worked. Eureka.

I went down to the library and manually added the library printer onto the librarians laptop and we were able to print to it. I told one of the fifth grade teachers about it and after adding her printer in the same way she was able to print the quizzes for her class. Before heading back to the lab I manually added printers on the kindergarten teachers' computers.

When I got back to the lab I went through the steps of adding a printer using an IP address and took screenshots as I went. I then highlighted the important areas in each picture and created a quick PDF tutorial of how to do it and sent it out to the school so anyone else experiencing the offline printer issue could hopefully fix it. At least two people responded that it worked for them.

One of the keys to figuring it out was the fact that the third grade teacher had been able to print from the other computer. Last year I had to add printers to that computer using IP addresses. And the printers I had done that to on my computer were also still showing as being online. I have no idea why it works but it does and people are able to print again without having to wait on the tech guys to come out. Fingers crossed everything is still working next week.

After making the tutorial I printed out the rest of the labels and cut them apart. I had only been able to find full-sheet label label, not sheets with the labels already lined up, so I had to cut all of them out. Possibly for the best because I wasn't entirely sure that the labels I made would line up with the ones laid out on a sheet.

Not too long after finishing that I went down to one of the third grade classrooms so I could take pictures of all of the kids. The teacher wanted to make profile pictures that she could print out so I did a bit of editing and turned them all into 4”x3” photos. I also made a sub chart for her that had a smaller picture and the name of all the kids that she can leave for a substitute if she ever has one.

All of this was accomplished before lunch, even with a couple classes in the lab. After lunch the third graders from yesterday came back to finish their poems. Then I had a second grade class followed by a fifth grade class. In the fifth grade class I ended up having to add a couple kids to Type to Learn 4 because I didn't have them on my original roster. One of the students is the older brother of the kid in second grade who only speaks Spanish. Coincidentally, the older brother also only speaks Spanish. The teacher asked me if there was a Spanish option in Type to Learn 4 and I had no idea. I did a quick search and it seemed that there was so I clicked around the menus and found the option. All the typing stuff is still the same but when you hover the mouse over the instructions or anything else in English, a window pops up with the Spanish translation. Pretty cool.

I also got a Bluetooth keyboard to pair with the resource teacher's iPad. It was being a pain but after deleting it and starting over it fell in line. Tough love.

While working on printer stuff I was talking to the librarian and one of the topics was student interns, who we don't have this year. She didn't like this before but today she learned that one of the para's daughters, who is a first year teacher in a nearby town, got an intern because the university was desperate to find placements. This made the librarian even more upset. She assumes that somehow we did something wrong and are being punished for it. Are school is filled with teachers who have been teaching longer than I've been alive. Teachers brimming with valuable experiences that they could be passing on to interns. Yet a first year teacher ends up with an intern. Is there even a point to that? It doesn't matter if that first year teacher is the best thing to happen to teaching since the beginning of teaching, she's still a first year teacher, and at this point really doesn't have any more experience than her intern. If I was that intern I would feel completely gypped. It really doesn't make any sense.

Tonight for dinner I had the second half of my sad Chipotle burrito. It was just as tiny as the first half had been. It had the proportions of something you would by at Taco Bell, not Chipotle. Hopefully the next time I get that girl she won't be as timid at laying out the ingredients.

Tonight I had a long conversation on the phone with one of my friends, watched a bunch of YouTube videos, and replied to a discussion post in two of my classes. Not a bad night. And overall, today was incredibly productive. I accomplished so many things. It would be nice if I could do this everyday.

Tomorrow I am going to sleep in, hopefully, and then do things. I still need to read for stuff for my classes and reply to more discussion posts. We'll see if I get around to any of that.

August 27, 2015

It is after 11:30PM and I've been tired since long before the sun went down, so hopefully I can make this quick.

This morning at work I filled out a trouble ticket for the color printer in the lab that is showing as offline even though it isn't. Then I went and filled out two more for the printers in the kindergarten and third grade rooms that I knew were doing the same thing. Later in the day I noticed that the printer in the lab was actually alternating between offline and online. I had the window open that shows all the different printers and devices installed on the computer and I could watch the printer slowly going back and forth between being grayed out and being available. It was weird.

I had a lot of downtime at work today so I ended up doing some reading and taking notes for one of my classes. I ended up forgetting to save those notes so they were of no use to me tonight but I managed.

I had a few regular classes in the lab but this afternoon I had a group of third graders come in to type poems they had written. Most of them had never used Word before so I helped them open that, explained a few of the basic things, and then told them to just type. They got to make the poems look better with different fonts and stuff but I didn't want them getting distracted by that stuff, which is inevitable, until they had actually finished typing their poem. This goal was accomplished, for the most part. Once they got to the editing part I showed them more of the basics, and a little advanced stuff (like holding 'ctrl' while highlighting stuff to get multiple selections instead of one big one) so they could make their poems look how they wanted. I think all of the kids that got there early enough managed to finish. And I taught them all how to save so even the ones who didn't finish will be able to come back sometime and finish.

Near the end of the day I got an email from one of the first grade teachers asking if I could make labels for her. She had the label she wanted but it was a PDF and she wanted to add some words to it, including the name of each of her students. I opened the PDF in Gimp and saved it as an image so I could put it in Publisher and add the text. It looks pretty good but I need to check it against actual labels so make sure my version of the labels fit.

I also got an email from one of the third grade teachers who wants me to take pictures of her students and crop them for something. I will hopefully be doing that tomorrow morning sometime.

Tonight I went out to eat with my mom, one of the kindergarten teachers, and her husband. We went to a Mexican restaurant and by the time we left it was being overrun with sorostitutes. It was strange. I also decided that I need to probably just stick with bean burritos and rice because what I got tonight had way too much cheese and sour cream. It was a fun dinner though. As fun as social situations can be when I'm not a social person. On the way out we ran into a few of the kids from school which was cool.

When I got home I wrote my two discussion posts for this week. So much bullshit was laid out. I think I made some good points but I also rambled a lot. I write the kind of posts that I don't read when I see someone else do them. And by that I mean long, rambling posts. Kudos to anyone willing to brave them and actually respond to something I have written. I realized when I got to the metadata post that I hadn't read two of the main articles for this week. I think I just read the textbook. I ended up just skimming through them to get references for my post but I do actually want to go back and read them because they looked interesting.

But not right now because it is midnight and I have to get up in the morning. I'm not looking forward to that. Not getting up for the elliptical and sleeping an extra hour is sounding really tempting. Hopefully the incentive of watching Psych will be enough to get me out of bed.

August 26, 2015

This morning's episode of Psych involved the near murder of a tennis player. It also involved me running on the elliptical for twenty-five minutes. I need to bump it back up to at least thirty minutes but it is just so easy to not.

I sent out my email today looking for work around the school and got a couple responses but no definitive work. And it looked like the responses I got will be short-lived. I might have to start taking my homework to work.

I put my new shortcuts webpage on one of the computers in the lab today and immediately discovered an issue. I tested my page using Chrome, not really thinking about the fact that the default browser on all of the computers is Firefox. When I opened the page up everything displayed bigger, so it wasn't all visible at once (I didn't want stuff hidden and have kids scrolling to see everything) and the images were a bit scattered instead of being lined up nicely. This led me back to the drawing board and a lot of tweaking ensued. I found out there is a way in CSS to tweak just the code for Firefox. I want to call it a media query, or at least similar to one because the initial code starts with '@', which is what I associate with a media query. Anyway, I wrote a bit of code and then all the CSS I included in the brackets following that code only affected the appearance of the page when it was opened in Firefox. I tried a bunch of stuff but I ended up only needed a few lines of CSS to get things sorted out, and now it looks almost identical in both browsers. After that I put the page on a few different computers and I'm going to let it sit there until next week maybe to make sure it doesn't disappear over the weekend.

I made another quote picture for the school librarian to put on Twitter if she wants. I think she has only used a couple of the ones I have made but I like making them so I'll probably keep it up. At some point I might even make some for myself and actually start tweeting. Today's was a Winnie the Pooh quote that said “It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like 'What about lunch?'” The background of the image is a golden color that is actually a zoomed in picture of Pooh's belly and kind of looks like honey. I like how it turned out.

I helped the new sixth grade teacher put in a trouble ticket for three of her laptops. Later in the day I learned about at least a few printers around the building, including one in the lab, that are showing as offline. The librarian emailed one of the tech guys about it and he said it was unrelated to the reboot they did yesterday and we needed to put in trouble tickets for them. Unrelated to the reboot yet they were working perfectly before the reboot and immediately after they stop working. I would accept coincidence if it was just a single printer, maybe, but it is at least three. I call bullshit, but whatever, tomorrow I'll go around and submit trouble tickets for people.

I taught one of the first grade classes how to log into the computers today. It was a bit rough but it could have been worse. I explained one step at a time, showing them on the big keyboard picture I have at the front of the lab, and then walked around to them individually in between each step. Some caught on quicker than others. Like the second grade class from yesterday, this class also has a kid who only speaks Spanish and one who only speaks Chinese. The Chinese girl caught on pretty quick but they both managed it just as well as the rest of the class. It would be nice if next time goes a little better but they only come in once a week so most of them will probably be back at square-one next week.

Some other things happened today but they were minor and I want to go to bed so lets skip forward to after work. At Chipotle the first girl was new which resulted in a tiny burrito. Thank god I asked for extra rice and beans because if I hadn't I would have ended up with a burrito the size of a taco. Before heading home I went and got my Powerball ticket. I ended up getting a few more than usual because earlier the cashier had accidentally printed out a few and asked if I wanted them, too. I obviously had to pay for them but I said what the heck. They might be the lucky ones. Statistically unlikely but who cares.

After dinner I showed my videos and my sister threw in a few minions-related videos. Two with wiener dogs in minions costumes with the minions voices added in, and then a compilation of funny minions moments from the movies. They were enjoyable.

I only managed to read part of a chapter tonight. Sixteen pages. Adding books and other items to a library collection should be interesting but reading about it is super boring. It was putting me to sleep and I just couldn't do it. I kept having to re-read stuff because I found myself repeatedly just spacing out as I read. Tomorrow I think I'll read the stuff I need to make my discussion posts and then hopefully write those. I'll come back to the boring chapter after that.

And now I'm going to go to bed. I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. I need to get more sleep so I'm not completely wiped out at night and unable to work on my schoolwork.

August 25, 2015

I keep forgetting that I watched the live-action Attack on Titan movie the other day. I was a little worried that it would be a tad spoiler heavy because I have only made it through the first eight or nine episodes of the anime but it turns out I planned it perfectly. The movie ends at the exact same spot that I ended on with the anime. It was meant to be. It was also slightly disappointing because it was definitely a cliffhanger ending. I would imagine they are planning at least one more movie but I haven't actually looked into it so I'm not certain. Other than the movie being subtitled (so I couldn't multitask) I enjoyed the movie. The titans looked cool and I liked how they handled the omni-directional flying stuff. In the anime their blade holders looked really cumbersome but they managed to make it work in the movie.

This morning I got up, ran on the elliptical, and watched another episode of Psych. Later in the day I found out that my friend started rewatching Psych today. That is a little freaky. For the elliptical, I didn't turn it on so there wasn't any variation in the resistance. The start/stop button is kind of crap and it takes at least thirty seconds of me pushing it a million times before I hit just the right spot and it starts. And without starting it I can't gain the benefits of changing the resistance. Kind of a bummer.

I work I made a few more tweaks to my shortcuts webpage. I'm pretty sure I'm done now. Now I need to put it on a couple computers to make sure it doesn't get erased.

I'm starting to get more of the seating charts back from teachers so I typed up a few of those today, in preparation of testing. I also made and printed out on note cards all of the kindergarteners' names and lunch numbers in preparation of them logging into Compass Learning by themselves. That is still way in the future, maybe not even until next semester, but I'm ready.

There were several classes in the lab today. Both third grade classes, both second grade classes, I think a first grade class, a kindergarten class, and a fifth grade class. The fifth grade class came in right as the tech guys decided to restart the firewall and the internet in the entire district. They couldn't have waited thirty more minutes for school to be over. Thankfully nothing went wrong and the internet came back up about five minutes later.

One of the second grade classes this year has a kid who only speaks Spanish and a kid who only speaks Chinese (I'm assuming Mandarin). While helping the Spanish kid get logged into the computer I ended up using my rudimentary Spanish and I think it expedited the process. I didn't actually learn until halfway through that he didn't speak English, which made the second half a lot easier.

I also fixed a projector for one of the second grade teachers by moving a cord and I made a quick, but what turned out to be unnecessary, trip up to the top floor. A fourth grader came down and said her teacher needed my help. I said “That is all the way up on the third floor.” The fourth grader replied “I know, right?” You know when phrases have run their course when they hit the elementary school. But they're better when kids say them. Somewhat related I heard a kid, maybe third grade, end a question with “or no?” which I noticed was a big thing with Twitch streamers over the summer. Rather than just asking a question, like “Do you have any berries?”, they would ask “Do you have any berries or no?” Now that I'm halfway done with my master's degree I'm tempted to drop it and go for a degree in linguistics. It's interesting watching how phrases start trending. And how regional things have the chance of exploding thanks to the internet and mass media. Interesting stuff. Anyway, the trip up to the fourth grade room was unnecessary because the teacher had solved the problem by the time I got up there. The positive thing about the trip was that I noticed I caught my breath a lot quicker after going up all those stairs. The elliptical is working.

Tonight I read two textbook chapter and watched one short video lecture. Kind of a lazy effort because the chapters weren't that long but it's more than nothing. Tomorrow I want to read another textbook chapter and then read the archive of a discussion thread that our discussion post is based on this week for one of my classes. I don't know that I will actually write that discussion post but I would like to get all the reading done.

I heard back from the academic librarian I sent interview questions to and his responses made for an interesting read. His academic background was all over the place before he became a librarian. I thought I was eclectic but he has me beat. It also kind of reaffirmed my decision to become a librarian. Almost everyone I have come across so far, whether classmates, professors, or professionals, all seem to have really diverse backgrounds and tend to be interested in a lot of different things. That is pretty much my thing and makes me feel like I have made the right choice.

I believe tomorrow will be the day I send out the email looking for work. I'm pretty sure I have run out of things to do. Hopefully I can help some teachers out and hopefully that help will not include cutting hundreds of cards. I got enough of that last year.

August 23, 2015

I kind of slept in today and then didn't really accomplish much else. Although I did watch an hour long lecture about metadata, so I could have done worse. I had dreams of reading textbooks and articles in preparation for week two of classes but it never happened.

Instead I watched things on Netflix. I started with an episode of the anime Fate/Stay Night. I was completely lost. It definitely seemed like there was a lot more going on that they skipped. At some point I would like to give another episode a shot to see if maybe it was just the first episode that was weird, but I probably won't.

Most of my day was spent watching Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I managed to watched the whole first season. It felt like a Fox show, one that probably would have been canceled mid-season, or at least wouldn't have been renewed for a second season. It is just so odd. And as a whole I don't think it was that good. It had a lot of funny little moments throughout each episode but it just didn't come together for me. I'll keep watching it though if they come out with another season, because the funny moments were worth it.

Now I am watching Odd Thomas. It is a movie I don't remember hearing anything about but I saw it on Netflix at some point and decided to watch it tonight, after I decided I wasn't going to do any reading for school. Initially I wanted to watch something short but I didn't want to start another TV show so I went with a movie. And it's a good movie with an interesting concept. I liked everything except the pseudo-happy ending. That made me cry. I don't like crying. It's apparently based on a book series so I need to look into that. Maybe it isn't as sad.

It was a nice enough day outside that we finally got around to running the fireplace. The first time it has to go for six hours or so. For reasons. All I know is the basement stunk for quite awhile. It eventually kind of turned into more of a gas fireplace smell but the basement still kind of stinks. But when winter rolls around we'll be ready.

It is now a little after eleven o'clock and I am going to go to bed. I can't wait to wake up early and run on the elliptical.

August 22, 2015

I got to sleep in this morning and it was nice. Even better, after I woke up I just laid in bed for awhile, enjoying the fact that I didn't have to get up. Weekends are nice.

I read a few articles and chapters today. I also responded to a few people who posted to my discussion posts. So school things happened. I could have done more but I didn't so oh well. Tomorrow I need to do some more reading, get a jump on the coming week. There is a lot of it.

In my time not reading, I started watching Attack On Titan because I have only ever heard good things about it. I have avoided it because it is subtitled and you have to be in the right mood for subtitles. I like to multitask when watching things and it is practically impossible to do that when reading subtitles. Especially in this case because they talk really fast, which means the subtitles go by quickly as well. It is a good show. It's living up to the hype. I've made it to episode nine and hopefully I can make it through the season.

I also caught up on my DVRed stuff. At least two of the shows, Killjoys and Dark Matter, had season finales so I don't need to worry about those anymore. I enjoy those shows but it will be nice not having to work them into my schedule, especially when work and school start to pick up.

I texted with my friend today, the one who recently moved with her boyfriend and got a job as an instructor at a university. She seems to be feeling kind of homesick and, at least at the moment, isn't a big fan of being an instructor. So things could be better for her. I told her we need to come up with stuff she can look forward to and reduce the stress caused by her anxiety related to her job and living in a new place. She already chats with her mom one day a week and is thinking of adding a Chipotle night like I have. Two days down, five to go. I'm going to look into some ideas, not only of fun things but also possible ways to make her job better. Hopefully we can figure it out.

Tonight I saw a opossum actually playing opossum. Alfie is an asshole, I'll start there. Birds, bunnies, squirrels, raccoons, and opossums all come into the yard. Whenever we want to let the dogs out we have to make sure the yard is cleared because Alfie likes to go after the other animals. A little while ago she got a bunny. I would say survival of the fittest in that case because the bunny was an idiot and had plenty of warning to get out of the yard. In the case with the opossum tonight, who knows what it was thinking. My mom didn't see it and it didn't get out of the yard before Alfie had a chance to catch up with it. My mom got all the dogs back inside pretty quickly and then got my attention. The opossum was laying there with its mouth and eyes open and every now and then you could see its mouth move. My mom had a flashlight and at first she though we could just use the shovel and throw it over the fence. Until we realized it was still at least kind of alive. When that was noticed we decided to just leave it in the yard and hope that it would either disappear overnight or at least die so we could throw it over the fence without it being too traumatic. And while we were discussing this the opossum slowly lived it's head and looked at us with a sort of “what the fuck?” look on its face, and then got up. It looked like it was walking with a bit of a limp and it took it awhile to find a whole in the fence but it eventually disappeared from the yard. Thank god. Now I can pretend it has gone on to live a happy life.

Tomorrow I'm going to sleep in again. And then I'm going to read things. And watch things. And at some point I'll probably eat some things also. It'll be a day.

August 21, 2015

Today was a pretty boring day. I had classes in the lab, including a first grade class. It only took thirty minutes for them all to get logged in. Trying to introduce first graders to the concept of capital letters and hyphens, when a lot of them don't even have a firm grasp on their student number, is rough. And it will be rough for awhile. Such is life. Thank goodness they only have to use their student numbers for a username and not their full names. That starts in second grade, and that is equally as rough.

When I didn't have classes in the lab I spent most of my time working on turning my shortcuts page for the computers into an actual website. There's no real point but it is a fun side project. Next week I'll probably need to send out emails looking for more productive side projects to keep myself busy until testing starts.

Speaking of testing, I handed out blank seating charts for the teachers to eventually fill out. I also went up to one of the fifth grade classrooms and re-plugged in some cords in the back of the laptop cart that had come unplugged. This afternoon I also messed around with the gifted teacher's tablet again. It wouldn't turn on at first and I pushed buttons and who knows what happened. When it eventually turned on it was working perfectly. The internet worked, all the programs worked, everything. Who knows.

And going back to testing, I made a new desktop for my computer monitors at work. It is a piece of paper from a yellow legal pad and I put the different MAP and state assessment testing dates on it. Now I won't have to constantly check the testing schedule throughout the year. It'll be hanging out on my desktop.

After work I didn't do a thing. For dinner I had the second half of my Chipotle burrito and it was delicious. After dinner I think I fixed the sprinkler system. I made a new program for less days, shorter times per sprinkler, and it will start earlier. In theory.

I spent the rest of the night watching DVRed stuff. I haven't done that in awhile. I took a break from school stuff because of my surprising productiveness last night. I'll jump back into reading stuff and maybe replying to some discussion posts tomorrow.

It is now past my bedtime so I think I'm going to head that way. I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Hopefully it isn't one of those mornings where I wake up super early for no reason.

August 20, 2015

I keep forgetting to mention The Substitute, which I watched the other night. I thought I had seen it before but after having watched it I realized that it was the first time. There were plenty of points in the movie that I'm sure I would have remembered had I seen it before. It got me thinking though so I looked to see if there was sequel, and there was. That is the movie I had seen. I only vaguely remembered it but then I watched the trailer. People complain now that trailers give away the whole movie but the trailer for The Substitute 2 really does give away the whole movie. The point out the bad guy, which I believe is supposed to be a secret for at least part of the movie, and they show him getting the crap beat out of him. So no mystery there. I do kind of want to watch it though. Maybe sometime.

I'm still on an elliptical streak. I'm on thirteen days in a row. I started back in May with a thirty-two day streak, so it would be nice to beat that but I'm going to be realistic. Waking up at six o'clock in the morning to run sucks. If not for because of the lack of sleep, than the boredom. If I could fast forward through any part of my day it would be the elliptical. I feel like I could be doing so many other things during that time. And not just sleeping. Oh well, I'm going to try and keep with it.

Today I didn't really have any classes in the lab. I spent the majority of my day on the computer getting all the MAP stuff ready. I not only finished all the spreadsheets today I also finished the score sheets I use, including adding the scores from last Spring so teachers can immediately see the difference. So it was a very tedious day but it was also productive.

While I worked on that stuff I continued listening to the first Harry Potter audiobook. The same one I started awhile ago in my car and then lost my progress and my car couldn't fast forward fast enough so I abandoned it. But I'm back, and work is a much better environment than my car because I can listen to it for longer periods of time. I started it yesterday and today I made it to the final chapter. So depending on my work schedule tomorrow I should be able to finish it and maybe start book two.

This afternoon I got away from my computer for a little bit to go across the hall and help the gifted teacher with her tablet and laptop. Her tablet will connect to the wifi but it doesn't actually connect to the internet. I tried some things and read some forums and tried some other things but nothing worked. If it were mine, I would probably back stuff up and restore the whole thing. Wipe it and start fresh. We'll see if she wants to go that route.

As for the laptop, after struggles with laptops last year (mostly because she never turned them in to get updated) she recently got a new one. While I was working on the tablet she was working on the laptop. She needed to install Firefox for one of her programs and I think she picked the wrong thing because when I looked over all this crazy stuff was on the screen and when I looked on the desktop and later in the program list she had several things she didn't need. I started uninstalling stuff but she had to leave before I could finish. Hopefully tomorrow I can catch up with her again and get that sorted out.

After work I had a headache and was in no mood to do school stuff. So I didn't. For dinner I ate a spicy black bean burger because I forgot all about the second half of my Chipotle burrito. So often I forget that it is Thursday and I've got a burrito to finish. I usually remember in time to actually eat the burrito but not this time. It's really a win-win though because the burger was delicious and I have the second half of the burrito to look forward to tomorrow.

Tonight I had no real plans related to school stuff. I still had a headache and wasn't in the mood to use my brain but I eventually talked myself into writing a basic outline for what I wanted to say in the two introduction videos I had to record. That led me to setting up my webcam and microphone just to see what it would look and sound like. Which led me to moving a light because the lighting looked weird. And then I ended up just recording both of the videos because I was already 90% there. We were supposed to record them using the online tool in the discussion post. I couldn't get it to recognize my webcam though so I ended up just recording it with OBS and then uploading that video. I felt better about doing it that way anyway, which is another reason I ended up doing both. And because I had already gone that far, I also wrote the introduction I needed to post for my third class. I had planned a very lazy evening and I ended up doing way more than I thought was possible. Go me.

Now I'm going to go to bed so I can wake up in the morning and experience the boredom that is the elliptical. I need to maybe throw in some video instead of music. Maybe that would hold my attention better. We'll see.

August 19, 2015

Another successful day of waking up and running on the elliptical. We'll see if I can finish off the week. I'm really missing sleep, especially by the time I get home from work.

It was 59 degrees this morning so I drove to work with the windows down and it felt great. It was only 75 degrees after work so I was again able to drive with the windows down. If only August could always be this nice.

A big chunk of my day was spent doing tedious things on the computer. I got all the kids divided into classes for Compass Learning and Type To Learn. It was a little more tedious with Type To Learn because we have a lot of new kids this year and if they transferred from within the district I had to go through each of the other schools until I found the kid and then edit their information to bring them to our school. It would be nice if there was a global search but there isn't. I managed to get it all done though. Near the end of the day I made seating charts for the kindergarten classes and started working on MAP spreadsheets. MAP testing is still in the future but it would be nice to get all the spreadsheets set up now so I don't have to waste time doing it later.

Throughout the day I had classes come to the lab. There were a couple issues logging in but I think all but one kid managed it. I need to look into that one, too, because I tried several things and nothing worked. For most of the classes logging in was the main goal so when that was successful they got to play on CoolMath, and the others got to do whatever they wanted inside Compass Learning. It was all pretty laid back.

After work I went and got Chipotle and a Powerball ticket before going home. I went the scenic route for the Powerball ticket because I forgot all about it until I was almost home. I had good music and the weather was nice so I wasn't complaining.

When I got home there wasn't that much time before dinner and I was tired and in no way motivated to do anything school-related, so I didn't. My burrito was good tonight, which was nice. I only had two videos to show after dinner but they were good and informative. Quality over quantity. After dinner I read two chapters in my metadata textbook. Slowly. It was a struggle, not necessarily based on subject matter, mainly because I was tired and textbooks exacerbate that feeling. But I finished two chapters so I'm happy. Happyish, at least.

It's 10:30PM and I think I'm going to go to bed. Although I am tired I fear it is one of those that will leave me wide awake when my head hits the pillow. I hate when my body does that to me. Only one way to find out if my hunch is correct.

August 18, 2015

I woke up and ran on the elliptical this morning. Sometimes I surprise myself. Now I just need to keep it up.

Today was the first day of school. At the morning assembly all the adults had to go up front and introduce ourselves and the added twist this year was to also say how many first days of school we had experienced in our lives. I think this was my twenty-second. The highest numbers were in the fifties, which is very impressive. The only male para had the best introduction. His are usually pretty good but he stepped it up a notch this year. It was like he was channeling Straight Outta Compton. He started by clearing his throat, aggressively saying it wasn't any of the kids' business how many first days he had, and then loudly saying he was a professional (with a pause) and then saying “a paraprofessional”. It was pretty good.

My first discovery when I got to work that in an attempt to save money, all of the thermostats are set to 76 degrees during the warmer months and 68 degrees during winter. It will apparently save one teacher's salary and it all looks good on paper but 76 degrees in a stagnant room is really hot. Throw in almost thirty computers and over twenty kids in a stagnant room and things are going to be great. Especially when those kids are coming from PE or recess, because kids stink. Today, without the computers on and no kids in the lab I ended up having to prop open the doors with reams of paper. I need to look into actual doorstops.

I spent some time today with the librarian setting up the guest access to the wireless network. It took several tries to get right but we managed it faster than we did last year (although we haven't tested to make sure it actually works). The main reason for setting it up was that one of the kindergarteners has special needs and has a person in the room with her that apparently needs internet access. The guest access is usually set up for the college interns in the building but we remembered after getting everything set up that we won't be having any interns this year, I think because of budget cuts. I don't think it is throughout the district and I don't know how many schools are actually affected but I think it is kind of ridiculous. Especially after the district meeting where one of the speakers went out of their way to mention the good relationship our school district has with the university.

The rest of my day was spent in the resource room setting up a projector. It is new and has interactive capabilities so we downloaded the software and got it all set up. For awhile there was a calibration issue, even though I calibrated it manually and with the auto settings several times. After a lot of thought I eventually came up with the idea that it might be a resolution issue. I know that when projectors are usually plugged in it automatically lowers the resolution on the computer screen to match the projector. In this case I plugged it in with an HDMI cable but I think the projected image lowered its resolution but the laptop resolution stayed the same. So, I changed the resolution on the laptop all the way to the highest setting which switched it on the projector as well, and after that all was good. The pen lined up with the cursor.

It was only a half day today so when I got home I ate lunch and then did nothing. I was tired and couldn't bring myself to do anything productive. Shortly before dinner I also moved over to my comfy green chair and may have nodded off a little.

After dinner I read two articles for one of my classes and read part of a chapter. After that I started watching a livestream because it was Sark and he rarely streams. While doing that I started working on a website for one of my other classes. The professor suggested using a template site like Weebly but I figured since I took a web design class this summer I should maybe try to use those skills. I might change my mind later in the semester went things get busier but for now it seems like a good idea. I also plan on mostly cutting and pasting different parts from the two websites I made over the summer to make the whole process a little easier. The beginning of it all went pretty well but I couldn't get the mobile menu icon to pop up when I made the window smaller so I called it a night. I'll figure it out later.

It is just after 10:30PM and I plan on going to bed by eleven o'clock. I'm tired now but Sark is still streaming so I'm going to watch that a little longer. And then I'm going to get a decent night of sleep (fingers crossed) and then wake up and run on the elliptical again. Hopefully the motivation stays with me.

August 17, 2015

A lot of my day was spent finding and downloading the articles I will have to read for my classes this semester. I did that for the summer semester and it was really nice when the reading would come up and I didn't have to search for it. It also gets rid of that excuse and waste of time, which I would inevitably turn it into.

I had one moment of pure idiocy when trying to find a couple chapters. I didn't really think much of it because I had already had to find a couple chapters online and hadn't had a problem. The book I needed for these chapters only existed at the school library in physical book form. A book that was checked out and ten days overdue. So that was of no help. A couple other universities had the book in electronic form, and I could request it through interlibrary loan, but that seemed excessive considering the professor said everything could be found through the school's library. I was eventually able to find one of the chapters on Google Books and downloaded it. The second chapter, which was the next chapter in the book, wasn't available, and that was frustrating.

Then I had a realization. I looked to my left, about six inches away on my desk, and read the title of the textbook sitting next to me. Happened to be the exact same book I had just spent however long trying to track down. I felt like a complete idiot.

The plumbers were back today. Suds came up in the toilet the day before yesterday I think. They also either came out of the drain in the furnace room or out of the tiny pipe the lets into the drain in the furnace room. Either way, more suds. The plumbers climbed around in the attic again, and looked all over again, and they were still stumped. And all the other plumbers they talked to were stumped. They plan now is to try a detergent that is less sudsy. So fingers crossed for that.

After I finished reading a textbook chapter tonight, I watched Hector and the Search for Happiness. I'm interested in the topic because more often than not I'm not a very happy person. Every now and then I feel like I get fleeting glimpses of happiness but for the most part it has remained frustratingly elusive. Someday I hope to be happy but I'm not entirely sure it will happen. I say I'm not happy now because I don't have this or haven't accomplished that. But I have a fear that even when I have that thing or made that accomplishment, I still won't be happy, and then I'll have to resign myself to the idea that I'm just a deeply unhappy person for reasons beyond my perception. I think that is part of the reason I avoid making advancements in my life, because it will take me closer to that potential realization. Yeah, deep thoughts. Anyway, I liked the movie. It had a similar vibe to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. And it also had a really good soundtrack, much like that movie. I would watch it again. Not any time soon, because it is a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but I enjoyed it.

Now I am going to go to bed. I think. I may read a little Winnie the Pooh. Tomorrow is the first day back at work. That means hopefully getting up at six o'clock and running on the elliptical. I think running really fast yesterday was a mistake because today my left knee hurt. It kind of feels like I've got a bruise inside the joint. That didn't stop me from running today, and hopefully I don't use it as an excuse for not running tomorrow.

August 16, 2015

 I slept in until about nine o'clock today. I think. Then I read some more Peter Pan and more Winnie the Pooh. I think I'll end this entry with the passage that had me cracking up last night. It reminded me of a Laurel & Hardy bit, where Stan is so sincere and certain of what he is saying and Ollie is nodding along until he realizes what is being said and then does a double-take.

I watched The Skeleton Twins today and it was heartwarming and tragic all at the same time. The real tragedy isn't what happens in the movie it is imagining what is going to become of the two main characters. I liked the movie though because I'm a fan of Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader.

I also watched Motivation 2: The Chris Cole Story, who is a professional skateboarder, and Demetri Martin Live* (*at the time). I'm a fan of Demetri Martin and his latest stand-up special did not disappoint. I would watch it again. I started watching Chris D'Elia: Incorrigible because I think he's funny in the shows he has been in, but I couldn't take his stand-up. All of his characters had the same weird stance and he kept laughing at everything he said. It got old real quick.

We had a family dinner tonight at the Chinese buffet. I got all the usual: fried rice, rice noodles, macaroni and cheese, potatoes, and green beans. I also made the wise choice of stopping after two plates. Three is tempting but that makes me feel like crap for the rest of the night. Sticking to two plates has left me feeling full but not disgusting, which I am okay with.

After dinner I finished playing Spec Ops: The Line. The ending is a real mind-bender. I think I need to read a plot synopsis just to get the whole thing at once and maybe it will make more sense. I liked the game, though. Especially the soundtrack. It had a really good soundtrack.

Now I am watching The Substitute. Maybe because I am going back to work on Tuesday. Not that I am a teacher or a substitute, especially at a high school in a rough neighborhood. But I do work in a school, so there's that.

And here is a passage from Winnie the Pooh:

The Piglet lived in a very grand house in the middle of a beech-tree, and the beech-tree was in the middle of the forest, and the Piglet lived in the middle of the house. Next to his house was a piece of broken board which had: “TRESPASSERS W” on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather’s name, and had been in the family for a long time. Christopher Robin said you couldn’t be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two names in case he lost one – Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers.

“I’ve got two names,” said Christopher Robin carelessly.

“Well, there you are, that proves it,” said Piglet.

August 15, 2015

 August is halfway over. Time really does get faster the older you get.

This morning I woke up at 7:30AM and I have no idea why. The dogs weren't even up yet. Rather than rolling over and going back to sleep I decided to just go with it and I got up. I went over to my computer room and sat in the comfy green chair I got from my grandma's house and continued reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I would have finished it before lunch but my early wake-up time and the comfy chair led to a nap. I was able to finish the book after lunch, however, and I liked it.

While I ate dinner tonight I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It is definitely a more faithful representation of the book than Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which I had heard but wasn't able to confirm until I read the book for myself. I like the original movie because it is a classic and I like Gene Wilder, but the newer version is really good. I like all the little remarks that Wonka makes, which is also made in the book. I also like when Wonka walks into the doors of the glass elevator because people walking into glass doors tends to be funny. And one of my favorite parts is still the recently created doll burn unit.

I also read the first few Winnie the Pooh stories this afternoon because I was in a reading mood and I'll be stuck with textbooks for the next several months. I'm a fan of Winnie the Pooh but I have never read the stories. Maybe as a really young kid but my main experience is with the cartoons, which I love. The stories, I have found, are also good. I was actually laughing out loud at certain parts, like when Pooh got stuck coming out of Rabbit's house. It was mainly the mention of Pooh's head as his north end and his bottom half as his south end. I found that pretty funny.

When I had finished eating but was still watching the movie, I practiced my new signature. This time just when a pencil and paper, not on the computer. It still looks way cooler on the computer due to the calligraphy pen, but in real life I'll be writing with a regular pen or pencil so it makes more sense to learn to like that version as well.

After the movie I played more Spec Ops: The Line. I didn't finished it but I'm getting closer. Maybe tomorrow. Different types of enemies were introduced tonight so that was fun. I'm a little lost when it comes to the story and I think that is the point. I remember hearing it was more of a political game, focused more on the story than the gameplay. And unlike most video games, especially first-person shooters, there isn't a clear black and white distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. It is all very gray and murky. Makes it interesting.

Right now I am getting kind of tired but I think I'm going to read some more Winnie the Pooh before bed. Or maybe start Peter Pan. Maybe a little of both. I want to read all the things.

August 14, 2015

 Today I didn't really do anything. That was my goal, so mission accomplished. I watched a couple episodes of The Flash and Daredevil. I am enjoying Daredevil but Vincent D'Onofrio creeps me out so much. Watching his character just makes me so uncomfortable. My hope is that he gets handled by the end of season one so if I ever make it to season two (and if they make a season two) I won't have to deal with him.

I also did other things, like worked on my signature and read things online and watched YouTube videos. All those things that I tend to do when I'm trying to waste time. And I still kind of felt guilty for not doing anything. Even though this is my last free weekend until sometime in December.

Tonight I played a little GTAV, mainly just driving around the map in different cars. I also finally played Spec Ops: The Line. I've wanted to play it forever and finally bought it a long time ago when it was at least 80% off. And then never played it. Until tonight. It was fun even though they didn't do a great job with the PC port because all the on-screen prompts are for an Xbox controller and I was primarily using the keyboard and mouse, except for the the stuff I couldn't figure out and then I used the controller. That was annoying but it was a fun game. Maybe I'll finish it tomorrow. Or not.

Now, I am just finishing up Staten Island Summer. It is/was a pretty funny movie. I would watch it again. And at some point I probably will.

And now that it is over, I'm going to bed. It's late and sleep sounds pretty good.

August 13, 2015

 Waking up at six o'clock this morning sucked major balls but I did it. And I ran on the elliptical for about fifteen minutes before I had to get ready for the district meeting. It was nice getting to see everyone again and I don't think the meeting was as bad as last year. I'd have to go back and read what I wrote about last year's meeting, and I won't, so I'm just going to assume it wasn't as bad. It was still longer than it should have been with too many personal stories and boring stories that I don't care about. It was also a literal pain in the neck because we were off to one side of the stage and all the speakers were standing at the podium on the other side of the stage. Happens every year but I always forget about it until we sit down and we're ten minutes in. Such is life. I survived.

After the meeting I cleaned my computer desk and the desk in my room. We'll see how long the desk in my room stays clean. It tends to be a place where I inevitably stack things. I did all that before lunch and after lunch I vacuumed the entire basement. People who vacuum on a daily basis have my kudos. It's a real shoulder workout.

That was the extent of my productivity today. Still not sure about the CDs but I do need to move all my tools up to the garage. Maybe tomorrow.

In my cleaning up I found the old writing tablet I bought years ago during one of my drawing phases. I hooked it up to my computer and I spent quite awhile before and after dinner using it to work on my new signature. It looks cool using the calligraphy brush in Paint.

Tonight I watched the Neebs livestream and made a wallpaper for my sister. She sent me a picture of a button that said “Hope you like my new recipe. They're called shut the fucupcakes.” I might end up making my own version of the button and giving it to her for her birthday but for tonight I just made the wallpaper. I found a light green background with little cupcakes on it, I downloaded a cute font and layered it a few times, and then I put a cute cupcake in the middle. I think it turned out pretty well. I liked it well enough that it is now the wallpaper for one of my monitors.

It is now almost midnight and I am watching the second episode of Daredevil. The first episode was good but all the bad guys were making references to big picture stuff and I had no clue what was going on. It almost felt like I had missed an episode. Or maybe I need to me more versed in the comics. I imagine as the season goes on more will be revealed but they definitely throw you into the deep end right off the bat. I'm going to finish the second episode and then I'm going to go to bed. And hopefully sleep in.

August 12, 2015

 I slept in until nine o'clock this morning but I also managed to finish the main room of the basement before lunch, so I feel alright about sleeping in. This afternoon I moved all of my DVDs from the hall closet into my computer room. I just barely managed to fit all of my “regular” movies onto the DVD shelf I have. I separated out TV series, anime/Asian, special interest, and Laurel and Hardy movies and put them in a cabinet. I don't know that I really like that choice so I might change things up in the future. I still don't know about my CDs. I have a feeling that they won't all fit on the shelf I have and it would suck balls to commit to the operation of putting all of the CDs and books back in cases only to have them not all fit on the shelf. I need to do some math.

On my roundabout way to Chipotle tonight I paid a bill, bought a Powerball ticket, and got gas. At Chipotle it was the blind leading the blind. They had two guys on the line and it was obviously their first day. They were both being taught by one of the girls from last year who was incredibly slow and not very good at her job. She hasn't really improved much but now she gets to pass on her skills. Sweet. The girl at the register was the one who I almost hit in the crosswalk a few weeks ago. And she was learning how to work the register, so everyone was out of their comfort zone. I felt a little bad for her because I ended up paying in cash and they have this automated change thing that jammed and wouldn't drop the change. It was only twenty cents but there were four people around it before it was all done. Baptism by fire. I've got nothing against any of the new people, though. Everyone's got to learn a new job at some point and when you're in a service industry you get to do it with an audience. I've been there and I know frustrated or full-on asshole customers are the opposite of helpful, so I just roll with it and let them learn. I will bitch about my poorly made burrito when I get home, however. I'm not perfect. But it is only a burrito, so it doesn't really matter.

Tonight I watched some DVRed stuff. It was an exciting night. I think after I finish this I'll practice my signature for a little while and then go to bed. Tomorrow I will hopefully be getting up at six o'clock so I can run on the elliptical before I get ready for the district meeting. Hooray for long, boring meetings. I can't wait. I will hopefully have the motivation afterward to tidy up my computer desk and the desk in my bedroom. Those are my two main goals for tomorrow. If I can get everything in decent order then I can have at least a couple days of freedom before school and work start again next week. Way too soon.

August 11, 2015

 Today was very similar to yesterday. At least from what I can remember of yesterday. I worked on the basement. I mainly focused on the main room because that is where all the crap is. I occasionally took things to my bedroom or the computer room and most of my time was probably spent walking back and forth going to those rooms because I wasn't very efficient. I would say purposefully so because cleaning is boring and I needed all the excuses I could get to take mini-breaks.

Despite all those mini-breaks, I mad progress. Optimistically speaking, I think I can finish tomorrow. At least in terms of clearing out the main room. I'm still debating about the CDs and DVDs and I need to relocate all the tools I have been putting in a drawer in my bedroom and move them to my tool bag in the garage. I would have been taking them there as I come across them in my cleaning but I don't need my mini-breaks to extend to twenty trips up and down the stairs to the garage. Before all that gets done I might also take a look at my computer desks. I have accumulated too much random stuff and there is clutter. Maybe if I get the main room taken care of tomorrow and I'm still feeling ambitious.

I don't know that final grades have been submitted yet, or when that deadline actually is (tomorrow maybe?) but everything has been graded in both of my classes and at least unofficially I got 100% in both classes. I can't complain about that. I busted my butt on the websites in my web design class and I read so much and worked so hard on my grant proposal and budget assignments in my management class that I really feel like I earned those grades. And I am going to enjoy them because the Fall semester is going to be a stressful bitch.

Tonight I finished the third season of Arrow. I think most of the characters redeemed themselves in my eyes. Mainly the police chief. I liked him during the second season I think, when he was on The Arrow's side. Most of the third season, or whenever he found out the secret that everyone else knew, and then started hating The Arrow, he went back to annoying me. I'm also still not a fan of Laurel. Much like her angry father, she just annoys me. And it is pretty much a constant, regardless of whether she's angry at someone or not. Ray Palmer easily became my favorite character in season three. He had a brief moment when he was against The Arrow but other than that he was consistently funny and likeable. After finishing Arrow I went back the The Flash and watched a couple episodes.

We had our staff picnic tonight but I didn't go. Last year it was hot as hell and I don't really like social gatherings. I always just sit or stand around and wait for them to be over so I can go home. We also have the district meeting on Thursday so I'll get to see everyone then, and for the rest of the school year, so I don't feel bad about missing the picnic.

Tomorrow I will finish the basement. I'm making a bold statement. Hopefully an attainable statement.

August 10, 2015

 Today I worked on the basement. All day. It was super fun. As far as the layout of the computer room goes, I think I'm done. I am still considering moving my DVDs in but I've already got space for them so it won't really matter. I also kind of want to put all of my CDs back into their cases and put them on shelves. I had the brilliant idea years ago to take all of my CDs out of their cases and put them into one big case but that was dumb. It became too heavy and awkward to move and I listened to them less because they were out of sight and out of mind. I'm all about streaming music now but it would be nice to get them all out and rediscover some of the bands I have forgotten.

I also got a start on the main room and made some decent progress. It involved going through some of my old school stuff. I found a copy of the letter I had to write in sixth grade about sexual harassment. I remember thinking that me having to write it was a little ridiculous but I didn't remember how passive aggressive I was in the letter itself. It was amusing. I also read the papers I wrote for my communications class about The Emperor's New Groove, Son-in-Law, and an episode of That '70s Show. I'm still impressed with them. I found an old statistics test that I got a perfect score on. I looked at every single question and I couldn't answer a single one. Especially the ones involving math. I had no idea where the numbers were coming from. More proof that all through college I memorized things for the test and them promptly forgot them. I'm glad graduate school hasn't had any tests. So far anyway. Fingers crossed that trend continues.

Tonight I watched more episodes of Arrow and I am drawing closer to the season finale. I'm still a fan of the series but it is also annoying. At times it feels like 80% of the show consists of people whining or getting angry about people having secrets or lying to them. And 100% of the people have secrets and lie, so if they would politely just the fuck up and get over themselves, that would be great. The show would also be much more enjoyable without all the love drama. I look forward to a show where everyone is asexual and has no desire for anything but friendship. I don't need all the sexual tension and emotions. I'm obviously in the minority when it comes to these opinions, however, because so much screen time is taken up by this type of drama. Men and women can just be friends. Writers should try that some time, not perpetuate stereotypes or work out their own personal issues.

August 9, 2015

 I did things today. I should have done more, like any work on the basement, but that didn't really happen. This morning I fixed the fence. It is completely overgrown behind the fence and it was a bit of a struggle getting past a cedar tree in the beginning but after that it was mainly stamping down the giant weeds and trying not to slip in the mud. The boards I needed to fix were on opposite sides of the yard but I ended up having to go all the way around through the jungle because the neighbors built their fence against ours on one side. Kind of annoying. I knew there were at least three boards to fix but luckily I bought some extra screws because I ended up needing all of the extra. I imagine I'll need more after the next big storm but for now the fence is doing alright.

It was ridiculously humid today and the whole time I was working on the fence it was a struggle to keep my glasses on my face because I was sweating so much. I embraced it a little while longer and hung a few things outside for my mom. Coming back in to the air conditioning was almost unbearable because it was so cold. I also took the opportunity of feeling gross to run on the elliptical before taking a shower.

Other than assembling some plastic shelves and moving a chair, I didn't really accomplish anything downstairs. The fence thing kind of took it out of me. And that is really just an excuse but it's too late to do anything about it now.

Tonight I watched episodes of Arrow and spent a little time working on a new version of the first letter in my name after watching a couple videos on penmanship. Awhile ago I came up with a new way of writing it which I really liked but I didn't keep up with it and it wasn't long before I reverted back to the old way. Maybe this time will be different.

Tomorrow, basement stuff. And maybe laundry. But mostly basement stuff. The clock is ticking.

August 8, 2015

 Today went by pretty quickly. Last night there was a storm, one loud enough to wake me up so I watched it for awhile. This morning I learned that the wind was strong enough, and our fence was built poorly enough, that a couple panels were pulled partially loose. While I walked around the fence looking for other loose boards I found one that had apparently never even been nailed in at the bottom. Quality craftsmanship.

I didn't get around to fixing the loose panels today but I did go to the hardware store and bought screws. The fence was built with nails, which was obviously a poor choice. Almost as bad as choosing this particular fence company to build a fence. So I'm going to screw them back in place.

And going back to the quality of the fence builders, I was talking with my dad about screws and we got on the topic of the double gate, which has been “fixed” two or three times now. I've never built a fence or a gate before but I was telling him my idea on how to make a double gate better and it was pretty much spot-on with how my dad has built them in the past. So we both agree that the one these guys built is a piece of crap.

Before I went to the hardware store I ordered a pizza and after picking up the screws I picked up the pizza. When I got home I baked it and it was freaking delicious. If I had to pick one food for the rest of my life, pizza is a no-brainer. There are so many varieties and each of them are good in their own way.

I worked on my room a little bit today. It would be cool if I could finish it tomorrow. I won't but I can certainly get closer. I really need to start working on the main room because that's where a bulk of my crap is. So although I have made decent progress on my bedroom and computer room, it doesn't really matter because the main room is overflowing. I still have some time left.

I also cleaned every inch of my bathroom today. The tile guys yesterday left a fine layer of dust over everything, including the shower. I don't get it. It seems rare that someone will come into your house or place of work to build something or fix something and then clean up after themselves. The worst are guys who have to do work up in a tiled ceiling. If I ever did work in houses, part of the service would include cleaning up my mess. Leaving a place better than I found it. I learned that in Boy Scouts, policing a campsite and picking up all the trash before we left, even if it wasn't ours. I would feel like a complete asshole if I went into a stranger's house and left a mess. Apparently these guys do not.

Tonight I watched It Follows, a horror movie that was kind of disappointing. The basic premise is that someone has a being following them that can take the shape of anyone from a complete stranger to someone you know. The person being followed or someone who has been followed in the past can see the being but no one else can. The being only walks, so the person can run away from it, but if it catches up to the person it will kill them, and then it goes back to the previous person and starts following them again. The only way to get rid of the being is to pass it on to someone else, by having sex with them. The idea of it all, and taking some of the dialogue from the movie itself, kind of makes it all sound like a metaphor for an sexually transmitted infection. My first thought when the main character had the being passed on to her and the guy was explaining it, was that it sounded an awful lot like he just gave her herpes. I'm giving it to you but it will still be with me, and you can pass it on but it will still be with you. I haven't looked into the movie at all but maybe it is actually a metaphor. If that is just an unintentional interpretation maybe the writer should have come up with a better method of transference than sex.

I also started watching the third season of Arrow. I got through the first couple of episodes and at the end of the first they killed someone off. Couldn't have done that in the second season? I would be kind of annoyed as an actor if I was brought back for part of an episode, after a break between seasons, just so I could be killed off. I'm going to try but I don't know if I'll make it through the whole season. My interest is losing steam. The second season did a good job of wearing me down.

We're coming up on midnight now and I am going to call it a night. How almost responsible of me. Tomorrow I will hopefully be fixing the fence and then working on the basement. And eating leftover pizza for dinner. Can't wait.

August 7, 2015

 I slept a full night last night. I went to bed at midnight and woke up at eight o'clock. And if my alarm hadn't gone off I probably could have slept even longer. For most of the summer I feel like I was sleep nine hours a night and then recently it started sucking. Being unable to fall asleep at night and then having to get up early. I could be remembering things wrong but that sounds pretty close to correct. I am just hoping last night was a sign of my schedule slowly getting back on track. That will make the transition back to waking up at six o'clock for work much easier.

I went to brunch with my dad and sister today. I branched out from what I usually get and got a blueberry pancake, scrambled eggs, and potatoes. Delicious. After we finished eating we sat there and talked for quite awhile. I'm not sure when but eventually my sister had to leave and my dad ended up staying until two o'clock. After my sister left we mainly talked about business stuff, like the things we learned about in my management class this summer and the stuff he learned from years of working in business. One of his stories was about having departments analyzing themselves in order to find ways to save money, and then the employees would get a percentage of the money they saved as a bonus. One guy's bonus was for $800 and because he was kind of a dick, my dad presented it to him at the award ceremony in pennies. This was at a bank so it was a little easier getting that much money in pennies.

The tile guys came today and replaced the two and a half tiles in my bathroom that had cracks. I'm not supposed to use my bathroom until tomorrow. The tiles and grout look pretty good, though. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to give my full opinion because the grout still needs to fully dry but right now it is looking pretty good.

I worked on my computer room more today. I moved a chair and some exercise equipment out, brought in a bookshelf and built a smaller DVD shelf. I also rearranged the closet to I could get more boxes in there. The main thing now is figuring out a layout that I can live with so I can start putting stuff on shelves. Then I can attack the main room that is filled with my stuff and bring some of it to the computer room and hopefully get the rest of it in containers and put it in the old dog room. It would be really nice to get it all done before school and work start again so I don't have to worry about it anymore. That is the goal and hopefully it can happen.

It's not quite 10:30PM right now and I am kind of tired. I'm debating whether to watch another episode of The Flash or just go to bed. Bed is sounding pretty tempting. I think I'm going to give that a try.