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.