September 2, 2015

 I found the Payday candy bar when I got to work. It was on the computer table near my desk where I had the folders that I was putting paper into before leaving work yesterday. That is kind of where I was thinking I had left the candy. Turns out I was right.

I did things at work today and the day went by pretty fast. I started by copying several packets for one of the second grade teachers. While setting up the copier I learned that it can three-hole punch. That saved me a ridiculous amount of time and effort. It can also offset as it collates, which is something else I didn't realize. This way I didn't have to keep track of when one packet was done and the next started because the copier shifted the output after each packet so it was obvious where each packet was. I don't know if my explanation makes sense but it was really convenient.

When I was done with that I worked on saving even more paper when copying the Dolch word cards. The last part of most of the lists didn't fill up a whole page, in some cases it was just one or two words on that last sheet. This meant that if I was making nine or eleven copies of that list, I was using nine or eleven sheets of paper to print out a single word or maybe a few. I went through if a list was like that, I would put as many of those words as there were copies of that list next to each other on the page. (This is surprisingly convoluted to describe and I think it is working against me that I'm tired). As an example, the first list fit perfectly so each page of words was completely filled. One of the other lists had one extra word and I needed to make a copy of the list for nine kids. Rather than making nine copies that included a page with a single word on it, I made nine copies of the words in the list that filled a full sheet. Than I repeated that last word nine times on a single piece of paper and printed it out once. That saved eight piece of card stock. Four out of the five lists had incomplete final pages that I was able to cram together and save paper. So I didn't have to eventually explain this somewhat involved thinking to whichever parent ends up cutting out all the card sets, I cut out these last pages and grouped these last cards with the rest of the word lists for each kid. (I had already divided the word lists by kid so each kid had their own stack, which were missing those last cards. One sheet of these last cards might contain the last cards for several kids so I couldn't put them with the kids and it would be confusing to leave the sheet separate, so I cut them up and divided them among the groups I had made). I'm going into way too much detail so I'm going to stop.

II had classes in the lab today. I also briefly went down to the library to help the librarian with a class of sixth graders getting on laptops. Going back to the copier, I continued scanning one of the new reading books. And at the end of the day I went back down to the library to help the librarian set up this laptop holder thing that you screw onto a camera tripod and has attachments for a microphone and a lens for the iPad. It was a bit of a process figuring out the tripods because the librarian has an interesting collection, but we got it set up. The only problem is that the cord for the microphone is coiled, for convenience I guess, but it also makes it a little short to connect to the iPad. It connects but it is a bit of a stretch and it goes across the corner of the iPad. Overall it is kind of a cool though and I'm interested to see how it ends up getting used.

I did a few other things during the day, and a few more that I have probably forgotten but oh well for now. After work I went and bought a new windshield visor for my car. My old one bit the dust awhile ago and my car has been hot as hell when I get into it after work. I couldn't take it anymore. Then I went and got Chipotle. I dodged a bullet because there was a new girl at the head of the line but she was taking a long time getting all the tortillas ready so while she was still getting the tortillas ready for the tacos another worker, who has been there for awhile, slid down and started my burrito. It was easily twice the size of my burrito last week. Probably even bigger.

After dinner I showed videos and then started reading an article for one of my classes about censorship and selection. It is so dense and used so many unnecessarily large words. I still have eight pages left but I'm going to bed. I have sucked at reading this week. And I'm going to continue to suck. Maybe I can make up for it tomorrow.

It is not quite 9:45PM but I'm going to bed. I'm a little afraid that I am going to slip back into my summer sleep schedule of nine hours a night. That isn't going to work for me with all the reading I need to do for school. Fingers crossed the last few days have just been a fluke.