December 18, 2015

Today was the last day of work before winter break and I dressed really festive. I hadn't originally planned on that but last night before going to bed I checked on the status of my Snoopy sweatshirt, got out a red and a green shoe, and got my Santa Creeper off my Christmas tree. I ended up pinning the Santa Creeper to my green hoodie and I got way more comments on it this year than last year when I had it on my Santa hat. So I'm glad I decided to add it.

A large portion of my day was spent making word searches. I actually ended up staying about thirty minutes later than usual just so I could get them done and not have to worry about it after break. I'll have to count how many I did when we go back because I lost track, but I know it is a ridiculous number. Hopefully some of them will get used.

This afternoon was the all-school sing-along. In music the kids have been practicing all of the Christmas songs, which is good because the projected lyrics aren't actually big enough for anyone to see.

One of the paras, the one who wears different headbands every day, dresses up like a Christmas tree every year and dances around the gym, picking people to dance with her while Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree plays. My worst fears came true when she picked me this year. I was standing next to a resource teacher in the back and she called it two songs earlier and I tried my best not to make eye contact. It didn't help. She pulled me out into the middle of the gym and we “danced” for what seemed like an eternity in front of the whole school and a bunch of parents. The librarian showed me the video she took afterward and it was actually really short. Time does funny things when you're in an intensely uncomfortable situation.

After the assembly I uploaded new pictures of kids into the library program so when they are checking out books an updated picture will show up. My first attempt didn't work because the metadata wasn't correct. I wasn't sure of the exact format so I went back to the lab and downloaded five different versions. When I went back to the library to try again, the first version worked, so five was overkill, but whatever.

I got a few gifts today and really raked it in with gift cards to Amazon and Chipotle. I think I might use the Amazon gift cards toward the purchase of a sewing machine. It would be cool to get one and then make some small project as a 'thank you' to the kindergarten teachers and the librarian for the gift cards. The librarian also got me a big cup and made me a microwave-safe hot pad for it. It's a square of fabric that is sewed in such a way that the corners lift up a little bit so you can easily pick up whatever is sitting on it. It's really cool. I need to make some hot cocoa or something and send her a picture of it.

Tonight after dinner I played Tera and I had a lot of fun. I want to get a mount that is free but has several requirements in order to get. They include: killing 100 of a certain type of monster, adding friends, getting 50 bonds of friendship, clearing ten dungeons through instance matching, and winning three times in an arena. I killed the monsters and added the friends and tonight I wanted to work on the bonds of friendship. You get ten every time you party up with a friend and clear a dungeon. I put it out in the guild chat that I was looking to party up for some friendship time and got an invite to a dungeon. It was just the two of us but I think I was a little over leveled so it wasn't too hard. Awhile later someone else was looking to run the same dungeon and I ended up teaming up with four other people, including the person I had just cleared the dungeon with. That should have been enough to put me over the 50 bonds of friendship but I forgot to add two of the guys in the second run as friends so I missed out on twenty points. Kind of annoying but I'll get it next time. I think to get the ten dungeon clears for the mount I have to get matched up with randoms and not be in a party with guild members. I'll have to look into that. But it was a lot of fun running through the dungeon with people. When I played Tera previously I was going solo so it is an interesting experience being apart of a guild.

Now it is late so I am going to go to bed. Tomorrow, who knows what I'll do. I want to read at least a little bit of a book or two. I want to finally put my Batman owl in a hoop. I want to watch Christmas things. I want to enjoy not having to worry about work or school. It'll be a good Saturday I think.