January 11, 2016

I slept on the couch again last night and it went pretty well. I got lucky and was able to breathe through one nostril so I didn't have to be a mouth breather, which meant my throat wasn't unnecessarily sore in the morning. I even had to turn my heater off in the middle of the night because I got too hot, which is crazy because the basement is freezing. Maybe the couch needs to be my new nap spot.

This morning we had the first MAP test using the new online system. It started over half an hour late because the teacher forgot she was testing, but that gave me time to get everything ready and fold the sheets that go over the computers over the weekend. So it worked out.

As for the test itself, it also worked out. There were a couple times where a question didn't show up but I was able to refresh the browser and that fixed it. I brought in my laptop to use as the main proctor computer so I was able to stand in the back of the lab and run everything. After the kids select their name and confirm it is them, I then have to confirm it before they can start the test, this is nice because it makes it really hard for someone to accidentally or purposefully choose the wrong name and get into the wrong test. I like it. It is also nice being able to see what question all the kids are on without having to walk around and then bend down to see the bottom of their screens. It would be nice if their score would also pop up on the proctor screen when they finish but maybe in the future. Speaking of scores, we were originally told that they would be immediately available, but that isn't the case. It still takes a day for them to show up.

I didn't write any scores down today (even after I realized I wouldn't immediately have the scores) and I think I'm going to continue that. Now I can organize reports by name rather than score, which was one of the big reasons I did write down scores, so I could have them in alphabetical order, making it easier to transfer them to my spreadsheets. It was way too inefficient looking at a report ordered by score and then scrolling up and down on my spreadsheets trying to find the right kid. Also, the first and second graders only have one test per subject now instead of two parts which are then combined. If I wanted the individual scores for those parts it was easier to right them down rather than trying to get on the report site and catch them before they were combined. And it was nice not having to bend over a million times to write down scores.

The test was the only thing happening this morning and this afternoon there was one more test and two non-testing classes. In my free time I was able to finish editing the high contrast sixth grade pictures and scan a few more sixth grade baby pictures. Tomorrow in my free time I might start editing baby pictures.

Tonight I cut fabric squares and watched the last episode of the first season of Jessica Jones. I'm glad it's over but I also want to see more. And by the time the second season comes out I will have probably forgotten how tired I got of the drawn out drama. And maybe the second season one include so many unnecessary close calls just to increase the drama.

I also played a little bit of Tera to meet weekly quest goals. I was at thirteen out of twenty whatever, meaning I needed seven more tokens. I picked the first quest in the list which required me to kill twenty huge monsters that were all max level. I killed three and it took way too long so I skipped to the next quest. That required killing much smaller bad guys. Not too long into that I got a party invite and ended up in a full party of people running around in the same area farming the same bad guys. While in a party you get credit for everyone else's kills, and the quest is repeatable, so it didn't take very long at all to meet the weekly goal. Up until that point I was also getting 45 gold each time I completed the quest and then 300 more for reaching the weekly goal. I'm up to almost 19,000 gold and don't really have anything to spend it on, so I'm not really focused on it, but now that I'm max level and XP doesn't mean anything anymore, maybe gold should be my next focus.

Tomorrow there will be more testing. Hooray. After work I think I'm going to pay a bill and buy some Powerball tickets. Even with the big jackpot over the weekend I didn't encounter a crowd at the gas station but now that it is over a billion dollars I figure it is safer not leaving it until Wednesday. Today while watching kids test I was trying to imagine a billion dollars. You often hear stories of people who blow through their winnings but blowing through a billion dollars would be truly impressive. Over the summer it was a task trying to spend $2600 on books. And then there is Brewster's Millions, where he has to spend $30 million in thirty days. There are a lot of stipulations placed on Brewster but even without that I think it would be pretty hard to spend that much money. And $30 million is only 3% of $1 billion.

I asked my friend tonight if she was going to buy a ticket and she said that she wasn't even interested. I started buying Powerball tickets because I wanted a vice and at this point I'm not particularly interested in buying tickets, either. I obviously have no delusions of actually winning. If I had something better to spend my money on I wouldn't even hesitate. But with the current jackpot it is kind of an historic moment. It is the first time, I think it the world at this point, that a lottery jackpot has hit a billion dollars. I'm not putting it in the same league as seeing a man walk on the moon or learning of the assassination of JFK, but those are the things people always quote when they say I remember where I was or what I was doing with this event happened. When all is said and done, the only people that will probably remember where they were when the billion dollar jackpot was won, are the people who win the jackpot. At the moment though, it is pretty cool to witness. And I have the opportunity to participate, if only in a miniscule way, to this moment in history. At this point I have written a lot about it and it has been a good distraction. A fun mind-bender, trying to wrap my head around a billion. My fingers will still be crossed that no one wins on Wednesday so it will go even higher.

Now I'm going to go to bed. Or maybe to couch. I think I could get away with my bed but the couch has been pretty comfortable and I am still a little congested and coughy. I was leaning toward the bed but now I'm leaning toward the couch. We'll have to see how cold it is when I go out there.