January 14, 2016

Well, once again playing the lottery has failed to make me a millionaire. No real surprise there. It would actually be more surprising if it had. I'll continue playing once a week to keep the vice going.

Today there was more testing. So it was an exciting day. A second grade class tested this afternoon and that was my first look at the new primary test. Previously each subject, Language Arts and Math, was broken into two parts, each thirty-five questions long. Now there is only one part for each subject. The older grades have had between 40 and 43 questions for Language arts and I was hoping that would be the case with the new primary test. Unfortunately it had 55 questions, which is a lot for second graders. It's going to be even worse for first graders. I'm not looking forward to it. I also think I might log in to the test for the first graders because getting the second graders in today was about a pain and a half. It is going to take a lot of time to log everyone in, however, so we'll have to see how I'm feeling. And how much time I have.

I gently pushed an irate second grader out of the lab today. One of the spelling kids came down, the only one of the two who has shown up regularly, even when she wasn't supposed to. She had been working for maybe five minutes when the other one showed up. The one that is most likely bipolar but I'm not sure how young they diagnose that. Anyway, she showed up and almost immediately started getting upset when she saw that the other girl had different words than she did. She started whining and getting louder and louder, distracting the sixth graders in the lab. I eventually got her to go back to her room to talk to the teacher. Not too long after that she returned, still upset, and told the other girl she needed to take the folder back to the room. This girl got annoyed because she always has to take the folder, so she told the upset girl to take the folder back. This made the upset girl even more upset and she started crying and almost yelling at the other girl that she needed to take the folder back. I managed to get a few words in and as I did so I slowly directed/pushed the upset girl out of the lab and kind of shut the door in her face as I told her to go back to her room. A short time after that I got a call from the teacher asking for the other girl to also come back. It was a fun time.

I struggled through making DVDs of the football slideshow for the librarian today. I numbered everything correctly but still seemed to be missing a picture or something. I ended up not so much figuring it out as I did just fudging a few things and got it to work. Then I had to make the DVD menu, which took longer than it probably should have. But I got it and made two DVDs. While I was working on it the new sixth grade teacher wanted to see it because she used to teach at that school and new the kids. She ended up almost crying. Later in the day the librarian brought me another blank DVD because she needed another copy. The slideshow saved but the DVD menu didn't, so I had to remake that. I think I got pretty close but I forgot what font I used for the text.

Tonight I remembered to eat the second half of my Chipotle burrito for dinner. I often forget to do that. Alan Rickman died today, which really sucks. To celebrate his life and work, after dinner I watched Galaxy Quest, which is still such a good movie. I can't remember how it was received upon release but I feel safe saying it should have done a lot better. Galaxy Quest 2 is something that should have happened. Following Galaxy Quest, I started Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Another really good movie. So many good actors, including Alan Rickman. It will be over shortly and then I will go to bed because I am tired and recently, would prefer nothing more than to spend all day in bed. Maybe this weekend.

Tomorrow, more testing. And probably some other things. I got an urge for pizza today so I think I might get pizza for dinner tomorrow. Nothing fancy, probably just cheese, but maybe I'll go the fancy route. We'll have to see.