Wednesday, January 20, 2016

January 20, 2016

Life Is Strange spoilers. After finishing last night's entry I watched the other ending for Life Is Strange. In my game I chose to save Chloe because I spent the entire game reversing time to save Chloe. The other option was to let Chloe die in order to save the town. After watching that ending, I feel it is safe to say that was the true ending. When you save Chloe the ending is basically you just driving out of town. Saving the town is much more involved, and I may have cried a little. Not full on tears but it was beyond misty eyes. In that ending you have to go back to the bathroom and let Chloe get shot, then there is the montage of pictures of the bad people getting in trouble and people affected by Chloe's death, followed by her funeral. It is definitely one of those experiences, whether from a book or movie or video game, that impacts you. I've seen a quote online about how there are those books where you finish them and are left emotionally drained, but it's strange because you look around and everyone else is just walking around, carrying on like nothing is wrong, even though you have just gone through this major event. The quote is obviously more succinct and to the point but you get the idea. Letting Chloe die was mildly traumatic and it is weird because I look up from the computer screen and the real world is exactly how I left it but I still feel this sense of loss. I spent eighteen hours diving deep into the story, getting to know these characters and their world. And even though it is kind of draining, I like that something can make me feel those things. Especially something safe like a video game. At some point in my life I would be able to create something that has even a fraction of the impact as some of the books and movies and video games I have experienced in my life. The power of words. And to make this paragraph just a little bit longer, I was trying to go back and I think the last game that had an impact on me was Gone Home. And before that it was To The Moon. I can't remember if that one made me cry but I remember being affected by it, and that was purely story based because graphically it was just an old school looking, isometric 8-bit RPG. I like video games.

Today there was one test scheduled first thing in the morning. Immediately on the tail of that test I had a regular second grade class, which was annoyance-inducing because the internet was super slow (probably due to all the testing in the district) and I spent the whole time going from kid to kid as they raised their hand, trying to explain that the internet was slow and that was why their computers weren't loading. And they didn't get it because the next time something didn't load their hand was in the air.

Right after they left I had a group of unscheduled fifth graders wanting to make up their tests. I finally got a break when they left and I was able to sit down and eat my lunch. After lunch I had one of the sixth grade classes come down to make their graphs for the science fair. I haven't really messed with Excel graphs since last year's science fair so I was just winging it. I could remember the main data stuff but couldn't remember how to add labels. Turns out I was really over thinking it because there was a tab for it when you clicked on the graph. I figured that out right after they left because I sat down and had a chance to actually think about it for a second. While the kids were in the lab I was mostly just going around and finding out what the kids' projects were and what they were trying to show in their graphs. It will go better next time, now that I've had time to wrap my brain around graphs again.

When the sixth graders left, it was a piece of cake because there was a spelling bee, which interfered with testing and regular lab classes for the rest of the day. I didn't go to the spelling bee because it is really boring and takes forever. I want to support the kids but I'm not a fan of seeing them miss a word and start crying.

Instead, I took apart the color printer in the lab and replaced all the parts from the maintenance kit I got last year, I think, when the warning message popped up on the printer. It still printed just fine so I figured I'd see how long I could milk it and save the school some money. I decided to replace stuff today because for a little while now there has been a thin black line on everything that is printed. I thought maybe it was related so I read the manual and followed the steps to take the printer apart and replace stuff. Then I printed something. And it still had the black line. Fantastic. Some printers have a cleaning option but this one does not. At some point I will probably have to put in a trouble ticket.

When I was finished with that the art teacher had some time so I showed her how I made the high contrast pictures. From downloading Gimp to exporting the final image. She wrote down all the steps and said she'll give it a try, so fingers crossed for her. It probably sounded really confusing but I got pretty quick at it so I have faith.

After work I went and got Chipotle and then got almost all the way home before I remembered I had forgotten to get my Powerball ticket. I joked on Monday with the fifth grade teacher about frequently forgetting my gambling vice, and then I went and forgot it. But I ended up going back and getting it, so I can sleep easy tonight.

I changed it up a little tonight and got both the green salsa and corn. It wasn't life changing but it was still a good burrito. Not too long after we finished watching videos it started to snow. And it is the small, icy kind that immediately makes the ground slippery. According to the news we're supposed to get two to four inches and I'm really hoping to wake up tomorrow to an all-district text saying that school has been canceled. It's supposed to keep snowing throughout the day tomorrow so fingers crossed.

Classes officially started today. I paid my tuition, looked through the syllabi, and read through the few introductions that had already been posted. At this point I've had almost everyone in my classes and we've probably all introduced ourselves to each other several times. But that's what we do. I think I'll write mine tomorrow. I'm just glad we don't have to make a video introduction. That was stressful last semester. I am feeling better about this semester than last semester, mainly because I'm taking two classes instead of three. And it is only the first day. And I've had a month off which is apparently long enough for the stress of the past year to be a distant memory. But hopefully the semester goes well.


Now I'm going to go to bed. Even though I am hoping for a snow day, it would still be smart to go to bed at a decent time because if Powerball has proven anything, it is that my luck isn't that great. So I'm not going to bet on a snow day and end up having to wake up tired as hell so I can go to work and watch kids take tests. I'll bet on sleep.

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