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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