February 29, 2016

Today is a Leap Day but it didn't feel any different than any other Monday. We didn't have any testing today so that was a nice change. I was pretty active this morning which made it disappear, quite the opposite of standing and watching kids test for hours.

This morning I went and showed the ridiculous book I got at the book sale to the librarian and one of the paras, who thought it was great. While there one of the sixth grade teachers brought me his laptop because he had been contacted by one of the IT guys who told him he had something on his laptop that he needed to remove. The sixth grade teacher's adopted son has a tendency to download things and it appears doesn't know to check the source of the download or to look for add-ons that sneakily download themselves along with the the program you want. I ended up deleting a bunch of stuff, including a lot of registry stuff, but never came across the thing the IT guy mentioned. So we'll see.

I finished that up just in time to go down and help with literacy centers in kindergarten. I had to figure out a cassette tape and was flummoxed. I have always been confused about which side is which. When I put it in the player is the side facing out the side that is playing or is it the side facing in? I can never remember. But I do know how to work a tape player. I still couldn't get the tape to play and it ended up taking the teacher coming over and noticing the Pause button was down. I completely missed that. I didn't even know there was a Pause button. I do now though, so there's that.

From there I went down to one of the third grade rooms to look at the projector. I lost track of how many trips I made back and forth between there and the library. The ceiling projector had an orange blinking light next to the lamp symbol but it was still working. But only when plugged directly into a laptop. Normally it is plugged into the overhead projector thing and the laptop is connected to that, so the teacher can swap between projecting the laptop or the overhead. It seems that the overhead is malfunctioning but the blinking light on the projector is also a problem I put in a trouble ticket for the projector because someone is coming tomorrow to look at the fourth grade projector (which continued to not work after I cleaned it out).

After working on the projector I stayed in the room so I could set up all the iPads in the iPad cart for state assessments. Originally only one class for sure wanted to test on the iPads with another willing to try it if the first class went well. Now several more are interested so along with the one iPad cart I set up initially, the principal wanted me to set up two more carts. One more to go.

All that took me up to lunch. After lunch I had three classes and a small group of second graders. I sent the second graders back five minutes early because they wouldn't stop talking. Normally I wouldn't have cared but I had warned them twice and told them if they continued I would send them back. Those second grade groups have caused me a lot of grief throughout the year. They are supposed to be working independently without need of my supervision, but they're still second graders.

After work I didn't accomplish much and then I made pasta for dinner. After dinner I read two articles. The first one was read while sitting on the elliptical and peddling. The second one I read at my computer with a minor nap in the middle of it because reading about licensing can be interesting but also boring. I managed to finish it, which leaves me with one more article to read this week. Along with the group project on image databases and the paper on databases. And possibly something else or two that I am forgetting at the moment. I would like to fast forward to all that stuff being done. Mainly because I haven't started working on either and the stress is creeping up.

Tomorrow there will be testing and then probably normal day stuff. After work I have a meeting with the PR person at the public library to see about volunteering there. Hopefully that goes well. There is no reason to think it won't but I don't really know what to expect. She asked me on the phone what I was what I wanted to do and I didn't know. It is kind of the same thing with the practicum I want to do. I don't have any library experience so I want to do a practicum to see what I like, but I have to do the practicum in a specific area, so I have to know what area I want to work in. It's like going to school to get a job and then the job requires work experience, which you don't have because you were going to school. For the volunteering thing, I honestly don't know what my options are, so I think that is what we'll be discussing tomorrow. Even if I'm just shelving books I would be fine with it but it would be cool if they had something that would give me more practical experience.

February 28, 2016

I did things today and I felt much better about myself for doing so. I picked out a license to analyze for an upcoming assignment and claimed it on the discussion board. I also heard back from my partner for the upcoming and it looks like we are going to be looking deeper into the acquisition of image databases. At the moment I know absolutely nothing so it will be an educational week. And most of my day was spent reading seven chapters for my technology class. That was really a setup for the paper I have to write this week. We have to write about databases in libraries and I have to come up with two other sources. Not sure where those are going to come from. It is really hard to search for information about the history of databases in libraries without just getting a bunch of results for History databases. I'll figure it out.

After dinner I finished up my reading and then watched The Oscars. It's not over yet but the beginning was dominated by Mad Max: Fury Road. It was beginning to feel a little suspicious. Story-wise it was pretty boring, lets drive out there and then come back again, but it was visually impressive. I think Oscars pools at work are thing people do and the sheer number of wins that Mad Max got had to have ruined almost everyone's picks. Chris Rock is hosting and he has been pretty funny but I've got to say my favorite part has been the commercials. Samsung has been killing it.

And... holy cow. It kind of seemed like a foregone conclusion this year but Leonardo DiCaprio just won his first Oscar. And speaking of killing it, he nailed his acceptance speech. One that was not interrupted by music even though he easily went over his time. Smart move on the part of the guys in the control room. On a side note, Leonardo DiCaprio always looks like he's got chewing tobacco in his lip. At least every time I have seen him recently. Just an observation.

Soon I'll probably be going to bed. It's already eleven o'clock but I'm not tired. I'm afraid this will turn into another week of late nights and poor sleep. At least this week I'll be able to put part of the blame on schoolwork.

February 27, 2016

Without hyperbole I can say that I literally spent the whole day actively avoiding schoolwork. Actively in a very inactive way, however, because my guilt at not doing schoolwork prevented me from engaging in any other activities. I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos, listening to music, and aimlessly clicking around the internet. It was kind of awful.

At some point in there I did decide on what to write about for a new piece of library technology for my technology class. Originally I wanted to do 3D printers but when I checked the class wiki someone had already made a post about that. So I went with LimeSurvey, which is just a survey tool. And even though I picked out LimeSurvey sometime this afternoon I didn't actually start writing my entry until sometime after midnight. Ridiculous. I got it done though, so there's that.

Tomorrow I will need to do more schoolwork. I need to read stuff as well as figure out a few upcoming projects. If I can't manage that the upcoming week will be very stressful, as opposed to just regular stressful.

February 26, 2016

This morning there was one test. The sixth graders returned and again a large chunk of them didn't finish. They started with the Math test, which all but one of them finished, and then went back to the writing from yesterday. A few finished the writing but instead of having them stay until they finished we had to stop for an assembly. There's always next week.

The rest of my day was normal. I had classes in the lab and I edited computers. I also updated the gifted teacher's tablet and laptop. It wasn't a terribly exciting day.

The other day I rediscovered the old Type-Right II's at the front of the computer lab and brought batteries in so I could play with one of them. This afternoon I showed it to one of the fifth grade teachers because we occasionally have typing test races. When she started trying one of the lessons a couple kids came over to watch and by the end of it all but one or two of her kids was huddled around, fascinated by this. These kids hate Type to Learn 4 but are completely enamored by a keyboard with a calculator screen from the 90s. It was interesting.

Tonight I went to the library book sale with my mom and sister. I think it was bigger than previous years because they opened up a new space right off the regular room, rather than having it spread out around the second floor. Based on the tour I went on a few months ago, I believe that new space will someday be the teen library, once the library has the money to build it. The recently renovated and built a nice children's library area and while doing that they built the second floor area because it was cheaper to build it while everything else was going on than to wait until later and add it on. I got way too many books. And I won't be able to read any of them for awhile. I got a lot of craft books about cross stitch, needlpoint, quilting, and woodworking. I also got a few random young adult books, a quote dictionary, a slang and colloquialism dictionary, and a biography. The best books by far was a book that I got with no intention of actually reading it. I saw the title and had to pick it up because I wasn't sure what I was seeing actually existed in reality. Then I read the synopsis on the back and immediately dropped it in my bag. The title, Fat Hoochie Prom Queen. And the first bit of the synopsis:

"Margarita "Madge" Diaz is fat, foxy, and fabulous. She loves herself, and is adored by almost everyone else...except queen bee/student-body president Bridget Benson. These two girls have a history that's uglier than a drag queen after last call."

After the book sale we grabbed Sonic for dinner and after dinner we went through our bags of books. It's hard to be an average price of just over a dollar a book. And it's going to a good cause.

I didn't really accomplish anything the rest of the night. Tomorrow will hopefully be consumed with schoolwork. I need to write another entry about new-to-me tech for libraries. Last time I wrote about a website that allows people, or libraries, to easily create a simple mobile website. I am thinking this time I might write about 3D printers. I've been thinking about it throughout the week and nothing else is coming to mind. I emailed the same guy I partnered with last time to see if he wanted to partner on next week's assignment. Fingers crossed on that. I think there is another assignment for that class that I need to start working on as well.

There's just a lot of stuff creeping up and my anxiety level is rising. The book sale tonight was a good way to take my mind off of it for a bit but it'll hit me again tomorrow morning. We'll see how long it takes to convince myself to get out of bed in the morning.

February 25, 2016

 This morning there was more testing. None of the sixth graders finished their writing test. Well, one of them did but because no one else did the teacher said he might as well come back to it tomorrow so he can read over it again. This is the kid who skipped fifth grade and he was done reading the passages and taking notes in under ten minutes. He then spent the next hour writing his response and based on the size of the scrollbar it was a novel. At the same time, most of the kids in the class did exactly what I told them they should probably not do, which was spend almost an hour taking notes. Or staring off into space and then telling me they were still taking notes when I asked if they were ready to move on. It was annoying. In their defense they were having to read (or listen to) two passages that started with something written by Herodotus and something else written in the early 1900s. Not something I would pick to read first thing in the morning. Especially with an opening line like this:

“Moreover also the answer given by the Oracle of Ammon bears witness in support of my opinion that Egypt is of the extent which I declare it to be in my account; and of this answer I heard after I had formed my own opinion about Egypt.”

What the hell is up with that sentence? It's like word salad in print.

There was an assembly this morning but I missed it, along with one of the sixth grade classes, because of testing. This afternoon I had classes in the lab and I edited sixth grade baby pictures. Progress is being made. I haven't been keeping track but I think I'm close to finishing the pictures I have so far. Although that might just be optimistic thinking.

Yesterday I got randomly bored at work and looked at the old typing practice things that have been on the bookshelf at the front of the lab since I started. I never really gave them much thought but yesterday I became curious so I started looking at them. There are five or six of them and consist of a keyboard with a small, one line screen similar to a simple calculator. They require four AA batteries and a few of them still had batteries in them. Two of them had batteries that had burst open. The date on a few of the batteries was 2001, so they've been around for awhile. I tried one of the lessons and one of the games. The game scrolled letters across the screen and each level got progressively faster. It was made infinitely harder at the higher levels because the letters had to blink out while moving to the next spot on the screen. It was fun but I had to stop because my left wrist and forearm are bothering me again.

After work and for the rest of the night I accomplished nothing. And I feel kind of crappy about it. I've got a lot to make up for this weekend. It's really frustrating. I think part of it is feeling overwhelmed, not only with the semester workload picking up, but also the fact that I need to start applying for jobs. And this will quite possibly involve jobs that aren't anywhere close to home. Moving away bothers me because my family is here and I'm not good with keeping in touch. My mind tends to be wherever I am and I don't give much thought to where I'm not. It would be nice to move somewhere and try out a new environment but I also don't want to lose touch with my family. So I've got all that piled on top of work and schoolwork. My mind is being pulled in a million different directions at once and all I want to do is escape.

Right now I'm going to escape into dreamland. I'm tired.

February 24, 2016

 Today was an early release day at work and it was fairly uneventful. This morning there were two state assessments and after lunch several kids came back to finish tests. So my day was almost entirely taken up by watching kids take tests. What a joy. The most amusing part of the day was this morning when the Art teacher was convinced today was March 2^nd. Completely convinced. Would have bet a lot of money on it.

After work it was too early to pick up Chipotle so I went home and accomplished nothing for awhile before going back across town to pick up food. I didn't get there until around five o'clock so I had to drive around the block twice and then ended up parking behind the restaurant because Chipotle's parking lot is way too small. It was all good though because my burrito bowl was tasty and videos I showed after dinner were well received.

The rest of my night was uneventful, much like my day. I briefly looked into some stuff for school and I posted a reply to the weekly discussion. School is starting to pick up and it is slowly starting to hit me. Not enough for me to kick myself into gear but enough for me to start feeling the stress subtly making an appearance on my periphery. Not a fan. Life in general at the moment is kind of blah and that is definitely carrying over to school. I need to start feeling better about myself and in turn I think that will improve my mood when it comes to other things. Hopefully anyway.

Now I'm going to go to bed. Well before midnight.

February 23, 2016

 What if one of the causes of getting a song stuck in your head was your brain picking up on radio waves traveling through the air? I'm fairly certain radio waves don't work like that but who really knows? Much like TV, it's at least 90% magical.

There was more testing this morning but only one test because the middle school choir came for a performance first thing this morning. One test is nice. Several of the kids didn't finish and a lot of that was again due to spending an inordinate amount of time taking notes. It doesn't matter how explicitly I tell them that they do not and should not spend an hour reading and taking notes, a handful continue to do just that. It is hard to watch but to each their own. There isn't a time limit on the test so there is no sense of urgency or actual need to go fast. It is just my lose of sanity from watching them at stake.

When testing was over I put together a proof of concept for the end of the year slideshow. I brought my laptop and dropped the video of rain on a window into my video editor. Then I made a slide of pictures with a transparent background and dropped it in. Thankfully it worked like I thought and it looked like the pictures were on the window. The tricky part I discovered was when I tried to pan across the pictures. It panned across the pictures but the rain video stayed stationary so it ruined the effect of the pictures being on the window. The way around this was to put the same panning effects in the exact same spots on the video, so even though the are still independent layers they move together. I am hoping there is a way to merge the layers or somehow lock them together so I don't have to recreate everything I do on the pictures on the video as well. But we'll see. Today was just about putting it together and seeing if it worked.

My free time in the afternoon between classes in the lab was spent editing pictures. I only finished three pictures but two of them required quite a bit of work and I was pretty happy with the outcome, not that anyone will actually know.

Near the end of the day I went up to look at a projector on the third floor that has apparently been acting up. Apparently it would only stay on for short periods of time before shutting off, usually in the middle of a lesson. I was up there yesterday returning a laptop that had an issue and the teacher mentioned the projector. She said they had just replaced the bulb last year and they are supposed to last for quite awhile. My first thought was that maybe the filter was clogged and it was powering off because it was getting too hot. I think this thought came from my computer turning off when I didn't plug in the liquid cooling right for my CPU and it was overheating and shutting down. It was just a thought but I figured it would be an easy check that might prevent an expensive bulb and a long wait for IT to show up.

So I went up today with a can of air and a hope that there was something sturdy to stand on. I had a very nice, solid chair, which was way better than the small stool I stood on last year when I was looking at a projector in one of the third grade rooms. When I opened the door for the filter it was immediately apparent that it was packed with dust. I think it would give a projector installed in a hay barn or a flour mill a run for its money. I doubt it has ever been cleaned out. I blew air into it, shook it out, and dug around a little bit until I couldn't get anything else out. I also blew out the compartment it was in and the other vent openings which had built up traces of dust. Lastly, I pulled out the bulb to look at it just to make sure it wasn't a lemon. It appeared to be fine, it didn't look burnt and the filaments looked fine, so I'm hoping it was just the clogged filter not letting air get to the bulb.

After work I stop by the urologist office to pay my “overdue” copay. When I left my appointment last month I asked about paying and the lady said I was good. That didn't make a lot of sense and it turns out the reason for that feeling is that I was not good. Due to my long wait getting an x-ray it was after their usual closing time and the receptionist I saw when I came in had already left. I think there was just miscommunication between her and the lady who I saw when I left. And that led to me getting a note saying I needed to pay my copay, with a bright sticker reminding me I would be charged a fee next time and blah blah blah. I realize it is a canned letter but seeing as it was their fault, not mine, I was a little annoyed. But, it was a mistake and not something to get worked up over. So I stopped by and paid it so I could save on the stamp.

For school tonight I read an article and listened to a webinar on the licensing of electronic resources. As all webinars seem to be, the sound quality was awful and it frequently cut out. In their defense it was recorded five years ago, but ones recorded a month ago are also awful, so nothing has changed. The teacher actually made it optional because the quality was so poor. But I wasn't in the mood for reviewing the licensing websites, so I went with the webinar. I started by playing it through my speakers and that made me want to rip my ears off. By switching to headphones it sounded more like a phone call with someone on the other side of the world. Not great but bearable. A lot of it was a rehash of what I read yesterday and today but there was still some interesting information. I kind of like the tediousness of licensing and copyright but I don't think I would want that as a job. I still think I want to be on the public side, not technical.

While I listened to the webinar I played Crashlands. It's a game that doesn't require a lot of thought, which is nice, and I was able to kind of zone out and make progress in that while learning about licensing. It was a win-win. Earlier in the night I downloaded Crashlands on my old Nexus 7. The last time I used it was to briefly play Fallout Shelter when it came out for Android. I think I played it twice in the week between semesters and then I went back to textbooks. And before Fallout Shelter, I have no idea how long it had been since I had used it. A really long time. I actually had to update the tablet twice before I could even download Crashlands and I was worried at first that it wouldn't work at all. Turns out it runs better on the tablet than it does on my phone. I ran around for a little bit just to try it out, and I liked it, but having to tab in the direction you want to go means your hand is always in the way, which isn't good when you're trying to avoid bad guys. I also prefer the fighting mechanics with a mouse. But it is still really cool being able to sync a save from my computer to a mobile device and pick up right where I left off. I know there are games out there that have a mobile component but they're basically just mini-games. And there are a lot of games now that start on mobile and then end up on PC and cost a lot more even though it is the same game. Crashlands feels different, even if it isn't to those who are more experienced with cross-platform games. It feels like a fully-fledged PC game that just happens to also work on mobile.

Anyway. It's nearly midnight, so my poor sleep streak this week continues. Hooray. I'm going to go to bed now.

February 22, 2016

 There isn't really much to write about today.

I woke up at six o'clock this morning but stayed in bed because I could. I really need to find the motivation to get up and exercise in the morning.

At work there were two tests in the morning and then regular classes in the afternoon. Nothing eventful happened. I spoke with my fifth grade teacher friend about random stuff while her class tested and then again in the afternoon when her class had their usual lab time. That's about the only thing of significance. I'm actually struggling to remember what I did when there weren't classes in the lab. I didn't edit any pictures but I think I spent my time working on an idea for the background of the slide.

I think it would be cool to have a rainy window as the background. It started with wanting to find a window with a frame and anything and make it look like the pictures were on the window. I couldn't find any that looked like what I wanted and I started making it way too complicated, looking up ways to make glass in Gimp. Today I started thinking and animated rainy window would look cool. Again I tried to make it way too complicated and then I had the obvious thought to check YouTube, where I found a video of rain on a window. Tomorrow if I have time I'm going to throw it into my video editor and see if I can get it to work. The plan is to have the video on one layer and then have all the pictures on another layer. I figured I can arrange them in Gimp on a 1920x1080 slide without a background and then put that on top of the video. I've never tried it before but it seems like something that should work. My worry is that the whole thing will look like a bit of a downer. I'm going to start the slideshow with a slower, more somber song, but then it will pick up and I'm not sure if the rainy window will look weird with the upbeat music. That is what I hope to figure out tomorrow.

After work I had a haircut and then I went home. Before dinner I don't think I accomplished anything. For dinner I made pasta for the first time in awhile. I used one of the bags of pasta I got from my Dad for Christmas and it came with a bag of seasoning. You put the seasoning in a pan with some water and let the water mostly cook off before you put it in the pasta with some olive oil to help it coat the pasta. It was good but it was also really spicy, which I'm not a big fan of. I put some cheese on it to try and deaden the hotness, which worked a little bit, but it was still hot. Tomorrow I might try ranch dressing, because why not.

Tonight I read a textbook chapter and edited my application for the summer class going to the ALA conference. I erased a line and added in a bit about my school because we were supposed to say something about being ambassadors for the school. I don't know. It would be a really cool opportunity but the chances of getting to go are very small so I won't be planning on it.

Now it is midnight and I should probably go to bed. I don't feel that tired, and I'm worried I'll just lay there for hours without falling asleep. But laying down will be nice, so I'll give it a shot.

February 21, 2016

 I accomplished things today. It was spread out throughout the day, even though it could have been done before lunch, but whatever.

I replied to two posts on the weekly discussion thread, one this morning and one this afternoon. I read through my interview paper, made a couple changes, and then posted it to a discussion thread and submitted the paper. I also wrote my statement of purpose for the chance to go to the ALA conference this summer as part of a school group. And I think that was all the school stuff I had. I could have read more today but I didn't. I need to get back on the Sunday reading schedule but not this week.

The thing I am most proud of today is the phone coaster I made. I find the sound of my phone vibrating while on a hard surface to be very jarring. I don't like it. In the past I would put it on a book, which wasn't much better, and then I started putting it on one of the coasters I have made recently. That gave me the idea of a coaster for my phone, one that is the size of my phone so that it looks purposeful. Right off the bat the bottom thread in my machine got tangled up somehow and I had to tear out a big knot of thread in the fabric but thankfully it was the inside so it didn't leave a noticeable mark. The rest of it went smoothly and I really like how it turned out. It is exactly what I wanted and it serves its purpose perfectly.

Throughout the day I watched YouTube videos and a couple shows on Netflix. I watched all of F Is For Family, which I just learned about the other day. I'm not really a big fan of Bill Burr's stand-up but I think he fits perfectly for an angry cartoon dad who is prone to cursing. I also started watching the first season of Sirens, which is a great show. I got into it late and don't think I ever saw the first couple of episodes. It makes being an EMT look like fun. I appreciate that they went the comedy route and didn't include all of the trauma and PTSD stuff. That is a show I wouldn't watch.

Tonight after I had made my second discussion post I played Crashlands. I made it to the second biome which requires new tools and new stations so it is basically like a whole new game. I believe there are three biomes in the game and I image the third biome will also include new tools and/or weapons and stations to build. I'm okay with that. I'm twenty-seven hours into the game and I'm still having a good time.

In the coming week at work there will be more testing. Glorious testing. I will probably also spend a lot of time editing baby pictures, hopefully. The end of the year will be here before I know it and that is also when school and work will both pick up in intensity. It would be nice to get as much of the slideshow done before that starts happening. I'm still deciding on songs and I have no idea what I'm going to do for the background yet. I'll get there.

February 20, 2016

 I slept in this morning and it was fantastic. If only I could do that every day.

I only had time to write one paragraph of my interview paper before lunch but that is still better than nothing. I worked on it for the rest of the afternoon and was able to finish it before dinner, granted my dinner had to be a little later than usual.

After dinner I read some more copyright stuff and then went through the tutorial so I could take the quiz. I think it took me two times to get all the questions correct. I made an assumption on one of the questions and it bit me. I got a second questions wrong because I only picked one out of the two options, and it counted it correct anyway, but I went back a third time and switched that. Copyright is a tricky thing and it seems like something that will be a constant in my life as a librarian.

When I finished the quiz I responded to someone who had responded to me on the discussion for thread for the week. I want to make two more posts tomorrow. That's the goal anyway.

I also need to write a statement of purpose tomorrow for the chance to go to the ALA conference this summer as part of a class. The chances of getting picked for that are slim but it would be a great opportunity and much like the scholarship I just applied for, it can't hurt to try. And, for better or worse, the statement of purpose can only be 250 words long.

I played more with Hexels and figured out a couple new things. It would be nice if there was a community out there that was as big and active as the Gimp community because it would make finding tutorials and information a lot easier. For the time being a lot of the functions of the program and what I want to do with it will just have to be found out through trial and error. Much like playing a video game before the internet had really caught on.

Tonight after everything was done I relaxed with some laid back music (Made in Heights) and played Crashlands. I mostly farmed resources but I also completed a side quest which unlocked some cool things. I also unlocked the recipe to enlarge one of my pets for the second time and I already had the materials so I was able to do that. And I figured out that the fish food item was actually a seed that you can plant in water to create your own fishing spot. Now I don't have to go searching for fishing spots spread out across the map because I put eight in the big body of water right outside my back door. I also made the trinket that increases the number of fish in the water. Hooray for fishing.

Now it is time for bed. Tomorrow I am going to sleep in (hopefully) and then figure out my statement of purpose and respond to a couple discussion posts. I also need to read through my paper one more time before submitting it. I should be able to knock all that out in the morning but I'll drag it out throughout the day. If I do get done and have the time I would like to mess with Hexels some more, maybe jump into the Unreal Engine, and possibly sew. There is a lot of potential for tomorrow. Generally not a good sign because that just sets me up for disappointment, but we'll see how things go.

February 19, 2016

 Here's to a quick entry because it is way too late and I am way too tired.

This morning there was more testing. It went fairly smoothly minus one kid testing out of the lab not being able to get into the test at first. The principal ended up figuring out that the access code they were trying to use was for the math test and the kid was trying to take the writing test. It would be nice if there was one daily access code for everything but no, we have to have a different code not only for the test subject but also grade level. Good grief.

This afternoon I got a response from my professor saying I could use her as a reference for my scholarship essay, and I got the okay from the principal as well, so I sent my application and essay off to be judged. I got a response from the lady I sent it to, saying she had received it and that they would be reviewing applications in March. I will probably forget all about it by then.

When I didn't have classes in the lab this afternoon I worked on editing sixth grade baby pictures. And there might have been something else in there too but it's not coming to mind. At the end of the day I went up to the new sixth grade teacher's room because this morning before work she said she was having some kind of issue. I went up and found out it had to due with the color on the projector being different than what was showing on the laptop it was connected to. Most noticeably anything red showed up as black. My first thought went back to the ESL projector from a few months ago so I looked at the VGA cord. It looked fine at the computer so I looked where it is plugged into the wall and saw that it was slightly crooked. As soon as I straightened it back out and pushed it back in, tightening the screws, red became red again. Hooray for the simple fixes.

Tonight I feel like I mostly wasted time. I kind of wanted to write my report for the librarian interview because that is due Sunday. I read through my interviewee's responses, looked back at the previous ones I have written to jog my memory, and watched the twenty-four minute video that professor made explaining the assignment. And then I couldn't even start my first sentence. That means that tomorrow will most likely be taken up entirely by writing that report because I'm going to drag it out way longer than I should.

As a compromise with myself I was decided to read some of the material on copyright that was assigned this week. I read about a couple different court cases so that's better than nothing. Tomorrow or Sunday I'll need to finish the rest of the reading and then go through a tutorial so I can take a quiz over it. I foresee that happening Sunday but who knows. Maybe I'll actually wake up with enough time before lunch tomorrow, and enough motivation, to knock out a rough draft of my interview report. Then I could work on the copyright stuff in the afternoon. I'm not holding my breath, though, because I'm freaking tired now and the thought of writing a report isn't great motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

When I wasn't working on school stuff I played a little more of Crashlands, because I'm addicted. I mainly farmed resources so I could build a few new things and played through the next quest in the main storyline.

I also started messing around with Hexels, a drawing program I bought a few days ago. I saw it on Steam and then fell down the rabbit hole of looking at all the different things that have been drawn in it. I was mostly intrigued by being able to draw tiny little rooms that are angled so they look 3D. I think it would be cool to do a series of tiny rooms that show scenes from a library. I also want to see if I can come up with a cool design to maybe use as a background for the sixth grade slide show, or maybe just a new desktop wallpaper. After drawing my first little room I also played around with drawing little cubes in Braille. I have some ideas for that.

Now it is one o'clock in the morning and I need to go to bed so I can hopefully wake up early enough tomorrow to accomplish something before lunch. In reality I see myself waking up late, doing nothing before lunch, procrastinating all afternoon, and finally writing my report after dinner. Saving the copyright stuff for Sunday. Having said that, I would like to avoid it. I want to play with Hexels more and maybe try and get into building in the Unreal Engine again, both of which I will feel guilty about doing if it is only to avoid schoolwork. Anyway, bed time.

February 18, 2016

 Today did not feel like a very productive day at work. The morning was filled with testing. Depressing testing. The kids are given guiding questions to help in their note taking while they read the passages. The prompt that they are then required to answer is based directly on these guiding questions. It is really hard to watch kids take a bunch of notes based on those initial questions and then write a two-sentence response to the prompt. They have gone over practice questions in class and learned how to write in the different styles that may be required of them on the test. And then it all goes out the window when they sit down at the computer. Even if you ask a kid after the fact if they are happy with their response, they are, and if they think they fully answered the prompt, it isn't even a question in their mind that they didn't. I'm pretty sure I could bluntly state that they didn't and they wouldn't believe me. Yet another example of why I don't like tests. Most of these kids know how to do the things that they inevitably get wrong on a test, they just can't do it on the test for a multitude of reasons. It's really frustrating to watch, even more so for the teachers who have spent all year teaching them these things.

After lunch most of my time was spent with classes in the lab. In the little free time I had between classes I went around and updated Firefox and Java on all the computers in the lab. They both need to be updated for the voluntary ACT test in a few month and even though there will probably be maybe five kids taking the test I figured I might as well update all of the computers. I think these updates are supposed to happen automatically but you have to be logged in as an adult and be authenticated for that to happen, which is rarely the case so the updates never happen. It's a flawed system.

In the last little bit of the day I managed to finish editing another sixth grade baby picture. That's really the only bit of progress I felt at work today. Tomorrow will possibly be much of the same.

Tonight I wrote my scholarship essay. It is through the KLA so I needed to be a member and I'm pretty sure I am but I couldn't find any record of it. When I first joined the ALA I did the joint student membership with the KLA because it was the same price. I don't think I ever got a renewal notice for the ALA and I was afraid when I renewed manually that it would ignore my previous year of membership but it didn't, thankfully. I would have assumed that when I renewed for ALA it would have included KLA but again, no mention of it in any of my email inboxes. And there is no way to log into the KLA website so I couldn't check if I was a member or not. Eventually, after running around in circles, I decided to renew my KLA membership because I thought it would stop me if I was currently a member. I had to sign up to make a purchase and when I used my school email address it said that the email address was in their database but it wasn't listed as a primary address so it wouldn't let me log in with it. I tried three other email addresses and nothing worked. I also tried resetting my password with my school email but the reset link just sent me back to the login screen. Needless to say, super annoying. So I signed up again, using a different email address, and paid for another membership. So if I wasn't currently a member, I am now, and if I was, hopefully the overlap will be caught and I'll get a refund.

And all of that for the chance at a scholarship that I probably won't get, because I'm optimistic like that. I do like my essay, though. I'm a little annoyed that there was a 500 word limit because if it wasn't already obvious, I'm a tad verbose when it comes to my writing. I like to ramble. But I got it done and had five words to spare. Now I'm just waiting to hear back from one of my professors to see if I can use her as a reference. Tomorrow I'll ask the principal if I can use her, because I need two, and if I don't hear back from my professor I'll ask the school librarian. I should be good.

Not is is creeping up on midnight and I need to go to bed. I didn't sleep great last night but it was better than the night before. I'm looking forward to the weekend, not for all the schoolwork I need to do, but because I'll at least have time to sleep.

February 17, 2016

 Sleeping last night was a bit of a fail. I went to bed a little after nine o'clock and woke up at 12:45AM completely ready for the day. I woke up again at 2:30AM, completely ready for the day. What should have been a long night of restful sleep turned into a long night frequented by wakeful states. Not great.

State assessments started this morning and they went well for the most part. We're starting with the writing portion of the test and one girl lost all of her written response when she went to spell-check it. She was one of the only students who took notice of the guiding questions and took notes based on them, so that sucks that she lost what she wrote, but at least she will be prepared for re-writing it, and will hopefully write something even better. I heard that one of the kids testing outside of the lab lost all of the notes he had taken because they didn't hit the save button on the notepad before moving onto the second part of the test. That happened a lot last year and it would be nice if they could implement an auto-saving feature or some sort of prompt or pop-up that wouldn't allow you to move on unless you had saved. The other noticeable issue was the spell-check feature and the fact that a lot of kids aren't really familiar with the concept. Most of them can barely type so spell-checking isn't high on the priority list. I sent out an email after testing to all of the teachers and paras with some tips and observations, one of which was to go over the basic idea of a spell-checker and how to use it. I was explaining it to kids as they came to it but it was really hard to watch them using it incorrectly and not being able to do anything about it.

Testing took up most of the morning but the afternoon was normal. I had classes in the lab and when I didn't I worked on editing sixth grade baby pictures. The day went by fairly quickly.

After work I stopped by Chipotle before heading home. After dinner I showed several videos and then I showed my sister Crashlands because I was explaining it to her the other day. It is still incredibly addictive but I'm trying not to play it for the next few days.

The reason for that abstinence is the realization tonight that I have a lot of schoolwork to do before Sunday. After dinner I wrote my discussion post for the week, so that's good, but I will still need to comment on a few different posts. I still need to read all the copyright information, which is supposed to be pretty dense, and take a copyright quiz, I think by Sunday. I also still have a couple days to write a scholarship essay. If that is going to happen I'll need to write it tomorrow and get an email sent to one of my professors to see if I can use her as a reference. And my librarian interview paper is due on Sunday. I have a lot of material to work with so the content shouldn't be a problem, I just need to write it. That will probably happen on Saturday.

So my plate is a little full at the moment, which is entirely my fault because I slacked off the last couple days of our long weekend. I think the semester is finally starting to pick up and I need to pick up the pace so I don't get overwhelmed and stressed out.

Now it is after midnight and I need to go to bed. I'm freaking tired and hopefully that means sleeping through the night. Tomorrow will be more of the same, testing in the morning and classes in the afternoon. Can't wait.

February 16, 2016

 My goodness, I'm tired. Let's get this thing done.

Waking up this morning was a little rough because I didn't get to bed until around one o'clock in the morning. I much prefer an up late, late to rise kind of schedule. Early mornings are awful, even when I've had a full night of rest.

Work today was a very average day. I scanned and edited some sixth grade baby pictures throughout the day. I also had several classes in the lab throughout the day. Nothing eventful happened. One of the first grade classes came this afternoon even though they weren't scheduled but it worked out. While the kids worked on their computers the teacher used the projector to draw the silhouettes of the kids, one by one. I'm sure there is a way to just turn on the bulb but I couldn't be bothered to figure that out so I just opened a blank Word document to get a bright white background for her. It worked pretty well.

This afternoon I cut out tickets for the state assessment. I didn't think we needed tickets this time around because I thought it was going to be like MAP testing where we were given a generic log in for all the kids and then they would pick their name from a list. I was half right. The kids still have to have tickets to log in and there is also a new access code every day. I'm not sure where the code comes into play but I'll find out tomorrow. One thing we noticed today, thankfully before I started cutting, was that the username and password for each kid didn't change between the writing and math tests, so I only cut out tickets for one of the tests, which saved me quite a bit of time and effort.

On my way home from work I stopped and got a Powerball ticket because I definitely would have forgotten about it tomorrow. It's not a very good vice when I keep forgetting to partake. When I was nearly home I passed a giant SUV sitting at a stoplight. This is not an unusual occurrence but this SUV also had a Great Dane inside. I know this because its head, from the base of the neck up, was sticking out of the sunroof and it was just looking around like it was no big deal, like it is normal for a giant dog to be sitting in a giant SUV with its head sticking out of the sunroof. It was such an odd thing to witness.

From the moment I got home my lack of sleep from last night hit me like a ton of bricks. I just read one short article for my technology class and I am going to read one more, because it is also short, before I go to bed. Or not. No, I'm not going to read it. I need to take notes on it to reference for the discussion post this week and I was nodding off during the first article so yeah, no. There is always tomorrow. I will have four articles to read for my technology class and a bunch of copyright stuff to read for my other class so I can take a tutorial quiz. I really should have read over the weekend. Oh well.

It's not quite a quarter past nine o'clock and I am going to go to bed before I fall asleep in my chair. Hopefully early to bed, early to rise. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

February 15, 2016

 This morning I again woke up early but unlike yesterday morning, I didn't get out of bed. I just laid there and enjoyed the fact that I didn't actually have to get up. It was nice.

Shortly after noon I got a text from my sister which reminded me that my aunt and grandma were going to be in town. She mentioned it last night and then I forgot all about it. So instead of eating lunch, which I was about to do, I jumped in the shower and got ready. I had a short amount of time after my shower to quickly eat a small tortilla with peanut butter and wrap my brother's birthday presents. My sister and her husband came over to the house and I ended up driving down with my sister and her husband drove his truck.

We met my aunt, grandma, and dad at a local restaurant and my sister and I didn't get anything because the owner is an ass. I had him for two classes in college and one of them was when my grandpa died. He had no sympathy when I missed a quiz which made me lose a lot of respect for him. The rest was lost just watching him interact with the other students because he was basically just an asshole. At first I thought he was just really sarcastic but upon closer examination, he was just an egotistical dick that seemed to get pleasure out of making kids feel dumb. Great guy. Ever since then I have refused to spend money at any of his restaurants or coffee shops. I didn't spend money before because I'm generally not a coffee shop person, but now I have an actual reason.

So my aunt, grandma, dad, and sister's husband got stuff and my sister and I just sat with them and talked. I talked with my aunt about libraries and a lot about sewing, showing her the stuff I have been working on. I also talked to my dad about woodworking and firefighting and other random things.

When lunch was over my aunt and grandma left to go see my mom and the rest of us stayed for a bit and talked out in the parking lot. Then I parted ways so I could go to Jo-Ann's to get more thread. I still had money on a gift card so I also got another jelly roll of fabric, which I learned from my aunt is what you call the 2.5” wrap of fabric, and a new ruler that is 2.5” thick so I can more easily square-up the fabric. When I got to the checkout and the girl asked if I had any coupons I showed her the one on my phone for 20% of my entire order. She mentioned if I went online there was also one for 50% off so I back up in the app and found it and asked her if that was the one she was talking about. She took my phone and scrolled around by the end of it I think she applied a couple different coupons which ended up saving me fourteen dollars, so I got everything for twenty-three dollars and I still have money on my gift card. That was unexpected and pretty cool. Kudos to that girl.

When I got home my aunt and grandma were still there so I go to talk to them some more. Before they left my grandma wanted to use the restroom and it was kind of funny. The bathroom is straight off the living room with a door to either side leading to two rooms, and those doors act kind of like a tiny, door-width hallway, if that makes sense. Both of the side doors were closed and the bathroom door was open with the light off. My grandma somehow missed the open door and opened the door on the right. My aunt noticed and told her that wasn't it and I told her it was the other way. So she turned around and opened up the door behind her. And when she realized that wasn't the bathroom either we all lost it, including her, especially when she looked to her right and saw the bathroom had been right in front of her the whole time. We started joking that she had done it on purpose because she was just really nosey. It was pretty funny.

After they left I went and scanned some documents for my sister. Normally I just use the scanner on my printer but this time I noticed an option for the document feeder, which I never used before because I always assumed it was just for faxing. Turns out that isn't the case. I was able to use it to import the documents into Gimp and then copy and paste them into Word in order to create a PDF. It was way faster than using the scanner. The only downside was that the documents were all slightly tilted but whatever.

Speaking of tilted, my frame came today. The one I ordered Saturday after being unable to find one at hobby Lobby. I like the frame and my Life Is Strange art print looks good in it but it is slightly tilted. I think it is the print but I didn't want to open all the tabs back up to check. And it really isn't that noticeable if you don't look too long at it. And if you're not someone like me who gets bugged by something being 1/16” of an inch off.

Tonight I played more Crashlands while watching episodes of Archer. Then I ended the night by making four more bookmarks. They're all a little wonky but I like them. And I still have thread on my bobbin so it turns out that my worry was unwarranted and much like my worry about toothpaste. It still looks like it will run out at any minute, though, so I'm glad I bought thread. It will undoubtedly run out in the middle of a project but hopefully it won't be too inopportune.

Now I need to go to bed because it is after midnight, I've been tired for a couple hours now, and I have to wake up for work in the morning. Glorious work, how I've missed thee.

February 14, 2016

I gave my mom her flowers and sewn bookmarks this morning, both of which she liked. She got me a card, and because I don't each candy, a Deadpool POP figure and a Triceratops Transformers toy because it was green. Both are way better than candy.

Having worked on schoolwork every other day of my extended weekend, I took today off. The majority of my day was spent watching YouTube videos and playing Crashlands. Even though I went to bed around two o'clock last night I woke up at 7:30AM this morning. I was tempted to lay there until I fell back to sleep but I figured it would make it easier for me to get to bed tonight. Although so far I have ignored my tiredness and it is now midnight. So I didn't do great there but whatever.

I thought about sewing but my bobbin is getting low, or at least it looks like it is getting low, and I didn't want to get in the middle of a project and run out. I also feel that the regular spool is getting low as well but I have no idea how thick the body of the spool is. I remember what they used to look like when I played with my grandma's old ones as a kid, but I have no idea what they're like now. I figured it would be of no help to refill my bobbin by draining the main spool. If it is like everything else in my life, however, the bobbin and the spool probably have a long way to go. I have a tendency to by toothpaste and shower soap a month or two before they actually run out because I think they're going to run out. The thought that they might run out was enough of an incentive for me not to sew. I was going to go to Jo-Ann's but I got caught up in Crashlands. We'll see if I can get up and around tomorrow and go buy more thread. And maybe find more rolls of fabric for bookmarks.

In Crashlands I completed several quests and collected hundreds of things because my inventory is bottomless and it is great. I also unlocked the fishing rod today, and fishing in video games has been one of my favorite things ever since Ocarina of Time, so I spent a lot of time fishing today. Before ending tonight I was able to tame my third pet. At the moment you can only have one pet out at a time but it would be cool if they could all follow you around like a odd gang. The next time I play (probably tomorrow) I have plans to build a bigger base slightly to the west of my current base. I initially started building right by my crashed ship but now I'm cramped between water spots and the crashed ship is getting in the way of my garden. There is a much bigger area right next to where I built, and somehow I missed it, but I've noticed it now and that is where I want to build. So that will happen soon.

Tonight we went to the Chinese buffet for dinner and it was packed. As we were walking to get our drinks there was a little girl standing by her table and she was just smiling and waving so I smiled and waved back. I'm probably just seen as some weird dude waving at a kid but working at an elementary school has made it second nature to wave at kids when I see them, especially if they're waving at me, even if I don't know them. Perfectly acceptable practice in school but I might want to reconsider it in public situations when I don't know the kids. Anyway, the food was good and I ate too much but it was worth it.

After dinner we went home and had the red velvet cake that my sister made from scratch. Not surprisingly, it was really good. She also made a big thing of heart-shaped biscuits, which I will be eating for every meal for the next week. And I'm perfectly okay with that. My sister also liked her flowers and bookmarks.

I almost forgot that this morning I moved our old old dining room table into my computer room so I have a bigger surface to iron on. And I meant to type 'old' twice because it is the table we had before the table we just replaced with a new table. So it is the old old one. I will probably end up just stacking stuff on it in the near future because it is a flat surface and that is what one does with flat surfaces, but at least for a little bit it will be my ironing table.

And now I think I'm going to go to bed. It's nearly 12:30AM and my eyes are struggling to stay open. Tomorrow, maybe some sewing, maybe some thread buying, most likely some video game playing, and maybe some schoolwork. I've got options.

February 13, 2016

I think I accomplished everything I wanted to today. Productive times. This morning my partner sent me an email that he had posted our assignment and told me to look over it and get back to him. Right off the bat he spelled my name wrong and then I noticed a misspelling that was my fault, so I sent him a message about those two things.

After taking a shower I went to Hobby Lobby to see if I could find a frame but they didn't have the right size. I could have bought a kit but it would have been almost twice as expensive as Amazon and it wasn't the look I was going for. I ordered one from Amazon when I got home.

From Hobby Lobby I went back across town to pick up the flowers I got for my mom and sister for Valentine's Day. Every year I am reminded of the struggle of trying to transport two vases of flowers in my car. I had the added challenge of having them fill the vases to the brim with water, one of which already overflowed and got the box it was in wet before I even left the store. I made it home with everything intact so I'm calling it a victory.

When I was done with lunch I eventually got around to re-reading the chapters I had already read for my technology class and reading the articles I hadn't read yet. All in preparation for taking the quiz. We had unlimited time but we were only able to take the quiz once, unlike the first quiz where we had unlimited attempts. One attempt makes more sense for a quiz but it did make the test anxiety real. That's why I have been putting it off all week. Or maybe two weeks, I can't remember when it was assigned. Anyway, after dinner I took the quiz and it took me forty minutes to answer twenty questions, but I got 100%, so it was worth it. God help me if we have another quiz and she puts a time limit on it.

Dinner was delayed because we had a class meeting at six o'clock. I think five of us showed up, and there are eleven people in the class, so not a great turn out but I've seen worse. We were supposed to have our assignments posted beforehand so the professor had each of us in turn describe our assignment and then she asked us questions about it. A few people had webcams and/or mics and a couple of us just used the chat window. I always stick with no webcam or mics for class meetings because I like to multitask and even when I'm not doing anything else I just think people look awkward sitting there, so I opt-out. Tonight I did multitask. For the first part I cut several pieces of fabric for more bookmarks. And for the last part I was actually able to start sewing. I wanted to make two more so I could give my mom and sister two of them instead of just one. Back to the class meeting though, it went well. I was able to answer all of the questions and she liked that we went with a journal and paid attention to the various access methods through the library. I was worried that we were supposed to go with a database, which is what I think everyone else did, but the journal ended up working out.

After dinner I finished up the bookmarks. I got them sewed together and trimmed during the meeting and after dinner I got them turned right-side out, ironed, sewed, and ironed again. They turned out well. At some point I need to get back to the coasters but right now I'm liking the bookmarks because they are easier and take less time to make.

When I finished those I played Crashlands and watched a couple comedy specials on Netflix. In Crashlands I continued collecting things to my heart's content, made my garden bigger, finished several quests, found a new pet, and made my first pet bigger. So much like the rest of my day, it was productive.

Now I'm going to go to bed because it is almost one o'clock in the morning and I am tired. Much like with an extended break from work, my sleep schedule has become completely screwed up. Hopefully I can get to bed at an earlier time tomorrow night.

February 12, 2016

I don't think I moved a muscle in my sleep last night. I woke up at 7:30AM this morning and was in the exact same spot I went to sleep last night. And I have no memories of waking up throughout the night, which I normally do. At 7:30AM I woke up to go to the bathroom and then went back to sleep until eleven o'clock and again, didn't move a muscle. It was great.

Obviously I didn't accomplish anything before lunch but this afternoon I edited the group assignment based on my partners input and sent it to him. I told him to look over everything, make any changes he saw fit, and then submit it. He hasn't done it yet but we have until six o'clock tomorrow night.

After dinner I sewed. I made two more bookmarks to give to my mom and sister for Valentine's Day because why not. My first attempt was a bit of a fail because I didn't get the fabric turned right. The outsides need to face each other when sewing the pieces together so when you turn it right side out, the right side of the fabric is showing. I only flipped one piece over and forgot about the back piece so when I sewed them together I had one good side and one backside showing. I didn't follow through with the rest of it. I did much better on the next two.

Today I read an article about a game called Crashlands. It was created by a team of brothers while one of them had cancer. At the time of the diagnosis they were working on a different game but the brother with cancer didn't want that to be the last game he worked on so they came up with Crashlands. Reading about the game itself made it sound exactly like what I wanted to play. Something casual that I can get lost in. It sealed the deal when they mentioned an infinite inventory. So I bought the game and put several hours into it today.

It kind of looks like Don't Starve but more sci-fi and no permadeath. There are crafting and building elements so you can go around and collect resources from creatures and plants, and use them to make items and build a base. There is also a story so you go around to various characters on the map to get quests and progress the story. It is definitely one of those games where you look up and an hour has gone by. And then two. Not having to worry about my inventory is great because one of my favorite things in a video game is being able to run around and collect stuff. So many games limit inventory space and I would say that fact alone is a major contributor to me losing interest in a game. It gets annoying trying to manage an inventory and pick what I want to get rid of. It's also nice not having to divide things up into a million chests. Needless to say, I'm enjoying the game. I think I found the original article after clicking a side link in another article which I also found in a side link to another article, which I probably found on Digg. The stars aligned.

It is now two o'clock in the morning and I need to go to bed because I have to wake up so I can pick up flowers tomorrow. I said before noon but we'll see. I probably should have waited to pick them up on Sunday but it's all good. Other than that, maybe I'll write that scholarship essay tomorrow. I would also like to make some more bookmarks. And play Crashlands. I just need to wake up before noon.

February 11, 2016

This morning I was woken by a phone call from the public library. My volunteer application made it to the PR person and she called to tell me that February was a busy month but we set up a meeting on the first of March. And I put it in my phone because there is no way I will remember it.

A good portion of my day was spent working on the group assignment for class. It took a lot longer than I was expecting it to. I think most of that was due to having to click through a lot of different pages and trying the same thing on different sites. I got there in the end and was able to get all of the questions answered and sent it off to my partner. Later tonight he send it back with some of his notes. I'll look everything over more closely tomorrow and figure out what to do next. I think a draft is due Saturday before a class meeting and then the final version is due Sunday night.

I played Firewatch tonight and I was able to finish it. It took me just over seven hours to complete and that involved a whole lot of running around that was unrelated to the plot, so it is a really short game. And in the end it was very underwhelming. They elude to a big mystery and dangerous things but in the end the two main characters were really just getting worked up over nothing. The ending would have been far less disappointing if the theories for what was happening weren't introduced, because they were all far better than the actual ending. It's almost like they forgot to write the ending until the night before the game shipped so instead of flushing out some of their ideas they just wrote “The End” and called it good. It just felt incomplete and that is a shame because there was so much potential. The voice acting was good, the game looked fantastic, and I really liked wandering around in the world. I would have liked to be able to do more in the lookout tower. There is a lot of random stuff you can interact with but that only means picking it up and putting it back down. None of it really serves a purpose. I couldn't start a fire in the stove or make food or really do anything else. I was also a little disappointed to find out there wasn't an achievement involving the books. There are books scattered throughout the world in the supply boxes and several of them have a number in the title. They go one through nine and I hiked all over the place once I realized I could get them back to the lookout tower. I thought maybe there would be an achievement or maybe something would happen in the game if I collected them all. But there wasn't, which made it feel like at one point there was a point to them being numbered but then it was never added to the game. I couldn't even fit them all on the same row in my bookshelf. If I cut out most of my unnecessary wandering around the game would probably last well under five hours. Maybe even three to four. I don't regret pre-ordering it but I am disappointed. I wouldn't mind if they called for a do-over and gave the plot another shot in a (free) DLC. Or maybe filled the world with more things to do. At one point they tease you with the chance to go fishing but then they don't let you. Again, so much potential that just wasn't ever realized. I definitely won't be pre-ordering any games from this developer in the future, no matter how good they look. I'll have to wait and make sure they didn't botch the ending again.

Soon I'll be going to bed. Maybe. Tomorrow will involve some more schoolwork. I would also like to write a short essay for a scholarship. I've been meaning to do that for awhile though and I think it is due this weekend. I probably won't write it. Now that I'm done with Firewatch I would like to get back to sewing. I need to make some more bookmarks.

February 10, 2016

I forgot to mention we lost one of the computers in the lab yesterday. I think it was sometime in the morning when one of the IT guys showed up and said he needed one of the computers because it had a virus. There was a second grade class in the lab at the time and one of them was on that computer so I had him move. Then when I was trying to close out of his stuff and shut the computer down, the IT guy kind of made a big deal out of holding the power button down and saying he had to kill it because it had a virus. Really? It would have been one thing just to say he was going to do it that way because it was faster. Being dramatic about it was a bit much. The virus picked a good candidate to be removed from the lab. A year or a few ago they replaced the computer that was there with the current one and it has been crap ever since. It was immediately the slowest computer in the lab and it basically just sucked. My second choice would be the one with the tiny hard drive that I have to keep deleting profiles off of to free up space. Hopefully that one will be next.

Now we're down to twenty-five computers in the lab, which would be fine but one of the second grade classes has twenty-six kids. When that class came in later in the day the kid who normally sits at the computer with a virus did Compass Learning on an iPad instead. It seemed to work out but in the future we may need to switch to a laptop. Fingers crossed the IT guys fix the computer in a reasonable amount of time. Or maybe replace it with one on par with the rest of the ones in the lab. That bar is pretty low.

Today I spent a lot of time editing photos for the sixth grade slideshow. There were also several classes in the lab throughout the day. I corresponded with my partner a couple times throughout the day regarding the weekly assignment. I'm kind of taking the lead on this which is fine with me because he kind of took it last semester. We decided to look at a journal instead of a database because that seemed more manageable. For the assignment we have to evaluate the resource using two parts from an appendix in an article we read. Both parts only have a handful of questions so we decided that we would both come up with answers for all of the questions because a lot of them are subjective. Then we'll swap answers and each take one of the parts to write about. So I might write about the answers to the first part, using both of our responses, and he would write about the second part. This way if we do have differing perspectives on the subjective questions we can include both in our write-up. That will involve a little more work for both of us but there really isn't much work to begin with and I think our final product will be better for it.

After work I went to Chipotle, ordered flowers for my mom and sister for Valentine's Day, paid a bill, and got a Powerball ticket. A fairly productive but expensive trip home. Tonight instead of watching several shorter videos after dinner played The Big Fat Quiz of Everything throughout dinner and then for awhile afterward because it was so long. I would say it was worth it though because both my mom and sister enjoyed the show. Over the years we have watched a few Big Fat Quiz shows and I believe they have always been well received.

After dinner I toyed with the idea of working on my partner assignment but by 9:30PM I gave up on that idea and played Firewatch. The game has me intrigued. I still like wandering around the woods and the story is picking up. I have about four and a half hours in the game now and I have no idea how long the game is supposed to be. Other than watching a few trailers before the game came out, I have avoided everything else. I'm interested to watch some videos and livestreams to see what choices other people are making but I'm not going to do that until I finish the game to avoid spoilers. I did the same with Life Is Strange and I am glad I did. I'm curious to see how much impact my choices will have on the outcome. I'm not even sure if there are different endings. So far the only real choices are conversational but I could see those choices leading to different outcomes. We'll see. The ended may be right around the corner. Or I could only be halfway done. The time isn't entirely accurate considering how much time I have spent ignoring the story and just walking around and taking screenshots. So who knows. I'll enjoy it while it lasts. And then maybe play it again and make different choices if I find out there are several different endings.

Now I'm going to go to bed because it is after one o'clock in the morning and I am freaking tired. Tomorrow I am going to do my part of the group project and send that to my partner. I would also like to take the second quiz for my technology class. There isn't a time limit on it but unlike the first quiz we can only take it once. I'm worried there are going to be some oddly worded questions like there were on the first quiz. That is why I have avoided it for so long. Anyway, bed time.

February 9, 2016

 Today went by fast. And now I want to go to bed.

A good chunk of my day was spent working on the STEM slideshow for the principal. I finished putting borders on the pictures and then created the slides by putting two pictures on the backoground I found yesterday. I also created a title slide using the same background but I put a black layer on top of it and made it transparent so I could still see the background but it made the words on top of it more readable. Then I dumped all of the slides into Windows Movie Maker, put the basic cross fade transition on them, selected random pans and zooms, and added in the music, making the slideshow run as long as the music. The first time I rendered it I picked the highest resolution but I might have gone with an online video which had a lower bit rate and it kind of looked like crap during the panning. So I rendered it again and picked the highest settings, which came out much better. I ended up rendering out two versions, one with my first choice song and a one with my second choice. I gave both to the principal so we'll see what she thinks once she has a chance to watch. She wanted it by Friday so if she hates it I still have time to correct it. I think it turned out pretty well, though. Surprisingly well for finishing it in less that two days.

This afternoon when one of the kindergarten classes was in the lab, one of the kindergarteners was getting frustrated with Compass Learning because he couldn't figure something out, so he decided to take that frustration out on his neighbor. He looked over at her screen for a little bit before standing up and trying to take her mouse while saying “Let's get this straight, Annie, that's not math.” They argued about it for a few seconds while I walked up to them. I had him sit back down in his seat, pointed at the thing he needed to click on his screen that he had missed, leading to his frustration, and I had his neighbor go back to her work. And, for the record, she was working on math.

The slideshow took up most of my day, and classes in the lab filled most of the rest. Near the end of the day I was able to scan a few more baby pictures for the sixth grade slideshow and I was able to edit one of them. Not great progress but pretty good considering the amount of time I had.

I also emailed my interview questions to the two potential interviewees. That was later in the afternoon and didn't hear back but hopefully tomorrow. I know they need to talk about it and figure out who will actually answer the questions and if they want to meet in person or stick with an email interview. I would prefer email because that has the least impact on the schedules of both parties and I can refer back to typed out answers rather than my memory and scribbled notes. In-person interviews are also good, and I gave both options in my email today, so we'll see.

Tonight I read an article before dinner that nearly put me to sleep and gave me a headache, all at the same time. That's impressive.

After dinner I watched a bunch of YouTube videos and finally managed to pick two options to review for the partner assignment this week. One was a single journal and the other was a database. I was leaning toward the journal because it was less involved and the database would probably get a little overwhelming with the time we have left. I didn't mention that in my email to my partner with the recommendations because I didn't want to show any bias but when I heard back from him later in the evening he thought it would be better to go with the journal as well. Hooray for that. I'm going to email him back when I finish this to confirm the journal and maybe lay out how to divide up the criteria we are using to review the journal. It would be nice to get a start on that tomorrow but I've got Thursday and Friday off from work and tomorrow is Chipotle night, so the motivation probably won't be very high.

Firewatch came out today and I played it for about an hour and a half tonight. A lot of that time, if not most of it, was spent wandering around once I made it to the woods. I really like the art style and it was relaxing to just wander around in the woods at night with all the nature sounds. Made me wish I was actually in the woods. When I did finally start playing the game I enjoyed it. I like the voice acting, particularly the lady on the radio, and the game mechanics are pretty good. It's a little awkward using 'R' for run but 'Shift', which is a typical run button in games, is used for the radio. Getting used to that difference will probably screw things up for me when I get back to a game with more traditional controls but I'll deal with it. I also like how you can walk with your compass out to navigate or with your map and compass out to better find your way. With the five day weekend coming up I will probably be playing a bit more of it.

Not tonight, however, because it is after eleven o'clock and I am tired and I want to sleep. If I didn't have to wake up for work tomorrow I would probably go back to playing the game, but I'm going to be a responsible adult.

February 8, 2016

 I am almost positive there is a thing that happened today that I wanted to mention and have since forgotten. The feeling is strong. Oh well.

This morning I helped with literacy centers in one of the kindergarten classes. I got one of the oddest of odd ducks in my group and he was particularly annoying today. We were doing an activity that involved going around the table and taking turns and because he wasn't paying attention and was just trying to get attention, I skipped his turn, several times. And I don't think he was even aware of it. A couple of the other kids were even pointing it out to him but he seemed oblivious. Other than him it was a good group.

I got an email this morning from one of my classmates asking if I wanted to partner up for this week's assignment. It was the guy I was planning on asking if I was still without a partner later in the week so that worked out nicely. I worked with him last semester on the collection development policy analysis assignment that I made the music score presentation for. This is only a week-long assignment so it isn't a big project, but it is nice to know I'm with someone who will pull his own weight.

Keeping with the school theme, I emailed one of the librarians I have interviewed in the past to see if he could recommend a librarian for this semester's interview. We emailed back and forth a few times and he came up with two possible candidates. I only had the four required questions and a long list of possible questions and he said once I figured out the possible questions I could email them to both librarians, who are both electronic resource librarians but do slightly different things, and then whichever one can better answer the questions will be my interviewee. I went through the list of possible questions tonight and pulled out several so I'm going to email the list to the librarians tomorrow and we'll keep this ball rolling.

During some of my free time today I continued editing pictures for the sixth grade slideshow. I would like to be farther along at this point I've definitely made a decent start. I need to go through and make a list of who I still need pictures from so another note can be sent home.

I also started working on another slideshow for the principal who wants one by Friday made up of all the pictures she took at the recent STEM night at school. I was going to go super simple but then I decided I had a bit of time so started putting white borders around all of the pictures, which I almost had time to finish this afternoon. I also found a background science-themed image that I'm going to put one or two pictures on for each slide. Depending on how busy things get tomorrow I should be able to get all the slides made. I'm going to try Windows DVD Maker again, which I used for the football slideshow I made for the school librarian. And if that doesn't work out I will go back to my video editing program that I use for the sixth grade slideshow.

And again it feels like I'm forgetting something I did today so we'll pretend I wrote about it here.

Tonight, as I mentioned earlier, I decided on the interview questions that I want to ask. I also listneed to a bunch of music and picked out a few potential songs for the STEM slideshow. And I started looking at possible electronic resources to review for the partner assignment. I'm not sure if we should do an entire database, which would involve a lot of information, or if we should just pick a single journal from a database. I will probably make that decision tomorrow. The questions should be fairly simple to answer after the resource is locked down.

Tomorrow I would like to finish the STEM slideshow. Or at least get really close. I would also like to have a librarian lined up for an interview. And get the electronic resource finalized so I can start answering questions for the weekly assignment. But now, it is after eleven o'clock and hopefully I will be in bed by midnight. I think there is a good chance of that happening.