Thursday, March 31, 2016

March 31, 2016

 My brain is fried at the moment. Let's see what I can remember.

The testing schedule for the day involved two classes testing in the lab this morning and one on the iPads. This afternoon there were going to be two classes on iPads and one in the lab. The first test in the lab and with the iPads went well and we discovered that students could directly from stage three to stage four on the Reading test without a delay like there is between the other stages. That means students will only need six testing sessions all together instead of eight. So that's something.

With several kids left to finish in the second testing session of the morning the test crashed. Some of the kids still testing got a pop-up telling them not to close the test and the ones that made it to the end of a section got a seemingly perpetual “Processing” screen. Most of these screens eventually resulted in error messages. With a little patience and a lot of perseverance most of the kids managed to at least make it to the end of the section they were on, in between error messages.

By the afternoon we were told the system was back up and running. This turned out to only be partially true because with a few kids left to finish the test crashed again. One of the fifth grade teachers testing on the iPads said several of her kids ended up having to redo a section multiple times because every time they got to the end and tried to submit it, the test would go back to the beginning of the section and all their answers were erased.

At this point KU and the state of Kansas need to cut their losses. KU needs to stick to basketball because running a state-wide test is obviously not their forte. The kids already miss out on actual learning opportunities because they have to take four major tests every year, rather than being taught new things by their teachers. Having to put up with all this state assessment crap only eats further into the time when they should be learning. Teaching students shouldn't be a novelty in schools but it is turning into that.

With the rest of my day, when I wasn't watching tests fail, I had classes in the lab and I came up with a couple t-shirt ideas for one of the office ladies. She is annoyed by the school fun run, which happens once a year, involves poorly designed t-shirts, and is really a pub crawl, not a fun run. She doesn't like that they are representing us (although very loosely because the school name isn't anywhere on the t-shirts). I think it was last year that they were out until late into the night, most needed rides home, and one of the teachers threw up on a couple other teachers. So not the best role-models. I'm more offended by the poorly designed shirts, especially this year. It should have taken place earlier in the month, but it is taking place on the first of April. Despite that the shirt is green and there is a shamrock on it. A group of people in St. Patrick's Day themed shirts way late is definitely one way to draw attention to yourself, wanted or not.

After work I read most of an article and finished it after dinner along with a textbook chapter. Then I spent the rest of the night writing one of my discussion posts for this week. I still have two to go, along with all the responses. I need to get at least one of those written tomorrow, hopefully at work but it might have to be after class tomorrow night. My post tonight involved a lot of going back and re-reading bits of articles and a website and watching part of a video in order to pull references together to make it look like my answer to the question was more than just opinion and BS. I think it turned out well.

While working on that I think two spiders entered my life. I say I think because I can't confirm either. The first may have been another little one descending from the ceiling I had an itch on the top of my ear and when I scratched it I felt something. When I brought my hand down there was a small dark thing that looked like it may have been a tiny spider before I inadvertently squished it. The second possible spider was much larger and I saw it out of the corner of my eye running across my floor toward me. It was moving so fast that I didn't actually have time to look away from the article I was reading to see it. The speed makes me question whether or not it was a spider, or actually existed in real life. I immediately put shoes on and got up to see if I could see it anywhere but I couldn't. It was at that point I decided I would not be sleeping on the floor in this room tonight. Nope. Not going to happen. After finishing my discussion post I went and put the sheets back on my bed.


And now I'm going to go to bed because it is late and I have to get up in the morning. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. My only real goal is to not forget to pack anything for my trip out of town this weekend. Especially my shirt for Saturday.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

March 30, 2016

 This morning we didn't test because we didn't get the go-ahead until late in the morning. I spent my morning with classes in the lab and editing a photo. I also spent a little time looking at audio mixers. I don't need one but for some reason in the last few days I've spent a lot of time researching them. I think it is partially due to my interest in audio stuff but mostly due to a need for a mental escape from schoolwork.

This afternoon we had three classes test at 1:30PM. Both fifth grade classes tested on iPads and one of the third grade classes tested in the lab. And it went flawlessly. Minus the fact that only one section of the test could be taken because there is still that long delay in between sections. It is probably for the best because I think it is better on the kids not having to answer so many questions in one sitting, but that is how it should have been billed to us in the first place. Not that we would be administering two sections during each testing session, because that has really messed up the overall testing schedule. Oh well. Life goes on.

After lunch I was out in the hall talking with the principal about testing stuff when we both stopped talking at the same moment. We had both heard the piano in the music room, which was emanating with the sound of fast-paced ragtime music. We walked over and the principal opened the door to reveal the substitute band teacher absolutely destroying the piano. It was incredible. And it would have been impressive regardless of who was playing but the substitute is the really old guy, at least in the high seventies and maybe older, that kind of shuffles around and seems slightly confused most of the time. But then he sits down at the piano and completely kills it. It almost felt like one of those prank videos where they dress up a young athlete as a senior citizen and have them run circles around regular people playing sports. I was waiting for him to pull off the mask. That never happened, however. He's just an old dude with crazy piano skills. Even writing it now I can't quite believe it.

On my way home I got Chipotle and a Powerball ticket. The lady making my burrito bowl kind of screwed me over and I ended up eating the whole bowl instead of half because there wasn't much to it. On a slightly positive note, the girl at the register tried entering the order two different ways and by going with the cheaper one, saved me about twenty cents. I'll take it. We'll ignore the fact that eating the bowl in one sitting instead of two effectively doubled the price of my meal because the cost wasn't being spread out over two meals. We're focusing on saving twenty cents.

I didn't play any videos after dinner because I only had a couple this week and I needed to read school stuff. I managed two long articles and the setup for the group project in my technology class. Tomorrow I should be able to read the chapters and another article for that class. There is a longer article that she assigned that I am interested in reading but it is seventy-three pages long and because of that she made it optional. I'll at least skim it. I also need to hopefully knock out a couple of the discussion posts for this week. I head down for class on Friday so it would be nice to get the bulk of my weekly work done by tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

While leaning back in my chair and reading one of those articles tonight I saw something just above me, slowly floating into my field of view. I figured it was a random piece of fluff so without even looking I blew towards it and kept reading. It didn't move away like it should have, however, and when I actually looked at it, I saw that it was a tiny spider. I continued blowing in order to direct it onto my desk, where I was able to coax it onto a piece of paper, and then walk it outside to release it. I then spent the next several minutes staring at the ceiling to make sure he didn't have friends up there waiting to descend on me. It was the same size as all the ones that showed up in my bathroom and I was afraid that they only rolled in groups at least fifty deep. This one appears to have been working alone. At least I am going to tell myself that because I didn't see any more and I don't want to think that there are a bunch around that I can't see. That is a disconcerting thought and I actually want to fall asleep tonight.


Now I'm gong to watch a few videos and go to bed. A solid plan.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

March 29, 2016

 Yesterday a fifth grader asked me if I was married. It will be easier to write out this conversation in non-paragraph form.

5th Grader: Are you married?
Me: I am not. Are you married?
5th Grader: No!
Me: Why not?
5th Grader: Because I'm only 10!
Me: That is a really good reason.
5th Grader: Why aren't you married?
Me: Because I'm only 30!

It was an entertaining conversation.

The morning once again started with testing. And once again the kids were only able to take one section of the test. This time the next section never showed up, even after forty-five minutes. It really would have been nice to know this while coming up with the testing schedule so we could have scheduled eight testing sessions instead of four.

This afternoon there was supposed to be another test but right before the class came into the lab I started getting emails from the other schools in the district saying their tests were crashing. One of the resource teachers came down and showed me the same issue on an iPad and I got the same error on one of the computers in the lab. It was like a flashback to two years ago when the test was completely broken.

Right after I got that flood of emails, Outlook died on me. For over an hour it said it was disconnected and even when that went away I could receive emails but couldn't send any. It was a very inconvenient time to lose email. I ended up having to communicate with the principal about the testing issues via text message because she was out of the building. And I couldn't respond to any of the other emails I was getting. Hopefully that will be resolved by tomorrow.

It was later determined that the test servers crashed because there was construction happening at the university where the test servers are located and they accidentally cut through the internet and phone lines. Whoops. As much as it sucks for us having to deal with tests crashing and scheduling issues, at least we don't have to deal with the responsibility of the entire test breaking down. Due to that problem they don't want anyone to test before ten o'clock tomorrow, at which time they will update everyone on the current situation and we'll see if testing can resume. Can't wait.

On a positive note to the test fail, it meant that the kindergarten class whose regular lab time got bumped for the test, got to come down for lab. Hooray. I also had time to go down and turn off the beeps for that kindergarten teacher's printer, because printer beeping is annoying. Beeping in general is pretty annoying.

After school I eventually read a textbook chapter. After dinner I read through a conference PowerPoint presentation and an article. Reading long PDFs on a computer is awful. I don't mind reading short articles online but long journal articles are a literal pain in the eyes. I also don't remember the information as well as I do when I'm reading from a book or from paper that I am physically holding in my hands. Most of these articles are for my class about managing electronic resources, and those resources are obviously here to stay, but paper is still the best medium for me.

Speaking of, I got The Black Book of Colors today, which I ordered the other day after stumbling across it while getting sidetracked by braille stuff, while writing my universal design for learning paper. I'm going to have to join the reviewer opinions that said the braille in the books is difficult/impossible to read with your fingers because the bumps aren't raised enough. I also have no training in reading braille with my fingers, however, so my opinion isn't worth that much. I am familiar with braille after learning it a few summers ago and making various art projects with it, but I've never actually tried to read it with my fingers before. Maybe with the proper training I would get better at it. I still think the bumps in the book should be raised more. They need to use a thicker paper so that the bumps can stand out more on the page. The concept is really cool though, so I like that I have added the book to my collection, even if I'm a little disappointed with the braille aspect.


Soon I will be going to bed. Tomorrow there may be more testing, there will probably be Chipotle, and there will most definitely be more reading for school. I'm looking forward to Chipotle. That's about it.

Monday, March 28, 2016

March 28, 2016

 Today went by fast. I hit the ground running this morning when I got to work getting everything ready for the first state assessment of the day. That involved turning on and logging into all of the computers, getting the tickets out of the principal's office, getting my testing signs ready, getting the access codes from the principal and dropping off copies to the second and third floor, and getting back to the lab in time for the test. And then I stood there and watched kids test.

The test is annoying. Each subject test is broken into four sections and they wanted them to be adaptive. So the questions a kid gets on the second section of a test is based on how they did on the first section. In comparison, the MAP test is adaptive at the question level, so as a kid gets a question right, the test gets harder, and easier if they get a question wrong. The MAP system works really well. The state assessment system not so much. They want kids to take two sections a day but there is a delay between sections while they figure out what should be in the second section. The low end of that delay today was around twenty minutes. Testing sessions are scheduled in hour-long blocks, which is a long time to be testing for anyone. The average kid takes around half an hour on the Reading test. With a half hour wait for the next section to unlock, that leaves no time to take the next section. We had four classes test today, two in the lab and two on iPads in their rooms, and none of the kids were able to take the second section. A couple had it pop up but it was when they had less than ten minutes left in their testing session. I'm not sure if each section is based on the previous section or if they're all based on the first section. If it is the latter than we might be alright because each class only has two scheduled testing sessions per subject and, at least with the classes today, three sections left to finish. For some kids that might be doable because the last three sections are smaller, but not if there is a half hour wait in between each section. It will all work out in the end because it has to but it would be nice if it could just fit into the nice testing schedule that has already been laid out.

After the test this morning I went down and helped out with kindergarten literacy centers. At one point the kid sitting next to me got my attention and then started slowly raising his leg and kicking it, telling me it was a good warmup. Completely random and funny.

On my way back from that I stopped in the library because the librarian had a laptop with a wonky key. I messed with it for an hour and finally got it to stop popping off but it wasn't a complete fix. It's usually easy enough to pop a key back on but this one had obviously been violently removed, which was exhibited by two corners of the key being bent upward. The underside components of the key were also cheep plastic and some really soft, easily bent aluminum. I tweaked everything as best as I could but it still wasn't great.

When I got back to the lab a para came down to print something for one of the kindergarten teachers and I ended up having to go down and install the new lab printer on that teacher's computer. The document still wouldn't print so I went down a second time and while leaving I got called over to the second kindergarten room to fix a paper jam in their printer (which was caused by the para trying to print to that printer initially). I fixed the paper jam but the printing issue ended up being forgotten about.

On my way back to the lab, once again, I ran into one of the preschool teachers who was having another issue with a laptop. They hate her and the feeling is mutual. She had someone bring it to the lab later in the day and I took a look at it. It had definitely been dropped more than once. I opened it up and the connection for the hard drive was loose, which probably isn't good. It was either that connection or the hard drive itself but I couldn't get it to work. I also had to work quick because I heard roomers of a tech guy in the building and I'm not even supposed to blow dust out of the desktop towers, let alone open up a laptop and take the hard drive out. Thankfully I didn't get caught.

This afternoon there was another test and that led right into a fifth grade class. I finally got to ask the teacher about having to record herself teach for one of her graduate classes. I had heard it was interesting. She had set her iPad up by the laptop cart in the back of the room and not too long into her teaching a fifth grader from the other class came in to get a laptop. She stood right in front of the iPad and then had an external debate with herself about whether or not she should move the iPad, all recorded on the iPad. She then moved it, pointing it at the students instead of the teacher, which resulted in one of the kids interrupting the lesson the tell the girl they were recording and she needed to move the iPad back. And then the rest of the kids from the other class came in to get laptops. Not long after that the art teacher walked in asked the teacher how much she loved her and then asked if she could borrow her iPad dongle. (Later on the teacher was detailing the experience in the teacher's lounge and that was when the art teacher found out there was a recording going that she had interrupted). So it was less than a perfect teaching session, but at the same time, it was a very typical one, having to persevere through countless interruptions.

On top of everything, the teacher apparently heard her voice for the first time, as other people hear it, and couldn't believe that other people have to listen to it. I'll admit that I found it a bit harsh when I first started working at the school but now I think it is perfectly normal. I'd say people probably think the same thing about my voice. I think I'm probably a little better about not having a monotone, at least not as severe as I once had, but I still felt bad that people were actually having to listen to it for extended periods of time. The teacher also wasn't a fan of all her mannerisms. Again, I don't think anyone is a fan of seeing themselves on film. There are even actors out there who don't like seeing themselves on screen. Human nature I guess.

One of the office ladies emailed me earlier in the day saying the annoying yearbook guy had stopped by to see me but they sent him away because I was testing. She wanted to let me know that he planned on coming back at the end of the day. They don't let him past the office anymore after he pretty much ran past them last year when they weren't looking after they told him he couldn't come down and see me. I was worried about getting trapped because I had to be down at the library after work to volunteer and the other office lady said I could email her and she would clock me out if it came to that. At the end of the day I scouted things out and made it in and out of the office without getting caught.

At the library it took a little bit of work finding the PR lady. Last week someone sitting outside the staff area had to go in and get her after my knocks went unanswered. Today another lady went in but couldn't find her so she took me down to the administration area. The guy there was able to call up and got her at her desk, so when I went back up she was waiting for me. Must have just missed her.

Today I continued working on the list of businesses that allow the posting of flyers. I finished the list last week but today I added in addresses. Next week we'll be able to break it into separate lists and map out the most efficient routes to travel when dropping flyers off. I might have gotten that far today but we had several random breaks to talk about food and travel and other things.


Tonight I downloaded the articles that I need for my classes this week and I watched a forty-five minute video of a conference panel about libraries implementing a new discovery tool. It was interesting and boring all at once. I also read through my universal design paper again before submitting it. That was a wise choice because I found two instances, in back-to-back sentences, where I had used 'quite' instead of 'quiet'. Yikes. That's apparently what happens when you're up until three o'clock in the morning writing a paper. Thankfully I caught it. I was going to read a textbook chapter after I wrote this but then I ended up writing way too much and it is now almost eleven o'clock. I've been ready for bed since 7:30PM. So I'm going to do that now instead.

March 27, 2016

 This morning I slept until 11:30AM and it was great. I then got up, edited my paper, and added a conclusion. Which I finished before lunch, so I met my goal. Hooray for me.

After lunch I played video games. I played a little Rocket League and had a couple good games and a couple bad ones. It is tricky trying to play a team sport without being able to communicate with your teammates. But it's still fun trying to figure out not only what the other team is going to do but also what your teammates are going to do. I also played The Division. It is hard to stay engaged with the story with so much downtime in between playing the game. And when I do play I tend to spend most of my time doing side missions and random encounters and never make it to story missions. I can see how the game can get boring with all the grinding, but I'm still having fun. Which is good because I have less than thirteen hours in the game and I am only level eleven. Right now the level cap is thirty so I've got a ways to go. I'll probably never make it and I imagine the level cap will get raised when the DLC comes out. I didn't buy the season pass so there is also a chance I won't get the DLC. I might lose interest by then. And No Man's Sky comes out this summer and that looks like a game I can get lost in for awhile.

Tonight I went to Easter dinner with my mom and sister at the Chinese buffet. Very Easter. As always, it was delicious and I ate way too much. It was fairly busy and there were a ton of college kids there, which was both interesting and sad. I'm assuming they weren't able to go home for Easter. But at least they had friends to hang out with, so it wasn't totally bad.

Tonight I watched livestreams and played The Division. It was a nice evening. Tomorrow I'll get back to school stuff. Yay. It might just involve downloading articles but I should probably at least read one. Next weekend is an in-person weekend so I can't save my reading until next weekend. And there will probably be weekend-related things that I'll need to look at. Something to look forward to.


Now it is midnight so I think I'm going to go to bed. And by bed I mean the floor under my desk. I put the mattress back on my bed tonight but didn't put the sheets and blankets on and I don't feel like doing that now. My camping air mattress has actually been really comfortable. It kind of sucks getting off the ground in the morning, or during the night when I have to go to the bathroom, but other than that it has been pretty nice. But I need to stop typing now so I can actually experience it because right now I will be getting less than six hours of sleep and I'll be watching kids test tomorrow. That is a rough combo.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

March 26, 2016

It is nearly three o'clock in the morning. Today did not go entirely as planned but it did go entirely as expected. I woke up this morning in time for the class meeting, which me and one other student were present for. The demo ERM site was still offline so the professor couldn't show us that. Instead she answered a few of the questions that had been brought up in the discussion posts. She also extended the due date on the discussion posts until next week due to the site being down for a couple days. When I checked back later in the day it was back up but I didn't have time to look at it.

Before lunch I decided on the overarching plan for my Universal Design paper. I then spent the rest of the day slowly working on it. I didn't really do anything else with my day but there were a lot of distractions and by ten o'clock this evening I only had the introduction and maybe another paragraph written. Kind of annoying but as I said, not entirely unexpected.

It was maybe around eleven o'clock when I really hunkered down again and started writing. I now only have the conclusion left. I formatted the paper, including the title page, at the very beginning and I made the reference list as I went along. My brain started to give out near the end so I'm saving the conclusion for tomorrow when I'm a little more awake.


I might end up sleeping through the morning but if not I should be able to write the conclusion and edit the whole thing before lunch. Then I could take the rest of the day off. Or start working on other school stuff. Right now I'm leaning toward taking the rest of the day off but that is also my biased, tired brain. We'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow. For now, I'm going to sleep. Nothing has sounded better.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

March 25, 2016

It's after midnight and I want to go to sleep, so lets make this quick.

Today was a very slow day. I had two classes in the lab this morning, the third one never showed up. I think my morning was spent editing photos. There may have been something else in there but it's not coming to me.

I got an email back from the librarian at the academic library and he said hew wouldn't really be around this summer, and that there isn't a lot of reference or instruction traffic during the summer, but he's going to ask his department head and see who will be around and what kind of work they would have for me. So fingers crossed on that.

This afternoon I had a couple classes in the lab and edited more pictures. At the end of the day I went and watched one of the third graders who I helped put a YouTube video in her PowerPoint, give her presentation on snow leopards. I was supposed to watch the presentation of the other third grader I helped but they apparently started early. Oh well.

After work I did nothing. I had plans but knew nothing was going to happen. After dinner I wanted to look at the demo EMS we have access to this week but it was offline. Unfortunate. The discussion regarding it is a pass/fail thing, so we only need to post once to get credit for the week. One option is to respond to a question, so I responded to the professor's question asking if there were any disadvantages to not checking in e-journals, which is just the process of making sure you get every issue that you have subscribed to. It is/was a common practice with physical magazines and journals but some librarians aren't a fan of the practice with e-journals. I don't really know how the process works with e-journals but I suggested the system should be automated, so librarians don't have to waste their time manually checking their subscriptions, and vendors could be automatically notified of the missing e-journals, which would expedited the process of getting them delivered. If it doesn't already work like that I think it should.

At work I started looking up stuff on universal design and I did a very small amount of research tonight. I did not, however, come up with an idea for my paper. That is not good. Tomorrow morning the professor for my electronic resources management class is having a class meeting to show us around the demo EMS. The rest of my day needs to be filled with writing the universal design paper for my technology class. Classic me. The paper should be written tomorrow so I can edit it on Sunday and turn it in. Although it isn't due until Monday so there's a good chance I won't actually finish it until Sunday and then edit it on Monday. I want to go with the first option. The key will be focus. I need to close all my browser windows that aren't related to the paper. I can do this.


But I must go to bed now so tomorrow can get here and I can do all the things related to this paper.

Friday, March 25, 2016

March 24, 2016

Today was a pretty slow day at work, at least in the morning. I think I only had one class and spent the rest of my time doing things. I edited ten more baby pictures and continued working on one of the sixth grade teacher. I also emailed my adviser my summer classes and found out I just need to have my practicum stuff done before summer. Which is good, so I emailed one of the librarians I interviewed at the academic library to see if he could be my supervisor or knew of someone who could be my supervisor. The ball is rolling. Next I will need to write up my career objectives and goals for the practicum. And then meet with whoever my supervisor ends up being and figure out what activities I would be doing during the practicum. I'm taking it for three credit hours, which means I've got to have 120 hours of work at the library, which sounds like a lot. Probably because it is. That's a lot of free labor, as well. Hopefully it all works out.

This afternoon was a little busy. I had both sixth grade classes in the lab finishing their album covers and dedications, and that led right into kindergarten. The second kindergarten stayed an extra forty-five minutes, so I was on my feet and bending over and helping kids for around three hours. My back was starting to feel it tonight.

After work I went to the public library. We had to go down and get a laptop for me and on the way we ran into a librarian who is the mom of one of the kids at school, who saw me there the other day at the assembly. The sister of the new sixth grade teacher, who is also a librarian, stopped by and mentioned me knowing her sister (because she sent an email about me). I'm making connections. As for the volunteer work, I started making a spreadsheet for the various places around town that allow the posting of flyers. I got all the places entered and now we have to figure out how to organize them.

Tonight I accomplished not a lot. After getting home for the library I ate dinner and then never got in the school mood. I eventually watched the tutorial video about make a tutorial video and a thirty-minute video explaining an ERM system from EBSCO. It was intimidating. And for this week's discussion in that class we have access to a demo ERM system that we are supposed to explore. I logged in tonight but didn't actually look at it because I started watching the video. I'll have to do that tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will also need to pick out exactly what I'm going to write my universal design paper on, because it is due on Monday and it would be nice if I could write the bulk of it on Saturday. That would mean I picked a goal for the paper and found the sources to cite in the paper tomorrow. Or early Saturday. But I imagine if I put that off until Saturday, I will use finding the sources as progress enough for one day. So if I can get all that sorted tomorrow, I can drag the writing process out all day Saturday. Something to look forward to.

Tonight I was watching Vern stream and when he left he raided/hosted LifeWithLaughs, which is a girl who streams and her husband, at least with this stream, is kind of like her hype man. She was coloring in a coloring book and he was reading and interacting with the chat. It has been incredibly entertaining. I will definitely be coming back to their stream in the future.


I was going to go to bed at a decent time tonight but got distracted by the stream and it is now after midnight. My slow morning was a little rough with my lack of sleep last night and I imagine tomorrow morning will be equally rough. So I'm going to stop typing now so I can sleep.

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

March 23, 2016

Let's start with the good news. Tanner didn't crap in the basement today. Or anywhere else in the house. Since dinner last night he has been switched over to a diet of rice and hamburger, which we'll say is helping.

Today at work was relatively uneventful. There was a couple from Australia in the library all day giving various demonstrations so I sat in on one of those, but the rest of the day was typical. I had classes in the lab, helped out with literacy centers in kindergarten, scanned and editing baby pictures, helped a couple third graders put YouTube videos in their PowerPoint presentations, and I think that's about it.

The best story of the day came from one of the second grade teachers who had to go home and change before school started because she was walking down the hall with a stack of stuff in her arms and spilled her cup of coffee all over her pants. She said the bright side was that her pants pretty much caught all of it so there wasn't a mess on the floor. Gotta think positive.

After work I went to Chipotle and bought a Powerball ticket. I drove with the windows down despite the wind being completely ridiculous. It was pretty breezy recently but today easily topped that. Just an observation.

When I got home, as noted earlier, I didn't have to clean up crap, so I read half of an article before dinner. Dinner went well and then I spent the rest of the night finishing the first article and reading a second. I know know more about information retrieval protocols and the history of electronic resource management. I've already forgotten most of it but I read about them, and that's got to count for something.

Immediately after dinner, before I got back into the reading, I logged into a class meeting. Turns out the professor wasn't covering any new material, though, it was just her normal office hours. And no one else was there so I went ahead and asked her if my idea to make my tutorial over Canva was a good idea. And by good I mean an acceptable topic that will get me a good grade. She liked the idea, so now I just need to make the video. She said tomorrow she will be posting a video tutorial about how to make a tutorial, so I'll give that a watch before attempting mine just in case she says something obvious that never occurred to me.

My professor mentioned that her power had gone out briefly due to the wind today and then we got on the topic of fires. There were a couple around here today and she said several days ago someone had driven along an old highway down by her and started sixteen individual fires. People are idiots. Especially those who pick a really dry, windy day to burn their field. Tonight when the moon was up I went out and looked at it with my mom and sister because it was orange due to the smoke. Depending on the coverage it ranged from a light orange to a really dark reddish orange. It was really pretty but it also lead to a thought. A single person, in this case most likely an idiot, has the power to completely alter how an entire town witnesses the Moon, which if you weren't aware, is a giant object floating in space. That is a lot of power for one idiot.


Soon I'll be going to bed under my desk again. It is after eleven o'clock and I didn't get around to putting my bed back together. Soon. Tomorrow I'm volunteering at the public library after work. After dinner I need to do school things. The end of the week is creeping up on me and I've still got to figure out what I'm going to write a paper about, along with all the other things. No pressure.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

March 22, 2016

I slept on the my therm-a-rest air mattress under my desk last night and I slept really well. I'm going to do the same tonight because I don't have the motivation to get my mattress back on my bed and put it all back together.

Today at work I made the lab schedule through the first week of May, which covers the rest of state assessments and the next round of MAP testing. It makes the next six weeks seem very short when compressed into one Excel spreadsheet. This year has gone by really quickly.

Other things that happened today. We had a character assembly this morning, I had several classes in the lab throughout the day, I had some good conversations with teachers, I downloaded all the articles I need to read for class this week, and I edited a picture. Overall, not a bad day.

Then I came home to discover Tanner had gotten past the gate again and crapped on the carpet downstairs. Thankfully I had remembered to shut my bedroom and office doors so I didn't have that to worry about. When I discovered that I went back upstairs and coaxed Tanner to come downstairs so he could go outside through the basement door. Along with everything else, his back legs were acting up today and I'm pretty sure he wasn't able to go down the stairs from the porch to the yard. It is much easier using the inside stairs. So I got him outside and then I cleaned up the mess. The most annoying thing about dogs being assholes, intentionally or not, is that you can never give them crap about. If a kid gets sick and throws up all over the house or craps on the floor, it's disgusting, but you all have a great story to hold over their head for the rest of their life. With dogs there is no upside, it all just sucks.

Most of my time before dinner was spent dealing with that. And after dinner I had absolutely no motivation to read long articles for school. I read through one PowerPoint presentation about the development of ERMs and the life cycle of electronic resources. It was interesting but I ended up taking a five minute nap in the middle of it. I didn't have a twenty-page article in me tonight. Tomorrow better be the day. With discussion posts and a paper to write, the end of this week is looking to be very stressful.


Soon I will be going to bed, on the floor under my desk. I'm looking forward to it. Tomorrow, I'm going to do more things. Maybe I'll read an article at work, where I'll have to stay awake. I'm looking forward to Chipotle night but I am not looking forward to coming home to more crap or vomit. Two days in a row I think it good.

Monday, March 21, 2016

March 21, 2016

It is eight o'clock and I have started writing this because I want to go to bed. I got five hours of sleep last night and I woke up at six o'clock this morning so I could run on the elliptical. I should have chosen sleep.

It was good being back at work but I could have gone with an extra week or two of Spring Break. Or maybe just an extra hour or two of sleep. The new sixth grade teacher brought in child photo options for the slideshow. She said she was the fourth of five kids and her mom had lost interest in taking pictures of her kids at that point so she only had one individual picture, which wasn't very good, and several pictures of her with her siblings. I went with one of those and cropped her sisters out of it.

And now I'm falling asleep in my chair so let's hurry this up.

This afternoon my fifth grade teacher friend brought her class to the lab and we talked about her Spring Break cruise. She had obviously spent a lot of time out in the sun, whereas I left the house maybe three times and occasionally glanced outside. She didn't catch any weird diseases on the ship, which is good because that seems to be a genuine concern these days when it comes to cruise ships. Along with cruise things, she spent a lot of time reading, and in one of the books she read there was a character with my name, first and last and the same spelling. Craziness. I was a little worried that maybe my life had been stolen but this kid only made it to seventh grade, so only my name was stolen. Still very strange.

After work I had a haircut and then I came home to awful things. Tanner had a bad day. I don't know the order of events but sometime during the day he threw up all over upstairs; he forced his way downstairs and spent some time on my bed before he dug at the blankets (tearing a whole in one of them) and throwing up all over my bed; there was also diarrhea on the carpet in the family room not too far from my room. I am thankful that the diarrhea didn't happen in my room and I am thankful that all of the really gross vomit happened upstairs, because it looked like by the time he got to my bed it was mostly water and a partially chewed dog biscuit. So much water, unfortunately, that it went through two blankets, my sheets, and soaked my mattress. It was a bitch dragging that thing outside so it could dry off and air out. It was a nice windy day, so at least that helped. I also Febrezed it. While I did a couple loads of laundry to clean my sheets and pajamas, that were also on the bed.

The icing on the cake to Tanner's day was having a seizure right before dinner. We have never really been sure why he has seizures but I think it is safe to say that today's was stress-induced. I am incredibly annoyed that he violated my bed but his day was way worse than mine.

Tonight I am going to sleep on the floor under my computer desk because it is about as far away as I can get from all the vomit and diarrhea. I'm also too tired to put my bed back together. My mattress is heavy as hell and I'm exhausted, getting it back inside was enough effort for one night. Tomorrow I'll worry about sleeping in my violated bed. The sheets will be clean and the mattress will be flipped over, but I'll know.


Needless to say, with the Tanner stuff and the tired stuff, I did not do any schoolwork tonight. I'll need to remedy that tomorrow. I need to download all the articles I need to read this week and I need to start thinking about the paper I have to write about universal design. I fear it will be a long week, and it hasn't started off on the best note.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

March 20, 2016

I did not wake up early this morning. I turned off my alarm and went right on enjoying my horizontal residence. I'm not that tired at the moment but I have no regrets.

Before lunch I read through and made a couple minor changes to my license review assignment. I'm happy with it. Until maybe when I get the grade back and I've missed points for something obvious. At which point I will no longer be happy with it.

This afternoon I sewed and finished seven of the bookmarks I started making the other day. Only eight more to finish up. I think the idea behind making so many bookmarks is to give them to all of the teachers and staff at work. If that is the case I still have quite a few to make. I also need to make the coasters for the few who gave me the gift cards that I used to buy my sewing machine. Baby steps.

I watched several hours of the Ultra Music Festival because today was the last day. My favorite performance was easily Zedd. He completely destroyed it. The video and light show was epic, his transitions were great, and the set list completely worked. I found myself bobbing my head with no recollections of when I had started. I know that several of the artists put up the video of their set on their personal YouTube channels and I am hoping Zedd does that this year. Or that someone uploads it somewhere.

I put together a piece of exercise equipment for my mom today. It came halfway assembled but I ended up having to take it apart further in order to put it together. One of the bars was mounted at an angle which prevented another piece from screwing into it properly. I had to take the crooked bar off, screw the other piece into it, and then put all my weight on the crooked piece so my mom could hammer the bolt back through it. Kind of ridiculous. But I got it together and hopefully she loves it and uses it everyday for years to come.

Tonight after submitting my license review assignment I played The Division while watching the last few sets of the Ultra Music Festival. I completed one main mission to unlock the tech stuff, completed a bunch of random side missions, discovered a new safe house, and made it to level eight. Progress.


As stated at the beginning of this entry, I'm not tired yet. A consequence of sleeping in. I am hoping to get to bed by midnight. I would also like to wake up at six o'clock and run on the elliptical. I managed to do that all throughout Spring Break but I wasn't having to wake up early to do so, I just did it before taking a shower, whenever that happened to be each day. Getting out of bed at six o'clock in the morning to exercise is when the real struggle kicks in. Fingers crossed.

March 19, 2016

I actually got up kind of early today. Still not early enough to get me ready for going back to work on Monday. I ended up reading through the rubric and glancing at my license review but I didn't actually make an effort to edit it. I did, however, work on the flyer for my video tutorial and with some input from my friend, I think I came up with the final layout. I've also been running through what I might say in the video. All part of the process. I'll start working on an actual script soon.

So I was a kind of productive today but I also spent a lot of time playing The Division. It is definitely one of those games where you're on your way to a mission and then do twenty other side quests and random things on the way and may never actually make it to the original mission. It also takes quite awhile to level, which makes me wonder how many hours these streamers have had to put in to already be close to or at max level. At the moment the max level is thirty but that seems incredibly far away.

Tonight I watched the Ultra Music Festival livestream again. The surprise of the evening was Hardwell bringing out Craig David, because they apparently have a new song together. I didn't even know Craig David was still making music. I bought one of his CDs back in high school or college but I never expected something like the Hardwell collaboration. And it's a good song. Craig David can rap really fast, which is something I was also not aware of.

Speaking of new music, Babymetal has a new music video out for their song “Karate”. I like it. It's an interesting video and the song is just as catchy as all their other stuff. After I watched it I went back and listened to their other songs because it has been awhile. Female lead singers in hard rock and metal are not that hard to find. Three young Japanese girls leading a metal band seems fairly unique. I've never actually looked for other bands like that, so there might be a bunch, but at the moment, Babymetal remains unique to me. I was intrigued by the concept but they won me over with music because it is very good and incredibly catchy.

Okay, I followed a link after a Babymetal video and found a group called Band-Maid, that is an all girl Japanese hard rock group that wear maid outfits. Unlike Babymetal, they play all their own music. They are much more of a traditional rock band, where Babymetal is more like a metal band fronted by three girls from a pop group. I'm three videos in and Band-Maid has won me over. They kind of remind me of The Pretty Reckless but a little harder and with more guitar solos.

And now I have fallen into a rabbit hole of Japanese girl music.


Tomorrow I want to do things. I'm going to wake up “early”, hopefully, so that I can actually fall asleep tomorrow night. It is currently after two o'clock in the morning so early might be a stretch. We'll see. When I do wake up, I want to read through my license review and make sure I have covered everything in the rubric before I submit it. My assignment anxiety always peaks right before and immediately following turning the assignment in. I don't like it. I would also like to maybe finish sewing all the bookmarks I started over break. Or at least one or two. I have so many. It would also be nice to maybe figure out how I want to do the layout for my video tutorial. I had a few ideas today and I'd like to see if any of those will actually work. There will also possibly be a little playing of The Division if I can get everything else done. My goal is to end Spring Break on a productive note.

Saturday, March 19, 2016

March 18, 2016

Last night I thought Julia Child was going to make a recipe involving sweet breads and grains. Turns out it was sweetbreads, which is a very pleasant way of describing the heart and throat area of an calf, and the grains I was looking forward to were actually calf brains. I could not have misunderstood her to a greater degree.

This morning I didn't come anywhere close to waking up early. Or at least getting out of bed at a decent time. I didn't sit up until eleven o'clock. My back in not a fan of the reintroduction to vertical gravity in the morning. I can't even imagine what it must feel like going from space for months and then back to Earth's gravity.

While I was laying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, I developed a game plan for my day. When I made it to my desk and got my computer up and running, I closed the few windows I had open that were filled with tabs that would tempt me to distraction. I only left the school-related windows open and that was a major help.

Before lunch I was able to transfer all of the notes I wrote down yesterday into comments in the PDF version of the license. After lunch and for the rest of the afternoon and evening I went through the two license checklists and added additional comments based on the recommendations of the checklists. In general I think the license I picked was pretty solid and was favorable to libraries, but I had to really nit-pick so it actually looked like I put some effort into the whole process. When I finished up with the second checklist I went back through all of my comments and made minor edits, making sure I had justified my reasons for suggesting alternations to the license. I'm pretty happy with the result but it isn't due until Monday so I'm going to sit on it for a bit so I can look back on it with a fresh perspective before turning it in.

I took a brief break before dinner from working on the license review so I could run on the elliptical and when looking for something to watch I saw that the Ultra Music Festival was live on Twitch. I started following their channel last year and knew the festival in Miami was soon but I didn't realize it started today. I missed the first few performances but that's not bad for having no idea it was today and having spent the day with my schoolwork blinders on, ignoring all the usual online distractions. The timing of my elliptical run was a little unfortunate with Kygo's performance, which started right before I got in the shower. I recorded it though so I can watch it later. Kygo is the guy I discovered during last year's festival and ended up using one of his shows for the end of the year slideshow. Before he came on this year there was a group called Tycho, which has a pretty chill sound and there is a possibility I might use one of their songs for this year's slideshow.

While finishing up my license review I had on the festival livestream, which was only mildly distracting. The dogs spent some time in my room tonight and it was handy that I had the festival on because I was able to turn it up kind of loud to keep the dogs from hearing random noises and barking. The loud music was a little distracting when trying to think but it was also good music, so I can't complain too much. I can complain about the fact that the dogs smelled really bad for some reason. It was like when kids come straight to the lab after having a long recess in the baking sun and they're all sweaty and gross. But this was worse because it was a gross dog smell. It was almost like they had rolled around in something. After they left the room I had to leave my door open and I turned on the little melty, smell good thingy I have. I can't tell if it worked or I just go used to the smell. Hopefully it worked.

When I called the license review done I switched back to the Minecraft flyer I am making for my technology class. I nearly finished that up, at least getting all the information on it that I wanted. I still wasn't quite happy with the layout, though. And after writing about it just now I opened it back up and made a few edits that I think look much better than what I had before. I still want to figure out a better design for the library logo but I can do that tomorrow.

After I felt like I had been sufficiently productive today, pretty much finishing the license review assignment like I wanted to and pretty much finishing the flyer, which is a good start toward my tutorial video, I turned my attention back to The Division. I watched more trailers and videos, read more about it, and played with the numbers a bit. Earlier when I had considered buying it I could get a 20% off coupon. Today, I could get a 23% off coupon. That would save me nearly two more dollars. And I decided to buy it. I could have waited until next week to see if there was a 25% off coupon, which there very well could be, but there is no guarantee that it would be valid for The Division. And if I waited I would either lose interest or be knee-deep in another school assignment, like the paper I have to write about Universal Design or whatever that is due next weekend. So I pulled the trigger. I waited long enough, and it is a big enough game, and my internet is slow enough, that it is only about halfway through downloading. That means I won't be playing it tonight but that is probably for the best.


Tomorrow I am going to go over my license review again. I am also going to try and finalize my flyer. If that works out I may also try to recreate it relatively quickly because that is what I will be doing for my video tutorial. Being able to recreate it smoothly will make the filming of the video tutorial go much better because I won't have to edit out as many long pauses. I will also being playing some of The Division tomorrow because after the full day I put into schoolwork today, I could use a little break.

Friday, March 18, 2016

March 17, 2016

Today didn't go entirely as planned. I slept a couple hours longer than I wanted to but when I did wake up I read through the database license and wrote some initial thoughts in the margins. Throughout the rest of the day I looked through some of the other reference material and read some things but I didn't make it much farther than that. Not surprising but kind of disappointing.

This afternoon I volunteered at the public library. I submitted more events for the calendar, so that was fun. At five o'clock we called it a day because the PR lady's husband showed up. We went down and met him because I was in scouts with him about fifteen years ago, which is probably the last time I saw him. He looked confused at first when she introduced me but as soon as I started talking he recognized my voice. It was a little awkward because all three of us are kind of socially awkward people but it was good to see him.

For dinner my mom, sister, and I were going to go to a restaurant that my mom had a gift card for. When we got there, however, the parking lot was completely packed and we could see a bunch of people waiting inside. Joining that wait didn't sound like fun so we called an audible and went to the Chinese buffet. I then ate way too much food. So much delicious food.

We stayed there and ate and talked for about two hours. I accomplished nothing when I got home, despite the best of intentions. I got everything up on my monitors and then slowly got distracted by other things.

The one positive is that it looks like I won't have to spend money on The Division. The negative is that I still need to finish so much work. I have absolutely nothing on my calendar tomorrow so I won't have to worry about any leaving-the-house interruptions. I will still have the entire internet as a distraction, and that is the real struggle.

Right now I am watching two streamers make cookies in a multi-stream on one monitor, and the Julia Child marathon. Watching Julia Child in black and white makes me feel like I'm in some sort of alternate reality where she is still on TV. Kind of like I have traveled back into the past but at the same time, I am surrounded by all this modern technology. It has a very anachronistic feel to it.


We're creeping up on one o'clock in the morning and I should probably try and go to bed soon. I want to wake up early again tomorrow so I can get some things done before lunch. Ideally, my license review assignment will be done tomorrow. Or at least a solid first draft. That's the goal.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

March 16, 2016

Last night was a late one and this morning I woke up several times but refused to get out of bed until I had a decent number of hours of sleep. I still managed to read most of an article before lunch and read a chapter this afternoon. So that was semi-productive.

In general the day was a bit of a fail on the productivity front. Other than the reading I watched a video from my professor discussing the license review assignment, which is due on Sunday. I was going to start working on that today but I didn't get that far. It is on my agenda for tomorrow and it would be nice to get the basics laid out.

I've been watching a lot of videos and livestreams about Tom Clancy's The Division and I wasn't into it when I saw early trailers and footage, but the more that I watch, the more I realized it is just like a lot of RPGs, where you run around to complete quests and pick up loot to upgrade your gear. The only difference is that it is set in the modern world, not a fantasy world. I watched a video today that argued it wasn't an RPG because there wasn't any real role-playing but I don't get into the role-playing thing in RPGs so as far as I can see, The Division contains most of the aspects I like in RPGs.

I told myself that if I get all my schoolwork done by Friday I would buy the game and end my Spring Break with an actual break from work and school. The only thing I really need to finish is the license review assignment because I finished the try new tech assignment for my other class at the beginning of break. I have also been working on the idea for my video tutorial and I thought it would be nice to actually record the video this weekend so I had more time to edit it, even though I've got a month before it is due. But there is a paper due next weekend on universal design so I could start working on that. If I look at upcoming assignments, there's a lot of stuff I could/should be starting and I don't really need the distraction of another video game. I also don't think I have that much to worry about in terms of the video game because the odds of me buckling down and actually finishing my license review assignment by Friday are slim. Partially due to the self-sabotaging fact that I want to play the game but I also don't want to buy it, so if I can't meet my deadline than I don't have to buy it. My mind is an interesting place.

Other reasons for why I shouldn't buy a new game. I need to figure out my school schedule for summer. I have my capstone, which is one credit hour, the ALA conference, which is two credit hours, and that leaves me with three credit hours. I want that to be a practicum at the university library but once again I find myself creeping up on the end of the semester and still needing to do a lot of work to get that set up. I need to find someone at the library who wants to be my supervisor, meet with them and decide what I would be doing, and then do a write-up on it to submit to my adviser. And probably some other stuff I'm forgetting about. I have contacts at the library, so finding someone to be my supervisor shouldn't be too much of a problem, I just need to grind through all the steps to get everything ready. To add to the stress, however, is the fact that enrollment has been open for over a week now. The capstone and conference are a given but that final three hours is up in the air. If the practicum falls through I run there aren't that many three credit hour classes this summer and I run the risk of them being full. That could mean I had to take two classes that were two credit hours each. That does not sound appealing. So really, instead of playing a game this weekend, I should start laying the groundwork for the practicum. I don't know. Thinking too much about school and trying to acknowledge all of my deadlines at once quickly becomes overwhelming. I need to focus on baby steps, with an occasional glance into the future so nothing sneaks up on me.

Speaking of which, I got the adrenaline flowing when I checked the syllabus to see when the next in-person class meeting was and saw that it was this weekend. Forgetting that I had the syllabus for the other section of the class because it was originally put online by mistake in our section. Me forgetting it was the wrong syllabus and thinking I was almost missing a class weekend has happened before this semester and I probably should have learned. I made sure to delete that syllabus and replace it with the correct one. My section doesn't go down until the beginning of April. I have plenty of time to forget about it.

Tonight was Chipotle night and my burrito bowl was alright. I didn't really get the extra rice I asked for but he made up for it with the beans. But I don't think the beans were cooked as long as they should have been. Or maybe they were cooked for two long. They were a little hard. Not like crunchy hard, just more firm than usual. I'm also kind of over all the onions in the salsa. I might go back to just rice, beans and cheese for awhile. It has also been awhile since I've gotten sofritas. We'll see how I'm feeling next week.

Tonight I played a bit more Blade & Soul. I still think I prefer Tera. I like the aesthetics of Blade & Soul but I like the feel of Tera better, especially the combat. I think maybe I need to just try a different class, one that I haven't played in Tera so I won't have any real expectations for how it should play. But I probably won't. There is a lot to learn and I don't really have the time to put into it.


I'm going to go to bed now and my goal is to get up at eight o'clock. Nine o'clock at the latest. I would like to make significant progress on my license review assignment before lunch, and before I volunteer at the public library tomorrow afternoon. Sleeping until noon would not be a good way to start things off. I think I'm going to wake up and read through the license I picked out before getting out of bed so that when I sit down at my desk it will be fresh in my mind and I'll be able to jump right into the work. It sounds like a decent idea anyway.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

March 15, 2016

I was supposed to volunteer at the public library again today but the PR lady had something come up so we rescheduled for Thursday. That freed up my day a bit, although I didn't accomplish much with that extra time.

I started on the Minecraft flyer I want to make for my video tutorial. I figure I'll make one first and then in the video I will recreate it. If I were doing it for real I would probably use Publisher, which could make for a viable video tutorial, but I want to go with Canva because it has a free version and you don't need access to Microsoft Office. Also, Canva probably sounds cooler than Publisher.

Speaking of, sort of, I remembered that the site I learned about to make infographics was not Canva, although I have used it to make infographics in the past. The other site, which is better for infographics involving statistics because it allows you to enter in all the data, is Piktochart. It came to me while brushing my teeth.

I read two articles, one for each class. I also may have read a couple textbook chapters but I can't remember if I did that today or yesterday. I feel like it was yesterday. But I also feel like it was today, so who knows.

I got all of my bookmarks turned rightside out and tonight I finished three of them. I think my needle might be getting dull. I also think the fabric I'm using is slightly more dense than the fabric I have been using. And I need to come up with the better way to handle the fabric inside because it gets kind of thick near the opening, which adds to the needle issue. I'm still figuring things out.

Twitch doing something with food now. When the launched the Creative section they did a marathon of every episode of Bob Ross' show. Today they started a marathon of every episode of Julia Child's show. I don't know if they are starting a section just for cooking or if they are going to start promoting a food channel. Either way, I will probably be watching a lot of Julia Child. I was watching it when I started typing this but then she brought out the live lobsters. I hit the pause button right before she started cutting into them. That's not something I need to see.

I played video games today. Not until the end of the day but I got a little time in. I tried out Pinball FX2, another game from a bundle, and it wasn't really that fun. It was hard to keep track of what was going on and I think part of that was due to the game being full-screen. It would probably be easier if it was smaller. I might try it again sometime.

I also tried out Blade & Soul, which is an MMO that I think has been around in Korea for quite awhile but was only recently released internationally. I've been in the mood for anime and manga recently and this game ticks those boxes. As any good MMO, or just game in general, there is a pretty detailed character creator and I probably spent more time creating my character than I did actually playing the game tonight. I didn't pick the tiny race but I did make my character as short as possible and picked a class that uses a giant ax, which is actually bigger than my character due to the shortness. I like it. As for the game itself. I think I like it. I think Tera looks better, and is more fun, but I'm also judging the fun factor based on only doing introductory missions in Blade & Soul. I don't know that I will get as into it as I did with Tera over Winter break, but I would like to get a little further into it and see what it is like.

I have been sucked back into Castaway Paradise more. I think there must have been an update at some point because when I first started playing it I got stuck on three quests I couldn't complete and there really wasn't anything else to do. Then, I had a breakthrough on those quests and now I keep getting quests that I'm able to complete. Also, random trash and seashells are spawning on the island more frequently than they were. When I first played I completely cleaned up the parts of the island I had access to and I would only occasionally see a seashell, and the trash never came back. But now there always seems like there is something to do. There had to be an update. Maybe with the St. Patrick's event. They seem to do special events for holidays, which include special items that can be purchased in the game. I spent 40,000 of my hard-earned currency buying four leprechaun statues, because they look great, and my house is now flanked with two on either side.


Holy crap. I've now been distracted by so many things while writing this that is is now 2:30AM. I need to go to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to do things. Some of those things will be productive.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

March 14, 2016

It is almost one o'clock in the morning. This night disappeared real quick.

I slept in this morning, which was great, and then read a textbook chapter before lunch. So I did something at least. After lunch I think I read some more but I also played around with my video editor and figured out how to put captions on a video. It is looking to be a little tedious and that will be the worst part of making the video tutorial for my technology class. On the plus side, I think I came up with what I want to do for my tutorial. I am going to cover the basics of Canva and make a simple flyer for a Minecraft event at a library. This was inspired by helping the sixth graders make their album covers, which reminded me that Canva was a thing, and last week while volunteering at the public library I submitted a Minecraft event at the library to a local events website. So the need for flyers in a library is a real thing.

Also, this afternoon when I was back at the public library the PR lady I'm volunteering for asked me if I was familiar with infographics. She has a bunch of statistics that she has always wanted to put into an infographic but has never had the time. I mentioned Canva, which she had heard of, so in the near future I might be doing that, which I could use as another example in my video of ways Canva can be used in a library.

I was also introduced to one of the children's librarians who recently graduated from the same school I'm going to, so we talked about that for a little bit. Small world. It is always good to see proof of people getting jobs with the degree you are currently earning.

Tonight I spent a could hours, maybe even a few, sewing bookmarks. I sewed eighteen of them together, which is the number I cut out yesterday, and I got ten of them turned inside out (or rightside out) and ironed. I set up a TV tray by my desk and brought my iron over so when I got to that stage I just had to spin my chair around to use the iron. It was a lot more convenient than having to get up every time and then bend over a table to iron. My back appreciated it. Tomorrow, if I have the interest, I should be able to get the rest of them turned rightside out and ironed. I might also start finishing them by sewing around the edge and then the zig-zag down the middle. Maybe.

When I was done with that I played a little Torchlight 2, which I finally got around to downloading yesterday. However many years ago I wanted to play the original Torchlight, and I own it because it was in a Humble Bundle, but never got around to it. Then in the last year or so I got Torchlight 2 in a bundle, so I wanted to play that. And now I have. It is kind of fun but probably not worth the wait. I think most of that is me not really wanting to devote my time to another in-depth game. There is character leveling through skill trees and inventory management and all of that stuff takes some focus and a lot of time. I'm not ready to commit to that. Also, the camera angle is off just enough that it annoys me. Or maybe I just need to play it in a smaller window. I don't know. I might give it another try.

After that I loaded up Minecraft and made a little square sky island, which took longer than it should have. I just couldn't settle on what I wanted it to look like and I kept trying stuff that wasn't working. I eventually came up with something I liked and then downloaded a rendering program so I could render out a 3D picture of the island. It took me a bit to figure out the program but I think I've got it now. It is currently in the middle of rendering out my third attempt and it has got my hopes up. The preview looks like what I was imagining in my head so the final picture should look even better. If not I'll just have to keep tweaking things. It renders with a bluish-gray background and I'm hoping it isn't a color used in the island itself because I want to delete the background and that would be much easier if the color was unique to the background and not present in the rest of the image. I'll have to dig around a little more in the options and see if that color can be changed. I would think it could be but who knows.

The ultimate goal and the reason for this Minecraft render, is to use in my tutorial video for Canva. Even though the flyer is really just an accessory to the video and isn't going to be used in real life, I still want it to look good. My idea is to have the floating island be the central focus on the flyer, something that will grab the attention of kids and parents. It looks interesting in my head so hopefully reality matches that.

And, something I almost forgot (because it really isn't that significant). I renewed my XM subscription today, once again calling to cancel in order to get a better deal. Usually they have to go through several offers before getting to the one that I want but this time it was the second suggestion, and it was for six months instead of five, which I've had to get the last two or three times. There is always the chance that they will accept my decision to cancel without offering me a special deal but I think I would be okay with it. I listened to it for a bit today on the way to the library but then switched back to my own music. I don't spend a lot of time in my car and spend far less time actually listening to the radio, so it wouldn't be much of a loss at this point.


I've got a little bit left on the render so I'm going to wait for that and then go to bed. Tomorrow I need to read more for class, work on the tutorial video idea, and maybe start the license review for my other class. I am also going to volunteer at the public library again because it gives me an excuse to leave the house over break.

Monday, March 14, 2016

March 13, 2016

Waking up this morning was kind of awful. I could have used at least a few more hours of sleep but oh well. After getting ready I went and picked my sister up and we headed to our Dad's house. When we got there the house seemed to be deserted because it was dark inside and no one answered the door. My sister called my brother and he said he had left already with his girlfriend but that Dad should still be there. My sister called my dad and he didn't answer. Then we turned around and he was standing there being a creeper, looking at us through the window in the door.

From the house we went to the gas station because my step-mom wanted to get a newspaper. Then we went back to the house because my step-mom forgot something. And then we headed out of town. Originally we were going to go to our step-grandparents house for lunch and then going to another location for a more public birthday celebration for my step-grandpa. Instead it was all at the other location, which was some sort of senior center. There were a lot of family members there, most of whom I recognized and some of them I didn't because I haven't seen them since I was a kid, or I had never met them before. It ended up being far less awkward than I thought it would be, which I think is due to the birthday not being at the house, which would have been a much smaller environment, leading to more awkward conversations. We hung out for awhile, had lunch, and then hung out for awhile longer before heading home.

With the rest of my afternoon I responded to a discussion post, played some video games, and cut more fabric for bookmarks. And after dinner I played more video games and watched live streams. I didn't get around to making any bookmarks because I didn't want to have to go back and forth between sewing and ironing. All the up and down wasn't very appealing. Mostly because the drive out of town today was not kind to my lower back. It has actually been feeling better that last couple of days so it is kind of annoying that it hurts again. I need to just set up a tray behind me for ironing so I can sew, spin around and iron, and then spin back to sew. Maybe next time.


There are so many things I want to do and get done this week and I am afraid it is going to go by way too fast. I need to spend a decent amount of time on school stuff but I would also like to be productive in other things. Tomorrow I volunteer at the public library in the afternoon and that is the only thing on my schedule. So who knows what will happen. Hopefully something worthwhile.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

March 12, 2016

Today was a pretty good day. I replied to two discussion posts, which means I'm done for that discussion but I'll probably respond to another one tomorrow and Monday just to be safe. I probably should have done some reading but I've got all week to do that. So I took the rest of the day off.

I found this free-to-play “game” on Steam called Viridi which is basically a potted plant simulator. You pick a pot, the type of plant arrangement you want in the pot, and then it grows in real time. I had to water the plants once today and I'm assuming I will have to do it again whenever real plants need to be watered. It's an interesting concept. It is kind of like watching paint dry but it has relaxing music, so I can see bringing it up for background music while doing something else.

I played Rocket League for the first time today and I get it. When I first started watching people play it I instantly saw the appeal and it is a lot of fun to watch. Turns out it is also fun to play. It's easy enough to pick up and play but it is also really hard to be good. I played through the tutorials and struggled through some of the early ones and couldn't even get through the beginning of the harder ones, so I switched over to playing against rookie bots. Even that was a bit difficult at times but it was fun. I jumped into a few online games and it reminded me a lot of little kids playing soccer, where instead of staying in their positions they all just flock around the ball. Still fun though.

I played Castaway Paradise and made a lot of progress. I log in everyday to get free stuff and unlock items but don't really play, just like with Tera. I lost interest pretty quickly because I think it was either the first or second time I played I got saddled with three quests (which is the max) that I couldn't complete. One involved catching a crab, which is done through fishing and seems to be completely random and every time I went fishing I never caught a crab. Another one required two bananas which I didn't have and couldn't afford. And the third was opening up a bridge to another part of the island, which required nine puzzle pieces, something you get from quests or by purchasing them. Again, I didn't have the money and I couldn't get them through quests because I couldn't complete any of the quests. I'm not sure what happened today but I managed almost immediately to complete all three of those without really trying and then knocked out several more. The game suddenly became kind of fun again.

And to keep things going, I also played Crashlands for a bit, completely several quests, collecting resources, and unlocking some new stuff. I'm still enjoying that game but I haven't been able to play it recently because it sucks me in and I haven't had the time for that. Kind of the same reason I haven't bought Stardew Valley, even though I really want to play it. I know that it will be detrimental to my schoolwork.

I sewed four more bookmarks today and had great timing with my bobbin thread. After sewing the the first two pieces of fabric together I checked the bobbin and it was empty, with about five inches of thread coming up out of the bobbin compartment. Pretty much perfect. I was worried it would happen in the middle of a project so I'm glad that didn't happen. Also, the bookmarks turned out well.

For dinner I made pasta with fake chicken and a sauce that was inspired by Indian food. I think it was Tikka Masala but I could be wrong. Regardless, it was pretty tasty. I was a little worried it would be spicy but it wasn't actually that bad. I'm a little worried about my stomach because it tends to not like changes in my diet, but we'll see.

I also exercised and did laundry, so overall I did a lot of stuff today. That is surprising. Tomorrow I am going out of town for my step Grandpa's birthday. There is a family lunch at the house and then a reception somewhere after that with a bunch of people. I think my sister and I are only going to do the lunch, which will be awkward enough, at least for my sister and I, because we haven't been to any family gatherings in quite awhile. It should be fine, though.


Not it is time for bed because it is almost half past one o'clock in the morning. And it is technically almost half past two o'clock in the morning because of Daylight Savings. I don't like springing forward, especially when I can't sleep in the next day. It might make for a long day.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

March 11, 2016

Today was the first day of spring break and it was productive. Before lunch I was able to research and write my discussion post for the week. After lunch I researched and wrote the try new tech assignment that isn't actually due until next week. That last part is shocking. Normally I wouldn't have done it until the day it was due, or maybe the day before. My discussion post was about the implementation of social media in libraries and in that I talked about Periscope. In learning more about it I thought it would be a good idea for the try new tech assignment so I learned more about it and wrote up my assessment. I was mainly motivated by not wanting someone else to have the idea and post it before me, but I was also on a roll from the morning and didn't want to lose the momentum. Or have to relearn everything about Periscope next week when I got around to it again. So it worked out.

Researching and writing that stuff was pretty much my day. I got in some YouTube watching but that was about it. My friend is in town and tonight she picked me up, we got slushies at Sonic (after a brief detour to the ATM), and then we went back to her parents' house to watch Dexter. We talked to her parents briefly before heading downstairs, where we watched about three seconds of the recap on one episode of Dexter. So it wasn't a very successful night with regard to our progress through that series. But we talked about all sorts of things and watched a brief clip of a penguin moving to a tropical island from the Donald Duck movie The Three Caballeros. So it was a pretty good night.

When she dropped me off I went in through the garage because I knew if I used the front door the dogs would lose their mind. In the past I have been able to go through the garage door without the dogs even getting up. Tonight was different for some reason and Alfie and Tanner started barking about the time I made it to the door into the house. Prolonging the situation was the fact that the door was locked. I had the foresight to bring my keys with me but when dogs are barking and you're trying to be quiet, it's hard to find a key and get it in the lock. I managed it eventually and the dogs stopped barking when I got in but then I struggled with re-locking the door. All the other doors in the house require you to push heavily on them in order to get it locked. Apparently that is not the case with the door into the garage so all that pushing was pointless. You barely have to shut it in order to lock it. Good to know.


Now it is almost two o'clock in the morning and it has taken me way too long to write this because I've been distracted by a livestream. GoldGlove is doing a couch stream with his girlfriend, one of their friends, and Vern. Goldy and Vern together are pretty good. And it is distracting. But I need to go to bed now. Tomorrow I need to respond to a discussion post or two and then maybe do other things. Who knows.

Thursday, March 10, 2016

March 10, 2016

Hmmm, today. I did things. Some of which I have most certainly forgotten. My success of the morning was getting a LEGO robot to successfully connect to one of the first grade teacher's laptop. I found a LEGO forum that had a similar issue and it linked to a Windows thing to set up a selective startup procedure in msconfig. The thought was that one of the services or startup things was causing a conflict and preventing the robot from being recognized. First I turned off all the services and startup things and restarted the computer. And the robot worked, which showed that something in there was the cause of the problem. The next move was to allow half of the services to start and then half of the remaining, and then all of the remaining services. The robot still worked after that so it wasn't a service that was causing the problem. Moving on to startup stuff. I followed the same process and it ended up being caused by one of the last two options. It would have been nice for it to be one of the first but I got there in the end and now the teacher can upload a program to the robot. Mission accomplished.

I know I did something else this morning but it's not coming to me. After lunch I had classes in the lab and I edited baby pictures. I actually finished editing all of the pictures I have been given so far and got a start laying out slides. I can't finish them because I want to include their school portraits from this year and we have to order a CD to get the high resolution images. That is kind of ridiculous because for the lower resolution they make you download them from their website. It can't cost that much more for the bandwidth to allow downloading high resolution images, especially when you add in the cost of making and mailing out the picture CDs. But what do I know. One of the office ladies should be getting the CD mailed out so I'll have it for the slideshow and the yearbook. The one downside, at least with the pictures online, is that all the retakes they just did have a white background and all the kids are posed differently, more like senior portraits than a simple school picture. And the white background is pure white, like there is no background there. So in the yearbook it's just going to be the kids hanging out in white space. And, I don't think all the kids had retakes, so there will be a mix of kids with a background and kids without. I kind of hope that when they send the CD all the images will have the same generic background. Fingers crossed.

Fast forward to tonight, because I'm blanking on the rest of my day. I did nothing tonight. I should have written my discussion post but I didn't. Knowing that I have all day tomorrow to write it wrecked my motivation. I also didn't read any articles. It was kind of a pointless night. I'm not proud of it but it happened and it's over so I'm not going to worry about it.


Tomorrow I'll knock out the discussion post, because it is due tomorrow. Also, my friend is in town and we might possibly hang out tomorrow night, so I can't put off the writing. I would also like to do other things and it would be nice if I didn't waste my day dragging out the writing process. We'll see. I'm going to go to bed now because I'm tired and I would like to not sleep until lunch tomorrow. That would not be a good use of my time.
 
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