May 25, 2016

 Today was physically and emotionally draining. It really sucks leaving a job you love.

I was up until after one o'clock last night. I think it was closer to two o'clock. After writing my journal entry I decided to write a Thank You note to the second grade teacher who gave me the hilarious congratulatory card in response to my graduation announcement. I did a play on a birth announcement so she got me a congratulations on the birth of a son card but crossed out 'son' and put 'diploma'. Hilarious. I also wrote a Thank You note to the school librarian for encouraging me to go back to school for my masters and just being supportive throughout. I also kind of blamed her for me leaving work. I tried to keep the whole thing light but I did cry as I wrote it because that's when it all really started to hit me.

This morning I woke up at a decent time and got ready. When I went upstairs I almost started crying again because I knew it would be the last time I left for work at the school. And thoughts of that left me realizing about halfway to work that I had forgotten to eat breakfast. I can't remember the last time I forgot to eat breakfast.

When I got to work I went to give the second grade teacher her card and gave out some bookmarks as I went. Then I went to the library to give the librarian her card and gift, giving out more bookmarks when I ran across teachers. The gift was the green hoodie my mom got me for Christmas. It was meant to be a replacement for the one I wear everyday but I never got around to switching it out. One of the paras suggested it would be the perfect gift and I agreed. The librarian loved it but I told her to hold off on reading the card when I wasn't around because I am a sympathetic crier.

I then went up and tried to figure out the SPED printer and worked on that until the assembly. They have their own printer, not a district printer, and it has always been a pain in the butt. The IP address would randomly change, on at least three or four different occasions, and each time I would have to reinstall the printer. This time it changed to a temporary IP address for some reason and we weren't able to get it added onto their new laptops. I didn't have any time to look into it further but I might in the coming days just because it is annoying and I like to figure things out.

I got held up working on the printer and didn't make it down to the assembly until the gym was already filled up. I usually get down there while the librarian and music teacher are still setting things up so I can double-check the slideshow. I didn't have the luxury this time but oh well.

The assembly started with character awards, followed by a video and a slideshow by the school social worker. The video was made by her college intern and for some unknown reason she filmed the whole thing in portrait mode on her phone. She is a young twenty-something. She should know better.

After that there might have been something else but eventually it was time for my slideshow. There was a mild scare in the transition because the librarian had turned the projector off after the social workers slideshow but we ended up just having to wait for it to come back on. My slideshow went well. It played through without crashing and the bit near the end of each of the group slides where the picture layer and the video layer wouldn't quite sync up so right before the fade they moved independently, wasn't really noticeable. I tried fixing that last night but nothing I did worked so I gave up.

When the slideshow was over the librarian gave an impromptu speech, pointing out that I had made the slideshow, and then announcing that I was leaving and that I would be working at the public library next year. I don't recall all of what was said but that is when I did end up losing it a bit and cried, but only briefly, not only because of what she was saying but also because she was tearing up as she spoke. And again, sympathetic crier. Thankfully I thought ahead and right before going to the assembly I put some Kleenex in my pocket, so I was able to dab my eyes. I managed to avoid crying for the rest of the assembly and for the rest of the day, even though it did try and creep up on me a few times.

After the slideshow the principal had all the kids who weren't returning next year stand up to be recognized. Then She had all the staff who were leaving come up to the front. She talked about us, but not individually so that was good, and then had everyone clap for us, which turned into a standing ovation. Then we moved off to the side but the retiring sixth grade teacher stayed front and center to be recognized. She talked about him and showed him a plague that would be mounted near the stage in honor of him and the old music teacher, who returned for the assembly, in honor of all the work they had done for the kids with the performing arts. Then the rest of the leaving staff had to go back up while the whole school sang a song, which was accompanied by a man on the piano and the retiring sixth grade teacher's adopted son on flute. It was really nice.

Following the assembly was the traditional kickball game with the sixth graders against the staff. I had too much crap to get done in the lab so I missed it but I learned later the kids were completely dominated.

When I was leaving the assembly I was asked by the other sixth grade teacher if I could burn a couple copies of my slideshow for the twin sixth grade sisters who weren't able to be there today (although they were present via Skype on a laptop that their dad held up throughout the assembly). Then the social worker asked if I could burn sixteen copies of her slideshow for each of the kids who were in it. I ended up setting up shop in the back of the lab on two computer and the social worker's laptop. I had to render a copy of the social worker's slideshow, which took awhile, then put it on my flash drive, download it onto one of the computer lab computers, dump it into Movie Maker, which took awhile, save it so I could burn it to the DVD, and then wait. All the setup and the first copy took forever but it went really fast after that. I was able to get the first five done before lunch, which she wanted for the sixth graders. I was also able to burn two copies of my slideshow. I wanted two more to give to the sixth grade teachers but two of the DVDs I got from the librarian weren't usable. And it was time for lunch.

Most of the staff ended up going to the same restaurant and it wasn't the best. It took a long time to get seated, a long time to get drinks, a long time for our order to be taken, and a long time for our food to arrive. This was entirely due to one server being responsible for all twenty-four of us. And in the end, despite being starving, my meal was kind of a fail. I got pasta with mixed vegetables that had the option for chicken or shrimp. I obviously didn't pick either of those options and assumed because of this it would come as just pasta with mixed vegetables. Well, we all know what assuming does and I ended up being the ass with chicken mixed into my pasta. I didn't want to wait another half hour for new food so I just picked it all out, much like I have done with bacon in salad. And for all the work I probably had maybe a half a cup of pasta. It would have been really good in a larger portion and without meat.

After lunch we drove back to the school. My mom rode with me to lunch and coming back we also gave a ride to the gifted teacher. When we got back to school I got back to work on burning the slideshows and cleaning up the lab. I went through the recycling box and all the papers on my desk, sorting out the pieces that I could cut up for scratch paper. Which I then cut up for scratch paper. I also remembered to unlink my Dropbox from my work computer and delete the folder off the computer. And I remembered to grab my keyboard, which I nearly forgot about.

When I had finished burning the copies of the slideshow for the sixth grade teachers I went to give them to the teachers. I handed off the first one and ended up helping one of them set up printers on her new laptop. While I was up there I also tried to change the desktop background on the resource teacher's new laptop. It didn't work when I did it by right-clicking on the desktop and it didn't work when I tried to do it through a group policy. So I don't know what was going on. I'm already unimpressed with the new laptops, mostly because of the wireless constantly disconnecting, and there might be a chance the desktop background thing is just another annoying aspect of the new laptops. It could also be that the tech guys did something to make changing the background much harder. Which I think is dumb. Adults should be allowed to pick the background they want on their computer. There's just something about IT guys and treating everyone like idiot children that have to be protected from their own stupidity. I'm not a fan.

When I finally finished helping or trying to help people, burning DVDs, cleaning up the lab and putting the sheets over the computers, I went to clock out at 4:45PM. So much for a half-day. I think part of me also just didn't want to leave because I knew it was my last time there as an employee. And apparently the building didn't want me to leave either because I got an error message when I tried to clock out. It said my last action was clocking out and asked if I wanted to manually input a clock-in time. I did that but got the same error message when I tried to clock out again. I'm not sure if it counted my first swipe as clocking out after I manually typed in the clock-in time for if it was still messed up. I can remember clocking out before lunch and clocking in after lunch so my own guess, if it isn't the computer, is that I somehow forgot to clock in this morning. It would make sense with the error because when I clocked out for lunch I was actually clocking in, and when I got back I was actually clocking out, but I really want to believe that it wasn't my fault. I need to email one of the office ladies tomorrow.

After work I picked up Chipotle and then headed home. Not too long after that it was time for dinner. My food was good but that was probably aided by the fact that I was starving after only having eaten a tiny amount of pasta the entire day. We made it through the few videos I had to show and then my sister played some from a comedian who had a really funny bit about a guy eating pancakes out of a bag on an airplane. Then she showed a live Periscope of a couple storm chasers following a tornado that was happening somewhat close by, at least in terms of it being in the same state.

I spent the rest of the night just trying to stay awake. And somehow it is now 11:30PM. It has taken me a really long time to write this entry. But I'm going to call it good now and go to bed. I'm not setting my alarm clock tomorrow. Hopefully I sleep in.