April 7, 2015

There is something I have forgotten to write about for a couple days now, and I thought of it yesterday, but then it slipped away again. Annoying. Another forgotten thing was that I got a haircut yesterday after work. So yeah.

And now having written that, I remember that forgotten thing. On Sunday I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel. I enjoyed it. Wes Anderson movies always have a unique look to them, which I like. I am also a fan of the humor, especially in this particular movie, which was on point.

Last night I slept like crap. I would say a very generous estimate would be a total of four hours of sleep. I'm not sure what was up. I was tired until I laid down and when I did eventually fall asleep it felt like I was up every hour or so. The superpower of being able to fall asleep on command would be nice.

Most of my morning was filled with two state assessments. So exciting. When they were over I worked on the survey data for the principal. I found an online tally keeper thing last night so I opened sixteen copies of that across my two monitors at work, each with four tallies. Each instance stood for one question and the four possible answers. I then went through the stack of surveys clicking on the answer for each question as I went. I ended up having to go through the surveys twice because there were eighteen questions, not sixteen, but it was still a lot faster than if I had tried to keep track of it in another way other than the tally system.

This afternoon I had a few classes in the lab, including the kindergarten classes. The last time one of them was in the lab I kind of put one of the girls in timeout because she was so stressed out about one of the activities. She is constantly crying about every little thing, especially if is it some sort of quiz because she doesn't want to get the wrong answer. Thankfully she is moving so I won't have to deal with that during MAP testing next year. Anyway, she started freaking out again today but the teacher was there so he pulled her aside and basically told her to suck it up. But in a much nicer way. And it worked because she didn't cry for the rest of the class. Hopefully she maintains that composure next time.

By the end of the day I had finished inputting all the survey data and was able to start playing around with it. I'm still not entirely sure what all I want to do with it but I've got tomorrow to figure that out. I've got testing in the morning but it is early release so I don't have any classes in the afternoon. Plenty of time to get something worthwhile for the principal.

After work I went and bought a PowerBall ticket and then went to Target to pick up a few things. I can't remember the last time I went to Target. It's been awhile.

Tonight I finished reading a textbook chapter, taking a brief nap in the middle of it because good grief. Not only was it dense reading, I was also tired of hell. Now I probably won't be able to fall asleep but I wouldn't have been able to finish reading without the nap.

It is nearly eleven o'clock, and I'm still tired, so I'll try the sleep thing. I can pretty much guarantee I'll end up laying there for an hour but it's been than sitting here and staring at a computer screen. Spending so many hours a day engaged in that activity probably doesn't help things. Oh well. Such is life. I'm still looking forward to the end of the semester so I can shed the stress of juggling so many projects.

April 6, 2015

I've got a headache because I just spent the last few hours reading out loud so I didn't fall asleep while reading my textbook. My horribly boring textbook.

I feel like I had a lot to write about earlier in the day but now that it is ten o'clock and the headache thing and the tired thing and whatever else, not a lot is coming to mind.

We had more testing today and it was thrilling as always. I had good conversations with the two fifth grade teachers during both of their tests today. I don't get to have good conversations that often so I enjoy them when they happen. Again, I would have gone into detail had I been writing this earlier in the day.

In my downtime I worked on the yearbook, adding in the two preschool classes. I am trying to avoid looking at the candid pages because those are the ones that the kids are working on and they are all different. And not organized very well. Looking at them kind of make my eyes twitch. I want to fix everything and make it all look uniform. But I won't. Because it is for the kids.

The principal asked me to take a stack of surveys (147 surveys to be exact), a survey that I designed the format and layout for earlier in the year, and analyze the data for her by Thursday. The survey has eighteen questions, answered with a four-point scale. I'm not exactly sure how I will analyze the data yet but I first need to get it all entered into a spreadsheet. Which I am going to start doing after I finish typing this because Thursday is cutting it a bit close. And I've got so much other crap on my plate right now. If I were to fully acknowledge it all at once I'm certain it would be more than overwhelming. But I'm trying to avoid that. For my own sanity.

Tonight I read my textbook and did laundry. During my short breaks I played AdVenture Capitalist. It's basically Cookie Clicker. I found out about it yesterday and started playing the browser version. Then tonight when I was looking at Steam to see if I could use it for my discussion post this week for class I accidentally stumbled across the game there. Turns out it isn't just a mobile and browser game. So now I have it running in the browser and the standalone version going. I'll probably abandon the browser one eventually but right now it doesn't require any extra effort to keep it going. It would be nice if I could import my game into the standalone version but whatever.

Now I'm going to input a bit of survey data, just to get a start on it, and then I'm going to go to bed. I would like about twenty hours of sleep but I'm not going to get that.

April 5, 2015

Today I accomplished nothing. Thank god I did stuff yesterday. I slept in until eleven o'clock. I wasn't asleep the entire time but I refused to get out of bed. It was pretty great. I spent the rest of my day thinking about possibly doing something related to schoolwork but nothing ever came of it.

Instead, I watched videos, listened to music, played guitar, and read articles that I've been meaning to read for awhile. So in the near future I will probably regret today because I could have doe so much to help my future self, but for the moment I feel pretty good about my day.

One possible thing my future self will regret is the upcoming release of GTA5. I have wanted to play it for over a year now and when it comes out I'll be knee-deep in schoolwork. I need to just buckle down and knock everything out in the coming week. That won't happen but it would be really nice.

Tonight we had a family dinner for Easter. I ate way too much. I had stuffing, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, rolls, fruit, and my sister's chocolate pie, which she nailed, as per usual. My stomach hurts. And I'm already looking forward to leftovers.

And that is really all I have to write about today. Not very exciting. Thanks to my late start this morning, the the discomfort in my stomach, I think I'll play a little Minecraft and collect some resources until I start feeling tired enough to actually go to bed.

April 4, 2015

Today was super productive. Shockingly so, actually. It started by going over to the old house and loading stuff into the bed of a pickup truck and bringing it back to the new house. Then going back to the old house and loading up the pickup again and taking it to my sister's house. And that was all before lunch.

After lunch I joined a live video lesson from one of my professors who was discussing the research paper we have to write. I haven't even given that paper the slightest thought so I didn't have any questions to ask but it was good to hear her explain things because I think I got a better idea of what will be expected of me than I would have just reading the PDF instructions. During the brief question and answer portion at the end the professor unmuted everyone's microphones and this turned out to be a bit of a mistake. While she was answering one student's question another student started typing War and Peace on her laptop and her microphone must have been right on top of her keyboard because it completely drowned out everything that the professor was saying. Not only was that annoying but even more annoying was the fact that I could see exactly who was causing the ruckus but didn't have the power to mute them, only the professor did, and she couldn't hear it because she was talking. The problem was eventually resolved but not before the professor had given a long response to a question and she didn't spend much time going back over what she had said. Oh well.

When that was done I came up with the second part of my group project for this week. Yesterday I wrote about a directory and today I came up with a handbook. It took me awhile to figure out because I was getting hung up on trying to think of a useful almanac or yearbook. They mentioned some good ones in the textbook but I didn't want to go that route. When I switched my thinking to handbooks I started to see the light and eventually came up with graduate school handbooks. I think maybe this idea came to me fleetingly earlier in the week because it felt familiar but if so, I didn't remember it until today. All of the colleges I tried had some form of a graduate school handbook, either in website or PDF form, and they cover everything from admissions to expectations and policies to graduation. Perfect for prospective graduate students.

I was on a role after that so I also did a little work on my other group project. The one where my partner has been a bit absent. But maybe she is making a lot of progress behind the scenes. Hopefully. I created a page in our group and filled out several of the project objectives. I also started thinking about designing a visual example of what a search would look like using our metadata schema as well as what the results would look like. That isn't really part of it but I think it would look cool so I'm going to see if I can come up with something.

A also posted another response for the discussion post this week. I'll try and do one more tomorrow. I also need to give some serious thought to the standards assignment that is due next Sunday. I still need to pick out a standard and then make some sort of comic or video or infographic or whatever else to explain it. I think the artifact is supposed to be geared toward undergraduate students.

Tonight I streamed. I started with Blacklight Retribution. I played a little last night and did alright but apparently good people don't play on Friday night. After going to bed I remembered that the game has an x-ray vision type system that I had completely forgotten about. I had just been trying to listen to footsteps and I've gotta say, they don't offer very good directional cues in this game. I could tell when someone was kind of close but I couldn't tell which direction or if they were even on the same floor as me. Tonight I remembered the x-ray mechanic but was playing against much better players and I couldn't get away from them. It felt like cheating was involved but it could also be a combination of me sucking, the other players being really good, and the other players dropping a lot of real money on the game to get really good stuff. All I know is I couldn't win a gunfight against them to save my life. Especially against this one player who always tea-bagged after a kill. It was like trying to fight Neo in The Matrix with how fast he could move side to side and avoid almost every single bullet. There was even a time when I spawned behind him while he was in the little inventory thing. I started unloading in his back and he managed to turn around and kill me. That's when I had enough. I tried getting in a few different lobbies but for some reason always ended up back in that same lobby so I ended up just quitting. It's not fun getting three kills and fifteen deaths, most of which from the same dude, who then tea-bags you. When the game is balanced it is fun, things just weren't working out tonight.

I switched to Minecraft and started working on building my house. That was fun. It's going to have an interesting shape to it. I also discovered a deep hole at the base of the hill my house is on so I made some ladders and went down looking for coal and iron, both of which I found a bunch of. I think I'll end up turning it into my mine and hope it eventually breaks into a larger cave system. Right now it's just a couple of small hallways.

While I was playing I had some music playing in the background that was supposed to be VOD friendly. The VOD is the recorded video you get after a stream. Twitch has started cracking down on music that isn't royalty free so if you have it during your stream, that whole section of the VOD will be muted. Well, I found the record label that has recently created a streaming music channel on Twitch and they also created a couple playlists on Spotify. They say that you can use their music as long as you credit them on your page. Well, I did that, but then a really big chunk of the VOD ended up getting muted. Not really a big deal because I wasn't really talking much while I was playing Minecraft but I didn't think it would get muted. I think it was during the entire length of the first two artists so maybe there is a glitch. I also thought that maybe because I was listening to it on Spotify that maybe the ads triggered the muting. I can't remember any ads because I was kind of zoned out and not really listening to anything but I know there were ads because that's what Spotify does. Who knows. I messaged the record labels Twitch channel so we'll see. Next time I might try just playing their stream in the background instead of Spotify and see if that changes anything.

And now it is time for bed because it is two o'clock in the morning and I'm tired and I have a headache. I am going to sleep in tomorrow. And if I wake up and I deem it to be too early, I'm just going to lay there until I fall back to sleep. I want a sleep-in day. I think I've earned one this week.

April 3, 2015

 Today happened. It started, and then there were things, and now we're here. Super informative.

There was more testing today. More baby picture editing. The occasional class in the lab. And we almost had a yearbook club meeting. None of the kids showed up, which isn't a bad thing because there really wasn't anything for them to do, so I ended up just sitting and talking to the mom who's in charge of it all while I worked on editing baby pictures.

While standing and watching kids take tests I had a breakthrough idea for my group project this week. Half of it anyway. We have to come up with a directory and a almanac/yearbook/handbook for undergraduate students thinking about going to graduate school. I came up with a directory. All week I've had the vague idea of pizza, not only because it is good, but it also has a very college appeal. I originally thought about finding a directory for local pizza places so the prospective grad student could look and see what kind of pizza they could get while in grad school. And then today during testing TripAdvisor popped into my head. I briefly contemplated Yelp but I decided to broaden things and go with TripAdvisor. It would allow students to see not only restaurants but also local attractions and other stuff for the city where they may want to go to grad school. This way they'll know if they're going to have to roadtrip for Chipotle or what museums are in town. These could be the deciding factors if the grad schools at the top of the list come out tied. I think it's a pretty brilliant idea.

Going back to baby pictures, I may have my first song for the slideshow. I've been listening to Kygo a lot after seeing him on the Ultra music festival stream. I thought about taking a clip from one of his songs for the menu or credits music, and I still might, but I might use one of his full songs for the slideshow itself. I actually noticed the lyrics to Stole the Show tonight and it can either be about an amicable breakup or the end of an era. I'm going to run it by a few people and see if they can see it in the context of the latter.

Tonight I watched some YouTube videos and livestreams and listened to music. All while working on the annotation for TripAdvisor and writing another response on the discussion post for this week. A productive night but it would have been nice if I had finished my work sooner. Isn't that always the case.

Now I'm really tempted to jump into a game of Blacklight Retribution. But I also want to play Minecraft. And go to bed because it is after eleven o'clock and I like sleep. I might click on Blacklight Retribution before I can change my mind. Yep. Just did. So I'm going to check that out, see how much it has changed since last I played, which looks like was almost two years ago.

April 2, 2015

 Today my cutout spent most of the day in the staff bathroom. I didn't put it there, just to be clear. It apparently scared pretty much everyone who used the bathroom and eventually someone put a blindfold on it. At one point one of the second grade teachers asked me if I had seen my number two, watching people go number two. One of the cleverest things I have heard in awhile. The cutout was also briefly in the elevator, long enough to scare one of the paras to the point of screaming. Classic cutout.

My day was filled with more testing. No surprise there. The only problem was one test that wouldn't allow the student to answer the second half of the last question. I'm going to have it reactivated and hope that it will miraculously fix things.

When there wasn't testing I had a couple classes in the lab, yearbook club, and I edited baby pictures. So once again, a very typical day as of late. Tomorrow will be much of the same.

Tonight I finally managed my discussion post, finding examples that hadn't been mentioned already. Although I did discover someone who asked almost the exact same question I did, but screw it, I'm not wasting more time trying to come up with a new one. I also responded to two or three posts. I'll need to respond to more in the coming days so that I show activity on more than one day.

I spent the rest of the night watching the Neebs livestream and playing a little guitar. Tomorrow I want to focus on my group projects and take a look at my other upcoming assignments. Hopefully I can get a lot done this weekend.

The stream is still going but I'm going to bed now. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep recently and I have been feeling it. I miss the brief period of time when I was going to bed at ten o'clock. That is a great time to go to bed when you wake up at six o'clock in the morning.

April 1, 2015

 I moved my cutout self out of my computer room and out by the stairs last night so I would remember it this morning. And then when I walked out of my room this morning I scared the crap out of myself. I got used to it being in the computer room so it has been awhile since it made me jump. I got it into and then out of my car with not much trouble. It still feels a bit weird carrying yourself in public.

I set it up outside the lab and it was pretty funny because throughout the day I could hear everyone's reaction to it. Adults often commented on how it made them jump and kids mostly said hello to it. Occasionally on purpose. There was a second grader who said hello to it and right as the words came out of his mouth I walked out of the workroom and he stopped in his tracks, started smiling and looking back and forth between me and me. Then he went up to touch the cutout. It was pretty funny.

I positioned the cutout in such a way that I wouldn't really see it while I was in the lab. There was awhile last year when I could catch glimpses and it would make me jump a little. It still got me a few times today when I was leaving the lab or coming back. I imagine at some point it will probably start traveling around the building.

Today we had three scheduled tests. All of which went well. We also had several sixth graders come in and finish their writing test, and a few fourth graders come in and finally finish their tests. A couple of them needed to finish the last part of a test but it turns out you can't reactivate just that part, you reactivate the whole freaking test. This meant that I had to have the principal reprint the previous tickets. One kid had to log in and the resubmit three or four tests before he was able to log into the test he needed to take. Kinda dumb.

I was talking to one of the fifth grade teachers during one of the tests and at one point I asked her if she had taken advantage of her position yet and taught her kids one false thing, as if it were true. Something subtle that may only come up in conversation once in the kids' lifetime, probably when they're well into adulthood, and then they'll break out this fact and everyone around them will look at them like they're crazy. I was originally thinking about some made up important date but then she came up with Theodore Roosevelt's mustache being fake. I came up with him being ashamed at the fact that he couldn't grow facial hair so he wore a fake mustache, maybe made out of horse hair. I think it is brilliant. Just the sort of random fact that a kid probably won't believe at first but they probably aren't going to be able to disprove it so they might as well accept it. I doubt anyone out there has ever gone to the effort of commenting on the origins of Roosevelt's facial hair, so the internet won't be any help either.

When the fourth graders were testing I think the teacher told her intern to walk around the lab and keep an eye on the kids. And she went for it. I lost track of how many laps she made throughout the lab but she probably easily doubled her daily goal for steps. She's the intern that looks like Anna Camp if she had brown hair, and I haven't had too many interactions with her, but she seems uncomfortable. Like she feels out of place or nervous. Part of that is probably the teacher she is with because she's kind of awkward, too. Also, fourth grade is at the top of the building and they don't have a whole lot of interaction with the rest of the school I don't think. But, I would probably be the same way. I'm really socially awkward in new situations, and sometimes in old situations. No judgment here. But it was amusing watching her constantly walking around the lab.

The broken computer was returned today so this afternoon I got all of my shortcuts put back on the desktop, and changed the background image. I also went around and changed all the log-off buttons to restart buttons. That will probably confuse the kids that notice it, but we'll get through it.

At the end of the day the representative from the yearbook company stopped by to talk to me. He spent a lot of time at the end of last year trying to talk to me about how I did something on our class pages but we never crossed paths. He left a message with one of the office ladies today that he wanted to stop by and see me. And he apparently kind of ran right by her this afternoon to get in and come talk to me. I'm not a big fan. He's an old dude but there's just something about him. Kind of a used car salesman feel but with another layer or two in there. I can't really describe it. Anyway, the mom who is in charge of the yearbook is apparently also avoiding his emails and he wants to be given permission to view our yearbook online. I don't see why he needs to be given access to that, and he probably won't be. At no point does he need to be involved in the process, actually. He served his purpose in coming to talk to us last year about the company and that should have been it. I can see checking in to make sure everything is going alright, maybe once, but it is a very simple website and he doesn't need to be a member of the team. I think his idea of his role and our idea of his role are vastly different. But, now I'm just rambling.

After work I got Chipotle and then headed home. I planned on reading a bit before dinner but ended up spending that time uninstalling a bunch of random crap that ended up on my computer. Hopefully it is all gone now but it probably isn't. I just need to stop installing stuff. It feels like I only just recently reinstalled Windows and I don't want to have to do that again. Although I do need a bigger solid state drive for my main drive so at some point I need to do that. And the fan on my graphics card is going out, it's getting louder and louder. And a few other fans have stopped working. I need to upgrade parts, basically, but I don't have the money to do that right now. Well, I do, but I don't want to spend money right now. A bit of a difference.

After dinner I read most of a textbook chapter. I gave up in the last few pages because it wasn't bringing anything new to the table and I was falling asleep. I then spent the rest of the night trying to come up with a post for the discussion this week. We need to come up with examples for color being categorized in a cultural, individual, and institutional way. Every time I came up with a good example I checked the discussion thread and at least one person had already mentioned it. Great minds think alike I guess. The one week when a bunch of people actually post early.

For cultural I wanted to do gangs, and then schools, and then the meaning of white in different cultures. All of which were already mentioned. So now I've got nothing. For individual I might mention something about my love of the color green. And for institutional I'm thinking about the colors used to differentiate school library books based on lexile ranges. But culture is remaining elusive. I feel like there is something there, just out of my grasp, but I'm not there yet. It's after midnight now so I'm going to wait and post tomorrow night because even if I came up with something tonight it would still show up as being posted tomorrow.

And because it is after midnight, I'm going to bed. The weekend is almost here and I am looking forward to sleeping in. But not too late because I've got a lot of schoolwork yet to do. So much.