October 14, 2015

 I have a headache and today wasn't too exciting so hopefully this will go quick.

I got caught up with everything at work today. I printed the last MAP reports because they were finally updated. I checked on the new fifth grade teacher's laptop, using my new display port to HDMI cable to plug into the projector and that worked, so I'm assuming the problem is with her VGA port and not a graphics issue. But I could be wrong. I printed DIBELS reports for the principal, which was mildly tedious because they needed to be printed front-to-back to save paper but each kid had three sheets of paper. So the first two were front-to-back and then there was a one-sided sheet. The printer doesn't have a setting for that so I figured out the page numbers for the front-to-back sheets, printed those first, and then went back and printed the one-sided sheets. There were classes in the lab but nothing eventful happened. And then I ran out of stuff to do so I started looking up stuff for my research paper. I didn't make that much progress but every little bit counts.

After work I picked up Chipotle and I felt bad because there was a moment of confusion and I ended up with meat on my burrito so the girl had to start over. In the end my burrito was pretty good, though, so it all worked out.

After dinner I played Minecraft because that's the mood I've been in lately. I need to step up the school work though. I've got to come up with a selection list of Sociology books for my collection development class, and these are books that could actually be purchased because this project is for an actual library, so there's a little bit of pressure. And there's the research paper. So even though I'm done with one class I need to keep my head in the game and finish out the semester strong.

Tonight I wrapped the cross stitch for the librarian because her birthday is tomorrow. I think I did a pretty good wrapping job. So many layers. I wrapped the box in newspaper, and stuffed a bunch of loose newspaper in the box, but the cross stitch itself in wrapped in pages from my desk calendar because I had them laying around for some reason. Tomorrow I will need to juggle carrying the present in (which I put in a canvas bag to make it a little easier) and my cutout, because I had a request to bring that in. I'm not going to leave it at school though because it gets dinged up when it is moved all over the building because people aren't that careful with it. It's going to be a pain in the ass taking it and bringing it back in the same day but I'll survive.

Now I'm going to go to bed because of the aforementioned headache and I'm tired. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep this week so tonight I'll make up for that.

October 13, 2015

 I am tired so I will probably forget stuff that happened today. I guess that is what tomorrow's entry is for.

I finished editing the bookcase pictures and crafted a decently worded email to go with them. Then I sent it to the principal so she could read it before I sent it out to the 1800+ people in the district. It's a tad bit nerve-racking sending an email out to that many people. The principal thought it was pretty good so I pulled the trigger and sent it to everyone. Not too long after my inbox started pinging and I got quite a few emails in a very short amount of time. Overall I got somewhere between twenty and thirty, which isn't a lot considering the total number I sent it to, but that is still a lot. Most were interested in the bookcase but a few just sent an email thanking me for making them laugh, so that was pretty cool. It only took four minutes to get rid of the bookcase. And all the books that have been sitting in the workroom since the beginning of the school year.

This morning I told a second grader to put his headphones on in the lab when he was working on Compass Learning so he could hear what the little cartoon animals were trying to teach him. He responded with “I can read lips... You don't know my life.” I responded with “They're cartoons, that's not how that works. Put your headphones on.” He's an annoying kid and it's only getting worse as he gets older. He's really disrespectful.

This afternoon he came back to the lab, dropped off by a para to work on Compass Learning again. I'm assuming he didn't have a good day in the classroom. I wasn't opposed to this because he needs all the extra education he can get and he generally screws around instead of trying to learn. Last week he worked for maybe five minutes out of twenty-five and spent the rest of the time either in the bathroom or repeatedly screwing up while logging in. Anyway, this afternoon I was standing in the back keeping an eye on him and about five minutes later he turned around and asked me what time it was. I told him that it didn't matter and to get back to work. Then he told me it was time for him to go. I told him he didn't even know what time it was and he needed to get back to work. Thirty seconds later he asked me again, I said it wasn't important, he said he needed to go back to the classroom, I said someone would come for him, he said it was time for him to go back, I asked him what time it was. Variations on this theme went on for awhile and he eventually gave up. And then one of his classmates came and got him.

Along with all that stuff and classes in the lab throughout the day, I added shortcuts to three laptops for one of the sixth grade teachers, I returned the laptop carrt I was working on last Friday to the third floor, I made classes for a teacher in Compass Learning, I helped a teacher with her phone, I helped the kitchen ladies with Excel and their printer, I tried to help the new fifth grade teacher with her laptop and printer, I helped with second grade literacy centers, I made a sub chart for one of the SPED teachers, and there was probably some more stuff mixed in there. It was a fairly busy day. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself tomorrow. Hopefully something comes up.

After work I mailed a bill, bought a Powerball ticket, and picked up my framed cross stitch. I really like how it turned out. I was a little uncertain when I was picking out the mat color but it turns out I didn't need to be. The frame shop hasn't failed me yet.

Tonight I had the last of my barbecue pineapple pizza so that was kind of sad. What wasn't sad was the arrival of my new hard drive, flash drive, and the connector so I could hook up my other TV to my computer, giving me a total of four monitors. It took me way too long to clone my old SSD to my new one but I eventually got it figured out, and got the boot order changed, and now everything appears to be running smoothly. I'm not going to wipe the old SSD for awhile until I know the new one isn't going to crap out on me.

Now I'm going to go to bed so I can wake up see what happens with my day. This morning I watched iZombie and played Minecraft before work. I will probably do the same thing tomorrow morning. Something to look forward to.

October 12, 2015

 One thing I forgot to mention in terms of productivity yesterday was that I bought a new SSD for my computer. I also bought a connector so I can connect my second TV to my computer, bringing me up to four monitors. Hooray.

A good majority of my day was spent reading. It was pretty much all about dealing with serials in collection development, both print and digital. Slightly interesting, and most likely important in my future career, but reading a couple chapters and a few articles back-to-back was a little rough. I managed to avoid a nap so I was able to finish everything before dinner.

I spent the rest of the night playing Minecraft and I started watching iZombie on Netflix. In Minecraft I made a lot of progress on my minecart tracks. I built two more depots, finished one tunnel, dug a new tunnel, and almost finished laying the track in that tunnel. I also started making the tunnels look better. Progress. As for iZombie, it took a couple episodes but now I'm a fan. It might be my new morning show, until I finish it.

I also watched Parallels, a movie which felt like it should have been a TV show. It seemed like one giant buildup for something big, like an extended TV pilot, and then it was over, because it was a movie that forgot the third act. The basic premise was that there was a building that would transport people to a parallel Earth every thirty-six hours. Intrigue and mystery was added into the mix but was never resolved. I was slightly disappointed.

Tomorrow it is back to work. I checked my work email today and found I've got at a least a couple projects to attend to in the morning. Along with finishing up the pictures of the bookcase and sending out an email to the district. I got a call today from the frame shop letting me know my book cross stitch is done so I will be picking that up after work. Other than that, who knows what the day will hold.

October 11, 2015

 Today I finished up my metadata crosswalk and submitted it, replied to a few discussion posts, added a bit more to the clusterfuck week-long group post, read over a draft of my groups collection development policy, and I vacuumed. So it was a pretty productive day. I've been wanting to use my new vacuum for quite some time now and today was finally the day. I think the suction might be a little too good because it was a bit hard pushing it over the thick carpet, but other than that it seemed to do a pretty good job. There really wasn't anything visible that I was wanting to vacuum, however, so I can only assume it did a good job.

I also got to play a little bit of Minecraft today, in celebration of finishing my metadata class. I fully dug and laid the rail for another minecart track and made the small depot for it near my Nether portal. Then I dug out most of another tunnel for a track that will run to a spot that I want to eventually build a library on. I think I still want to dig one out to the underwater temple and possible one over to my farm, even though it is right next to my house. We'll see.

We had a family pizza night and I got barbecue pineapple pizza. It was delicious. My friend was in town so after dinner I went over to her parent's house and watched the sixth movie in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with her, her mom, and her sister. I had no idea there were that many in the series. And apparently there is at least one more, not counting Freddy VS Jason (which is the only one I have seen). Her and her mom have been working on a marathon of the movies yesterday and today. The movie was good in that kind of cheesy, ridiculous 90s horror movie kind of way. I liked it. At some point I need to check out the other movies because the sixth one is apparently very meta because it involves Freddy going after the actress who played a lady in the movies within the first movies. It makes sense. Of all the creepy things in the movie, the worst was Freddy's tongue coming out of the phone. I do like older horror movies much better than modern ones because the scary stuff isn't as real. All the gore and stuff in modern movies is just too realistic. I don't need to see realistic bone breaks and horrific accidents. That's just not my thing.

Tomorrow my main goal is to read stuff for the upcoming week. Now that I don't have metadata reading it should be a lot more manageable. I should also probably start researching my paper for my academic libraries class. And looking for books for my group project in my collection development class. We'll see what I get done.

October 10, 2015

 I'll be honest. I didn't spend the entire day working on my Metadata crosswalk. I did work on it off and on throughout the day, though, which is kind of what I expected to happen. And it worked out because I eventually managed to finish the assignment. Minus the reference list, which is probably the easiest part, so there is no real reason why I didn't do that other than I was kind of done for the day. It won't take me too long to do that tomorrow and it'll give me another chance to read over my paper again. I also posted a summary of the assignment to the discussion thread and responded to one of the posts. I'll respond to a few more tomorrow and submit the assignment, officially finishing my metadata class. Thankfully. It has been very interesting but also stressful.

There is an advanced metadata class that starts after this one, which is a two credit hour class. I think the idea is that you would take those two together in one semester, leaving a single three credit hour class to bring it up to a full six credit hours in the semester. That way you would have one class throughout the semester and then the two metadata classes, one after the other, which would mean you only had two classes at any given time, not three. Unfortunately for me, I wanted to take the academic libraries class this semester, which is two credit hours, and that left me needing one more credit hour. Metadata was used to fill that need and I wasn't even aware that it could be paired up with the second metadata class later in the semester. It's probably for the best though because after the stress from class I need a break. At least from metadata. I've still got plenty of work to do in my remaining two classes.

At one point during the day I opened the backdoor to check on the weather because it looked nice out and I wanted to open my window if it wasn't too hot. When I opened the door I was met by a pretty big spider, right at head level. Upon closer inspection I saw that it had a web across the entire doorway. Just the other night I had gone out to see if I could see the meteor shower (which I couldn't because it was cloudy) and I thought I felt a spider web on me. Not a full web, just a little string, but didn't think much of it. My main reason for going out that door is to release spiders I have caught in the basement. That usually happens at night and I usually turn off the light before I open the door because I want to reduce the chance of the bugs that hang out at the light swarming my face. I don't think I'm going to turn off the light anymore, because I'll probably forget to check first to see if there is a giant spider ready to touch my face. Although that also means I'll probably forget to not turn the light off. Basically, a big spider will probably be touching my face in the near future.

While working on my metadata crosswalk tonight Word froze on me. Not too long after I got a message about Word being unable to save a backup or something because my C:\ Drive was out of space. When I checked on that it turned out to be an accurate statement because I was at a big fat zero on my C:\ Drive. I've been dealing with that issue for awhile now because it is a small SSD but this is the first time I completely ran out of room. I ran CC Cleaner and found out that Chrome and Firefox were both taking up a whole bunch of space, Chrome in particular. After I ran the program and deleted all the temp files I gained back more than 8GB of space. That is crazy. I need to close my web browsers more often so they don't build up so much crap.

The experience of losing a few sentences of my paper in the crash was enough to get me to finally buy a new SSD before something worse happens. I've been looking at them for awhile but was putting it off because prices were continuing to drop and I didn't have a sufficient reason to spend the money. But now I do so I will be doing that tomorrow. It will also be a good excuse to finally use the gift card I got for my birthday. I also might pick up a cable so I can hook up my other TV to my computer so I can have four monitors. It would have come in handy during my metadata assignments when I had a million browser tabs and various Word documents and PDFs open.

Anyway, it is now two o'clock in the morning and I need to go to bed so I can wake up tomorrow and do things. Like turn in my metadata crosswalk, reply to some discussion posts, and try and add more to the group clusterfuck weekly assignment that has been causing me so much anxiety over the past week. Hooray.

October 9, 2015

 I'm tired. That seems to be my general state of being this week.

This morning I took pictures of the bookcase that no one at school wants so I can send out an email to the district to see if another school wants it. I took some without anything on it, with several books on it, and with sixteen reams of paper (just because). Throughout the rest of the day I edited the pictures to make them look better. I also cut out the bookcase and added it to a picture of a beach and to a picture of a pasture. Because of other things I didn't get around to actually sending the email so that will have to happen on Tuesday.

My favorite sub was there today so I got to talk to her for awhile. When I was clocking out for lunch she was in the office so we ended up sitting in the chairs in there while she waited on her lunch to arrive and talked about stuff.

I spent my entire afternoon installing Type to Learn on a laptop cart. Seventeen laptops altogether. It was kind of awful. It takes forever to install because it is a huge file (1GB) and it has to be on the computer or it takes even longer. The fasted solution ended up being downloading the file to a flash drive, copying it onto the laptop, installing it, and then deleted the setup file. Even with five laptops going at a time it took me four hours. With that and juggling classes coming into the lab at the same time, I didn't really have time to do anything else. Like sending the email about the bookcase.

Tonight I had a Frosty for the first time in a long time. I want to say several years. It was really good.

I didn't work on my metadata crosswalk tonight. I did add a little to the group discussion thing for my collection development class. That damn thing. It is a big reason for my lack of motivation this week, which is impacting my metadata class. The whole assignment is kind of an unorganized clusterfuck. A poorly designed assignment. The groups should have been three or four people at most and been restrained to the case study. There should have also been more communication within the groups about dividing up the work. Not the free-for-all it turned into, especially after individuals did most of the original assignment by themselves before anyone else had a chance to contribute, leading to the expansion of the assignment. But at this point I'm beating a dead horse. I just hope I am able to contribute enough that I don't lose too many points. My frustration about this assignment and the anxiety it has produced has been incredibly distracting all week. Hopefully next week we can go back to a regular discussion, with clearly defined guidelines.

For the past little while now I have been watching a Minecraft livestream that is in French. I don't even kind of speak French. I know they aren't talking about the game but other than that I don't have the slightest idea what the conversations are about. And the whole time the girl has just been building floor after floor of a big building. I originally turned it on as background to my work, figuring I wouldn't be distracted by the talking. Then I ended up not working.

Tomorrow. Metadata crosswalk. All day. Mostly. It will be done tomorrow so I will have time to edit it on Sunday before turning it in. That's the plan. I need to move on with my life and I can do that as soon as I finish that assignment because it will be the end of my metadata class. Hopefully the rest of the semester will be a little less stressful without having to juggle three classes.

October 8, 2015

 Another day. They are kind of becoming blended together. I had classes in the lab this morning and this afternoon. In between I finished my MAP spreadsheets, printed them out, and gave them to teachers. This afternoon I had my second grade reading group again. On Tuesday we do vowel stuff and Thursday is Dolch word stuff. So today was Dolch word stuff and it went better than Tuesday.

After school my fifth grade teacher friend brought me a new office chair. I think she was originally sent by the office ladies to one of the kindergarten teachers, who then sent her to me because he already had one. But I didn't need a new chair because I got one two or three years ago. So she left with it. A short time later she when I went to clock out she was pushing it back down to the kindergarten rooms and I think checking with the other kindergarten teacher to see if she needed it. I leave the building that way so I ended up down there and we started talking with the one kindergarten teacher about it, trying to figure out what was up. A little while later the principal came down and got it. There is a little ramp and she wanted to push it down the ramp but there was a Boys & Girls Club girl (I think) sitting nearby with a kid so she decided against it. She then pushed it down the hall to see if one of the first grade teachers needed it before pushing it back into the office. And then came back and pushed it into the library, which is when I left, so who knows if that was the end of the journey.

Other things happened throughout the day but I kind of want to go to bed so we'll just skip over that. I worked on my metadata crosswalk assignment a little bit tonight. I still have a lot to do, mainly the summary and stuff, but I also still have a lack of motivation. I wish it actually was due tomorrow, like it was originally, so I could just get it over with. And maybe focus on the group thing in my collection development class, which still feels like a complete disaster. I think it is going to bone several people's grades, at least for this particular assignment, because the only real directions for the assignment were completely hijacked by one or two people, leaving everyone else having to make crap up. I'll probably be annoyed about it for quite some time.

Tomorrow my only real plan at work is to take a picture of a bookshelf that no one in the building wants and send it out to the district to see if anyone outside the building wants it. I'm not a fan of people who email the whole district but it is a good way to get rid of stuff. This being my one chance to do it, I want to have some fun with it. I'll probably end up just sending out a very plain email but maybe inspiration will strike.