October 7, 2014

I know that today was a thing that happened because I was there for the whole thing, but it was a very blah kind of day. I edited a sixth grader's story today and it made me worry for the future, at least when it comes to kids being able to spell things. It wasn't nearly as bad as a kindergartener's writing, but there were some words that I had to ask her about because they weren't anywhere near something I could even guess at.

I helped out with literacy centers in both kindergarten classes today. In the first class I struggled with a cassette tape. There were multiple versions of the story on the tape and the one I needed was second. I didn't realize this until Ray Charles started reading at such a fast pace that the kids weren't able to keep up with their page turning. I remembered it vaguely from last year and knew there was a version with page turning prompts. I figured maybe it was on the other side of the tape so I fast-forwarded it and then flipped it over. The first track on that side ended up being a version of the story that was sung by children, not even Ray Charles. So I fast-forwarded that side, flipped it back over, and then fast-forwarded awhile to get to the second track, which was thankfully the correct version of the story. It was a bit ridiculous.

In the second class I got the listening group started (with the correct version of the story) and then because the teacher was short on people, I took over another group that involved tracing the words on labels for the parts of the body and then putting the labels on a large outline of a body, before finally coloring the body to look like the kindergartener. While working with that I also helped police the listening group, along with my mom and another para, because after they were done coloring their picture they got to use ink pads and stamps. Those can be dangerous in the hands of kindergarteners.

I mentioned to the second grade teacher yesterday after she told me about one of her students destroying a how to stay calm poster in anger, that maybe he just needed a hug. I asked her how he was doing today and she said she actually tried the hug thing and she thought it may have had a positive effect, even if he was pretending like he didn't like it. I guessed that maybe he just wasn't held enough or shown enough affection when he was younger and maybe that guess was correct. He's been an angry old man since kindergarten and there is a chance it is just his personality but there is a chance it is something deeper.

I did a little bit of research today for my most recent group project but not too much. I spent more time working on my latest MAP project. I still don't know if it will amount to anything but I think there is potential. Today I created a bunch of pie charts based on the data but I still want to come up with some other visual for it. Inspiration has yet to strike.

Tonight I have accomplished very little. I wrote my monthly report for my volunteer thing but that didn't really take any effort. I should have been working on schoolwork all night but I haven't been. I should have gone to graduate school years ago so I would be done with it by now. Although years ago I wouldn't have picked Library Science so who knows what the hell would have happened. It is best that I waited, even if it did take forever, but it would be nice to be knee deep in a job I liked that paid me well. It kind of sucks having a job I like but knowing it can't last because I don't get paid enough.

I still have some time before I need to head back to the new house so maybe I can squeeze something worthwhile in. Probably not. I'm not even going to pretend to hold my breath.

October 6, 2014

My goal it to get through this relatively fast so I can go to bed. It still won't be fast enough but I'll give it a shot.

Last night I didn't sleep very well and that was unfortunate. I prefer sleeping well. Especially when I am exceedingly tired.

I did some things at work but overall I didn't have a lot going on. This morning I helped one of the third grade teachers get Infinite Campus working. I think there was an update over the weekend and her computer didn't get the memo. My theory is that the old version was stored in the browser cookies. I verified that it was the browser by opening it up just fine in another browser. And, after deleting the cookies in her main browser, all was good. The cookies could have just been a coincidence but I don't think it was. And even so, the problem is fixed.

I helped the same third grade teacher's intern get a document from his Mac to the school's Windows desktop so he could edit it. Last week I had to figure out how to save a Pages document as a Word document. Originally I had to save it as a PDF instead but I eventually figured out how to Export it or something as a Windows document. Today the intern wanted to edit the PDF but instead I slowly remembered that we had been able to save as a Word document, so we did that and then I had him email it to himself so he could open it up on the school computer.

I put in a trouble ticket for fourth grade laptop with trust issues. In theory the guy is able to fix the problem remotely if you give him the computer's name, which I did, but he still ended up having to stop by. And he was really nice about it. He's been nice all year actually, It is kind of strange. I just wish they would allow us to fix the trust relationship problems, instead of having to send someone out. I don't know what they do but it only takes a few minutes and it doesn't make sense to make us wait however long for them to make it to the building when we could probably just be fixing it ourselves. Oh well.

I fixed one of the second grade teachers' laptops when the trackpad stopped working. There was a little light on in the corner of it and it turns out, if you double-tap the light it will go on or off. When it is on, the trackpad is disabled. I assume this is for people who want to use the top buttons and the little mouse nub in the middle of the keyboard.

There is a second grader who was born angry. He came in everyday during kindergarten with a scowl on his face. His anger at life has only increased with age. When his teacher has teaching students when they come to the lab she always has one sit with this kid and he's always surly. Today in one of his fits of anger he destroyed the teacher's poster on how to stay calm. The poster was obviously defective, not only in terms of structural integrity, but also in terms of useful content.

There were classes in the lab today but when there weren't, and when I wasn't out doing whatever I needed to do, I worked on my interview paper. It took me a surprisingly long time to work out what I wanted to say in the closing paragraph. I'm happy with what I came up with though. I never did get around to making direct reference to the book but of the students who have posted their papers to the discussion group, only a few have done that, so at least I'm not alone. I also followed the instructions slightly better than my group project partner who used the name of the person she interviewed as well as where that person worked. We were supposed to write it in such a way that our interviewee remained anonymous.

I also had time to email the person I interviewed and thank him for his time and ask a couple other questions. Mainly regarding what I have heard about academic librarians needing a second master's degree in another area so that they can specialize in that area. The librarian emailed me back and said that his university has never required that and said that when they do hire someone with a second master's degree they often struggle because they become too focused on their specialty and find it difficult to branch out. The librarian said they prefer people who can be knowledgeable about many things. That was good to hear. It means being an academic librarian is still an option for me. I also asked him if he knew any librarians familiar with digitizing old photographs because I will be doing that with hundreds of my grandma's photos. I wanted to pick someone's brain about the project and see what the most efficient methods were, especially when it comes to organizing them once I have them scanned. The librarian said they had just hired a digital initiatives librarian but they wouldn't be arriving for another few weeks, and he wasn't aware of anyone else. So the search continues. I still need to email the other librarian back that I interviewed and thank him. And see if I can come up with anymore questions for him. That is on my agenda for tomorrow.

I got a very brief start on researching my latest group project. I didn't get involved with databases yet because I'm still trying to narrow down what the actual research question should be. Instead I typed some stuff into Google and found several articles. Through these, I will hopefully be able to come up with something sufficiently focused and then get started with trying to find scholarly articles. I haven't actually looked but it would be nice if some of the articles I found tonight actually referenced scholarly work. I think I'll email them to myself and start looking through them during my downtime tomorrow at work.

And now the time has come for me to call this good. It ended up being longer than I was hoping for but it's too late for that now. The inside of my left elbow, whatever that is called (inner elbow) is feeling a bit sore as I type. Too much moving stuff yesterday at my grandma's house. Hopefully I can sleep it off. I'm going to go find out.

October 5, 2014

Today went by super fast. I was up before ten o'clock, maybe before nine o'clock but I can't remember. Fairly soon after waking up I started writing my interview paper. With a break for lunch, I got most of the paper done by one o'clock. All I need to do is write a concluding paragraph. I planned on doing that tonight but ran out of time so I'll need to do that tomorrow.

After taking a shower I headed over to my grandma's house. The auctioneer is coming tomorrow morning so today was our last day to go through things and get the things we wanted. My main focus was still the stuff my grandma and grandpa made, including all the patterns they used to make stuff. All the homemade stuff might get a little money in an auction but it is worth way more to the family and I want to keep that stuff in the family. I also got more books and some of the Christmas village houses that my grandma and I would arrange on the top of her cabinets.

We took a break for dinner and then went back for one final look. We also loaded up the two chairs and the writing desk that I wanted. It was just starting to sprinkle so my dad and I were going to head over to the old house to drop them off in the garage. At least that was the plan that I heard. My dad thought we were going to my sister's house so he turned left in the truck with the chairs and I turned right. After being at the house for a bit I gave him a call and he had just finished unloading the chairs at my sister's. So he packed them back up and headed over to where I was. My brother and sister beat him over because my sister realized that she had the desk in the back of her car. My brother and I got the chairs out of the truck and then my brother carried the desk in. Eventually I want them at the new house but for tonight, the old house was closer and way more convenient.

We then made one final pass through the house just to make sure we hadn't missed or forgotten anything. And by the time I left it was 11:30PM. The day disappeared and I am freaking exhausted. There is a lot more I could write about the day as well but I'm just too tired.

Tomorrow at work I will need to go over my paper and add in the final paragraph so I can get that sent off, considering it is due tomorrow. I also need to write my monthly report for my volunteer thing because that is due on Tuesday. And I need to start looking for articles for my latest group project. And decide on a solution for my first group project. I feel like this is going to be a long week.

Right now I just want to sleep. It is almost midnight so it is going to be a much shorter night than I would like, but I'm going to stop typing now so it isn't any shorter than it has to be.

October 4, 2014

The screaming kid next door eventually went to sleep but I do know he was at least up by six o'clock in the morning because that is when my alarm went off and I could hear him. I did actually sleep all too well last night, waking up several times throughout the night. That was less than desirable. I wasn't in the mood to go over for my complimentary breakfast so I just ate some of the food I brought with me. The biscuit I got last time at the restaurant was good, and I was kind of tempted to try the cheese omelet, but in the end I decided against it. Maybe next time, if I decide to risk the hotel again.

I ended up checking out of the hotel and getting across town super early so I drove around for awhile. There are some pretty cool old houses near campus. And a lot of brick roads. My kidneys aren't a fan of brick roads. I don't think it would matter if they were yellow or not.

The entire day was filled with the group interviews of the researchers in different fields. Yesterday we were broken up into groups (different from the group project group) and assigned to one of our professor's friends. Each is from a different field and they conduct research. Each group took turns sitting up at the front of the room and interviews their selected person while the rest of the class stayed back in their seats and watched on the projector. The fields included English, Physical Anthropology, Philosophy, and two from History. I think that was everyone. The goal was to see how research differs and is the same across the different fields. It was actually pretty interesting. My group went second and we had the physical anthropologist. Her project at the moment involves working with the bones of Native Americans. Originally she was interested in Neanderthals but those are kind of hard to come by in North America. My group was the only one organized enough to decide on just going around the table and take turns asking questions. Other groups tried to make it more casual I guess and didn't have a set order for who's turn it was. That lead to a lot of awkward silences. The only real awkwardness for our group was one girl who, on two occasions, basically asked the question I had already asked. We were just going down the line of questions and on my turns I would start by tying things back into what the anthropologist had already said and then ask the question. I don't know what was up with this girl but both times she managed to find the question I had just asked (completely out of order) and then ask it again. It was acknowledged that I wasn't just imagining this because both times another girl in the group just turned and looked at me. The whole thing was strange. But the interview went well.

The funniest thing was from the interview with the philosopher. The whole interview was pretty good but at one point I think we were talking about the peer review process and he said “Your hypothesis may have a grain of truth but it needs a lot more baking in the thought oven before it can be sold in the bakery store window.” I thought that was pretty good.

I went across the street to Subway again for lunch and it was good but that doesn't really take any time at all and we had an hour for lunch. Maybe next time I'll branch out.

After the interviews we talked as a class about the various interviews, filled out our evaluation, and then were dismissed a little bit early. I spoke with my group after because I had come up with a couple more ideas for research. Tomorrow or the next day I'll need to do some preliminary database hunting to see what I can find. I also spoke with my partner from my group project in my other class as we walked out to the parking lot. I kind of took the lead with things, saying by the end of this week we should decide on a solution so we can start writing our newspaper articles. I said we needed to just pick a solution, one based on enough evidence that we could defend it, even if maybe it isn't necessarily the one we would pick in a real life situation. I also said I would come up with the formatting for the newspaper if she wanted to put together the slideshow. So I think that is going places.

On the way home I stopped by Spangles, because that is what I do. Instead of actually going in and having dinner, I just went through the drive-thru and got fries and an orange juice slush because I wasn't in the mood for a grilled cheese sandwich.

When I got home I ate dinner and then came over to the old house. I took a break from library stuff and looked at other random things on the internet while watching YouTube videos. I also had a long conversation with my friend down south. We talked about all the things. Including his college plans, which at the moment isn't really there. He is taking this semester off and then at least a few of the classes he needs to graduate aren't going to be offered until 2016, so that's not good. He is looking into getting a job as an inspector/engineer with the Department of Transportation because he wants a change and a decent paycheck. Hopefully that will only be until he can finally finish up his degree.

Tomorrow I need to write my interview paper because that is due on Monday. I also need to go over to my grandma's house and get any last things I want because the auctioneer is supposed to walk through on Monday. My goal is to try and not sleep in too late tomorrow and see if I can get my paper knocked out by lunch. Or soon after. That will give me time over at my grandma's house, which will potentially take forever if my dad and sister are there because we tend to lose track of time. So we'll see how that works out.

October 3, 2014

This morning seems so long ago and it is only ten o’clock. I helped out with second grade reading groups with morning. The high group usually goes to the library but not of Friday, so I took them to the lab. They had to do the first part of a packet about earthworms and then read from various books about earthworms until it was time to rotate. The classroom would have been too hectic so we went down to the computer lab. And then rotated to the hallway outside the room to play reading games until it was time to rotate again. They ended reading time by getting on Wonderopolis and looking at things. They a couple of the groups ended up watching a video about Big Foot so I think they believe now.

Immediately after reading groups I had both second grade classes come to the lab, one after the other. I missed part of the first one because I went down to the library to help the librarian get pictures off her camera. We learned that Canon doesn't make a driver for Windows 7 for the particular camera she has so you can't just plug it in and get the pictures. I learned on a forum that you kind of have to trick the camera by going into the setting and changing the communication option from PC connection to a printer or something like that. Then the camera will show up and you can browse through the folders. That seems like a strange thing to do, and a bit random, but it ended up working out and she was able to get the pictures.

The sixth graders came down to the lab for the first time as a class, without a MAP test being involved. The teacher wants to get them started on Type to Learn 4 because they have been working on papers and he noticed that most of them hunt and peck with two fingers. I believe writing will be a part of the sixth graders state assessment this year and it will have to be done on a computer. Not a lot of kids are that good at typing in grade school so the writing assessment is going to be a special kind of torture for everyone involved.

When I didn't have classes in the lab I entertained myself by messing with MAP data. I'm going to try and come up with some charts or visual representations of data. I messed around with the idea last year but never got around to actually doing anything about it. So now, while I'm trying to fill time, I'm going a bit farther and messing around with the idea in Excel and Publisher. I'm not entirely sure what I want to do yet or how I want to do it but right now I'm just organizing the information that I think I will be using. Hopefully I'll get some other busy work before too long and this little side project will fall to the wayside. Or I could be more productive in my personal life and multitask by working on grad school stuff.

Speaking of, I left work about an hour early today so I could go home and get everything ready. I was pretty sure I had everything I needed because I laid it all out this morning. So I packed it all up, made a quick peanut butter sandwich to take with me for dinner, and hit the road. The drive went well and I only had to check my directions once. I think I would have been fine without them but I wanted to double-check the final exit I needed to take. It ended up being labeled with the street name I was looking for, so I would have been fine, but better safe than sorry.

I made the executive decision this time to stop at the last gas station before reaching my destination town because last time I passed it up, even though I kind of had to pee, because I was pretty close to town. And then I got stuck in a slow-moving convoy. When I pulled in to stop the highway was completely clear so maybe I would have been fine. But when I got back on the highway I ended up getting behind more slow-moving vehicles. There were two big trucks behind a slow-moving pickup truck. It took forever but we eventually made it to the passing lane section of the road. And that ended up being a complete waste because the pickup truck moved over and instead of doing the courteous thing, the two big trucks stayed in the left lane to pass the pickup. The problem was they were only going maybe a few miles an hour faster than the pickup so I barely got around the pickup before the lane ended and the pickup pulled in behind me. He slowly fell behind with a long line of cars behind him but I was still stuck behind the two big trucks which were only maxing out at 60mph when the speed limit was 65mph, which means I should have been driving 70mph. It was frustrating.

There were two classes in town this weekend so mine ended up being in the computer lab off the library instead of the room upstairs where we were last time. It is a very oddly shaped computer lab and it makes it kind of awkward for teaching a class. The professor still needs to figure out the logistics for the Skype interviews we will be doing tomorrow. I picked the side of the room that the professor ended up standing at the front of so I now have a bit of a kink in my neck from looking sideways most of the night and I will probably be feeling it even more tomorrow.

I sat next to a friendly girl who is actually not in our cohort but will be graduating in May. In theory I will be graduating the summer after next, which isn't too far off, but seeing someone who only has a semester and a half left makes them seem so advanced. And I am a bit envious. I have so much more work to do.

I also sat next to a girl who teaches kindergarten in a town near where I live, but she lives in my town and is best friends with the mother of one of the kindergarten students at the school where I work. We spoke briefly at orientation about it but I hadn't really met the kindergarteners yet. Now I almost know most of their names, including the kid she knows. She said that she was scrolling through discussion posts the other day and he say my picture come up and he couldn't believe that she knew me. It sounded like it was a pretty funny realization.

We got divided into our groups for the group project, which takes up most of the second half of the class, and I feel better about this group. I am with the kindergarten teacher plus a guy who works as a para for troubled kids and writes for a website on the side. He also lives fairly close to us so if we ever need to get together it won't be too hard. The project involves picking a topic the covers something in the area of research, finding twelve to fifteen sources, summarizing them, writing a paper (like a literature review), and presenting it to the class as if you were presenting at a conference. Because there are three people in the group, the professor wanted one of use to find the articles and write summaries, one to write the paper, and one to do the presentation. I am the researcher and I am a little worried. But not too much. We are thinking of doing something about how technology has changed the way kids learn to research. Like using the internet instead of books. We're still working on narrowing it down but once we do, hopefully I'll be able to find enough articles. I technically have until November 2^nd to find the articles and write the summaries but the sooner I get them done the sooner my group can do their parts, which kind of rely on my part. But I'm feeling better about it than my group project in my other class, which still hasn't really gone anywhere. So there's that.

I have been let down by my hotel room. I mistakenly thought my first experience was typical. I walked in and was immediately overwhelmed by a smell. I'm assuming previous guests brought in a lot of egg-like foods or cooked them in the microwave. But it also kind of smells like the byproduct of that kind of food, to put it in a not-so-gross way. My first thought was that I am going to smell like that tomorrow during class. And that sucks. I also realized while sitting in class tonight that I forgot a change of shirts, so I will be wearing my school t-shirt again. And it will smell like my hotel room. Awesome. I left my hoodie in the car so at least one thing won't smell weird, not that it will matter.

The second thing I noticed about my room was the screaming child right nextdoor. At that is literal because I could hear him through the door that connects both the rooms. He has finally quieted down, and I thankfully remembered my fan (which I used as noise at home to fall asleep) so I was able to cover up most of that screaming. I sounds like he finally fell asleep so that's a good thing.

Now I'm going to go to bed because it is almost eleven o'clock and I need to wake up in the morning. And at the moment I am exhausted. I think a good chunk of tomorrow will be taken up by Skype interviews. I can't remember what is happening after that. I'll find out tomorrow.

October 2, 2014

Today was another day. By the end of the day I had officially finished all of my busy work, the last of it being my MAP spreadsheets. I finished adding in all the scores I had from last Spring so the teachers could easily see the difference between that test and the most recent test. Most, if not all of the teachers, already had access to this information but I put it all in one place for their whole class. One nice spreadsheet on one page. I think previously they had to look at individual student reports. So maybe my spreadsheet will be useful.

I helped out with literacy centers in kindergarten this morning. It was the same things as last time with the kids drawing a picture of themselves and then a picture of a teacher. One of the kids in my group wanted to draw his Spider-Man shirt but he didn't have room so he just put a big red 'S', in a yellow triangle, surrounded by a blue shirt with some red accent. He basically drew a Superman costume but when I mentioned this he insisted the 'S' was for Spider-Man.

Later in the afternoon both kindergarten classes came to the lab. One of the kids was working on rhyming words and kept chanting “dig pig” over and over again. Except his enunciation wasn't so great so it sounded like he was repeatedly saying “dick pic” over and over again. It was funny and inappropriate all at the same time.

The resource teacher printed my bingo sheets today but messed up a little bit and printed a whole bunch. I think she said she only wanted eight copies of the first two boards of each set but she didn't specify that when she hit print so she got every board in every set, eight times. I can't remember how many sheets of boards and word cards each set included but in the end she ended up printing several hundred pages. At one point I had to refill the paper drawer even though it had been full at the beginning of the day. I also had to take a stack of printed pages off the printer because it was too high and it couldn't print anymore. On the plus side, she is now set for bingo boards for the next several years.

This entry is far from chronological order at this point. Oh well. Before lunch I got an email about the sixth graders having issues with laptops. Namely, that they were dying way too quick. They had pulled them from two different laptop carts so I went to check on the carts. They first one appeared to be plugged in but upon further inspection, all the stuff on top of the cart was plugged in but not the cart itself. After a little digging I found that the cord for the cart was coiled on the bottom of the cart. So I yanked out enough cord to plug it into the wall and all the lights came on. Problem solved, maybe. The next cart was plugged into the wall but when I opened the back of the cart the first few power cords for the individual laptops weren't plugged into the cart, and it looked like, by luck, those were the ones the sixth graders had bored. So I plugged the cords in and the lights came on. Hopefully a lack of charge was the only issue with the laptops.

Nothing exciting or interesting happened tonight. I had plenty of time to finish up the research textbook chapter for this week because I didn't have a visit with the new volunteer kid tonight. Unlike last week, I actually heard back from him tonight, even if it did take a second text message. He apparently had too much homework and he was also going out to look for a new job. I guess the restaurant isn't working out. He also said he has narrowed down his college options and is getting closer to making a choice. He'll graduate in December so time is getting short.

And that is all I've got for today. Tomorrow morning I need to remember to pack everything I'll need for this weekend so I can just swing back by the house and grab it before heading out of town. I always have the feeling that I am going to forget something. On my last trip I only forgot my sunglasses but that was because I wasn't driving my own car. Hopefully this time nothing will be forgotten. That is the goal anyway. I'm a little nervous about what all will be happening over the weekend. For the other class the professor put up a bunch of slides and a schedule. There hasn't been any of that from this professor. So who knows. I guess I'll find out when I get down there tomorrow.

October 1, 2014

My throat was feeling better this morning when I woke up and I ended up canceling my doctor appointment so I saved myself that twenty-five dollar copay.

I finished up all of my side projects today. At some point I'm going to need to get some more. In the meantime, I'm editing my MAP spreadsheets. I decided to add in the Spring scores from last year to show the change from the last test to this test. I don't really know how often my spreadsheets actually get used but I think they are slightly more useful than the student databases I made the last two years which were never seen.

I had several classes in the lab today, both fifth grade classes, both second grade classes, and one of the third grade classes. Nothing exciting happened. At least nothing that I can remember.

I had another good joke with a sixth grader today but it wasn't appreciated. A few of them came down to the lab to work on papers and at one point one of them asked for help. I was working on my spreadsheets and I turned and asked if his shoelace was untied because he just shouted out that he needed help without specifying a context. It was funny because sixth graders know how to tie their shoes so they would never be asking for help with that. He didn't get it.

Tonight was Chipotle night and my burrito was really good. The wrapping of the tortilla left a lot to be desired but the insides were working for me. Somehow the brown rice actually had a flavor that wasn't overpowered by the flavor of brown rice.

There was a brief possibility of going over to my grandma's house to help move the grandfather clock but that didn't happen so instead I read from a textbook. Today during lunch I watched the video lecture for this week so now I just need to finish the chapter. Probably tomorrow night. Or at least no later than tomorrow night. It is about experimental research which is what we learned about in all of my Psychology classes so I'm getting a lot of deja vu.

For the entirety of this entry my mind has been very far away, wandering in circles, looking at nothing. So who knows if it came out even slightly coherent. I'm not going to go back and investigate. I'm just going to stop typing.