March 4, 2015

I'm mildly excited about going into work tomorrow for two reasons: a baby picture and a monitor, but I'll talk about those things later.

Today was picture day and I almost missed the staff picture. Right as I pulled onto the street by the school where I park my mom texted me and said they were about to take the picture and I needed to hurry up. I tried to walk a little faster than normal and walked into the library to a near ovation from the rest of the staff who were already arranged for the picture. I made it just in the nick of time.

After the picture was taken I headed back to the lab and walked with one of the second grade teachers and someone else, maybe a para, I can't remember. As her parting response when we were all going our separate ways she said “Well, I'm going to go ignore my Block B students.” That was pretty funny. Later in the morning when her class came to the lab, and the college students had left, she mentioned that they had taught a lesson earlier and I asked if she learned anything. Her response, “Yeah, how to yawn.” I don't know if both of those translate well into text but they were funny.

My first class of the day was fifth grade and the teacher had to leave twice to go across the hall and stir the dip she brought for birthday treat day (the first Wednesday of every month). It was a cream cheese and shredded cheese concoction with mayonnaise and jalepeno bacon mixed in. She was worried that it wouldn't look appetizing because the first time she went to stir it she said the fat had started to settle on the surface. The same happened the second time. We decided it would actually be in her favor if no one ate it because it was apparently really good and she would get to take more of it home. We played more FreeRice, this time going for grammar instead of vocabulary, and there were a lot of questions that seemed ridiculous. Several were the ones that might be grammatically correct but if you were to use them in the real world everyone would think you were wrong because they just don't sound right.

This morning I emailed the teachers the lab schedule for the next several weeks and it was almost immediately slightly changed. After the revisions were made to the testing calendar, I emailed the calendar out and asked everyone to double-check it to make sure everything looked alright and said I'd send out the updated lab schedule later when we were sure everything on the testing calendar was correct. It probably won't be but I didn't hear back so maybe we're close. I also printed out the information for accommodations and handed out copies to everyone involved so they could stay on top of things.

I spent a decent amount of time today editing one of the sixth grade baby pictures. I got it today and it was crinkled in a few places on and around her face, and there was also a lot of damage around all the crinkles. My first plan of attack was using the clone tool, which is how I've done the majority of my photo editing when it comes to cleaning up imperfections. Because there was so much damage on the girls forehead, I ended up doing a lot of cloning as well as copying and pasting various portions of her forehead repeatedly over the forehead to created and even color. It didn't actually look too bad but it was all a tanned skin look, even though the original had a large lightened triangular shape on her forehead from the camera flash. I was brainstorming ideas on how to recreate that, and I still think I could, but then I discovered the heal tool. Life changing. It works like magic. I ended up starting with a fresh copy of the original scanned image and was able to completely edit the forehead region in a fraction of the time it took me to reconstruct the whole thing with the clone tool and copying and pasting. I ended up using a combination of the two and made decent progress on the rest of the picture. I've got maybe a third of the picture left to edit, which will hopefully goes as well as the firth two-thirds. I'm still really impressed with how well the heal tool worked and I wish I had messed with it a long time ago.

This afternoon the librarian asked me to put in a ticket for the desktop computer in the teachers' lounge, not for it to be fixed, but for it to be picked up as e-waste because no one ever uses it, mainly because it is kind of broken. At the end of the day I had the thought of taking the monitor and hooking it up as a second monitor on my computer in the lab. I asked the principal and librarian and they were both cool with it and thought it was a good idea. It will make my job a lot easier because I am frequently having to reference two or three things at once and it is a pain in the but trying to arrange them all on one tiny monitor or having to constantly minimize and maximize them. Gone are the days of having to Excel documents open, one on top and the other on the bottom half of the screen, only able to see a handful of rows at a time. I'm looking forward to getting that set up in the morning.

After work Chipotle was a lot busier than it usually is, I'm not sure why, but this lead to a bit of a line. A line that moved much slower because one of the employees on the food line was one of the slow girls. Thankfully only one of them was working because if it was just the two new regular girls, the line would have been around the block. The guy getting everything started was fast, or maybe just normal-speed, but the girl was so slow on the second half of the operation that he was constantly having to wait for her because he ran out of room for the next order. He was a little stingy with the rice and beans but when I asked for extra rice on my burrito he piled it on. I was impressed. I was not impressed with how the girl at the end wrapped it. It's like she didn't even try.

I showed a few videos after dinner and then I came downstairs and read/finished a textbook chapter. That only took me a couple hours. It was nine o'clock at this point so I decided to call it a night, in terms of studying. I turned on my laptop and plugged in the HDMI cable connected to the monitor I have in my room. It has a built-in speaker and when I started watching a Yogscast video and switched the sound over to the HDMI cable, their voices sounded high-pitched. Not quite as high as the Chipmunks but they definitely sounded like little British boys. It was hilarious. I watched the whole video and then had my mom and sister come down to listen to part of it. I then pulled up Jeep Stuff by Neebs, which was hilarious, and then another couple of videos by those guys, one of which was Neebs freaking out after he got promoted and unlocked jeep stuff (aka C4). He sounded just like what I imagine a hyper Neebs sounded like in grade school. Hilarious. I spent the rest of my night watching videos with high-pitch voices. I'm afraid to unplug the HDMI cable because I don't want it to fix itself. It looks like maybe I'll have to delete the sound driver and reinstall it in order to fix the problem, which I'll try eventually, but for now it is really funny. The sad thing is that I can't record the funny sounds because when I do it just sounds normal. No fun in normal.

March 3, 2015

Three days into March already. This year is flying by, whether you want it to or not. Time seems to move faster the older I get. I don't like it.

Sometime in the future I want to record my screen while I type one of these journal entries, or type anything really, because I think it would be interesting to see a page of text come into being. I also do a lot of backspacing and I think that would be fun to watch. Maybe that makes me weird. And maybe that 'maybe' should be a probably.

Today I spent a lot of time editing the picture of the custodian I made earlier in the year when I transformed him into Evel Knievel. I had to use a small, old picture of him and now I want to put it in the yearbook so I want to use the larger picture of him from this year. That turned into a whole thing because I had to completely remake the picture, remembering how I did it in the first place as I went along. The greatest struggle involved the fact that his picture this year has a shadow on one side of his face, like the flash didn't go off on that side or something. My solution to get his face in the Knievel picture was to layer the two, with his on the bottom, and then erase most of the Knievel face, revealing the custodian. I also had to play with the size and perspective and whatever, but the shadow has been a pain in the butt. My solution for the moment has been to copy the side of his face that was lighted and flip it over and create on lighted face. This actually kind of works because it turns out his face is pretty symmetrical. I might end up changing my mind later but for now I'm going to go with it.

I helped out with literacy centers in both kindergarten classes this morning. The kids had to draw a neighborhood. Some got the concept quicker than most but it was a lot easier than trying to get them to understand a treasure that doesn't belong to a pirate but is in fact something of importance.

This morning we had a fire drill, which was a little chilly because the temperature was somewhere in the 40s. This afternoon we had a tornado drill because it was a statewide thing. It actually wasn't too bad. Not as hot or cramped as it has been in the past.

Tonight I finished reading one textbook chapter, leaving only two more to go for the week. Hopefully I can get on finished up tomorrow, maybe the next, and possibly save the last one (which is pretty short) for Sunday. We've got class this weekend for the class I usually have discussion posts in, so I don't have a discussion post for this week. And the chapters for my other class aren't connected to the group project so I don't have to worry about that. I do still need to focus on two assignments that are both due this month I think. Or at least one of them is. I should look into that.

Now it is just after ten o'clock and I'm going to call it a night. The last two nights have been a bit too late for a school night and I have been feeling it. I need my beauty sleep.

March 2, 2015

Things were done today. By me. A productive Monday.

Right after clocking in the music teacher asked if I could print some class pictures of the kindergarteners for her new intern. I stopped by one of the kindergarten rooms to drop off my mom's cup which she asked me to bring, and then I headed to the lab to print the pictures, after I turned on all the computers and put away the sheets that go over them at the end of each week. Right as I was printing them out one of the paras (the new crazy one) came in and asked if I could unlock the iPads, which are in the music room, so the timing was good.

Throughout the day I worked on and eventually finished the lab schedule that will take effect next week when the state assessment begins. I was able to post the first four weeks but I'll have to wait for the next several weeks until everyone signs up for their MAP tests and I can get those added into the schedule. And to aid in that, I posted the sign-up sheet for MAP testing. It looks a bit ridiculous because it is has a three-week window and the majority of the first two weeks taken up by state assessments. But I'm pretty sure I counted right so there should be more than enough spots available for MAP testing. There are going to be so many days over the next couple of months that end up being four-test days. It's going to suck.

I got more sixth grade baby pictures today so this afternoon I scanned them and started to edit them. I'm not anywhere close to having pictures for most of the kids but I am liking the trickle. Having a stack of pictures to scan an edit can be a little intimidating. It feels a lot more manageable when I only have a few to work on at a time. I also like the pace at the moment because there is a good chance I can get everything done with plenty of time to spare.

A good chunk of my night was spent reading a textbook. It is the second half of the chapter we started last week covering metadata. Still an interesting topic. Also, the book is still more confusing than necessary. I know at least a little bit about all the technology references they're making but I know if I didn't I would be completely lost. I can definitely understand the frustration expressed by some of my fellow classmates in previous discussion posts.

I'm not sure what's on the agenda for tomorrow at work. I have a few more pictures to edit but as far as I know I'm all caught up with testing stuff. I'll find something to fill my time.

March 1, 2015

 Watching people play CS: GO really makes me want to want to play CS: GO, but I suck at that game and it is a lot more fun to watch than it is for me to actually play it.

Today was a little more productive than yesterday. I did do laundry yesterday, which I forgot to mention, but that really doesn't raise the bar much. Today I read a textbook chapter before lunch and after lunch I wrote another discussion post, replying to one of my fellow students.

This afternoon my goal was to file my taxes, which turned out to be a bit of a thing. For at least the last couple of years I have used TaxACT for my federal return and some other site for my state return. TaxACT kind of lead me to believe I could also file my state return but when I got to the very end they wanted to charge eighteen bucks, so I opted out of that.

I couldn't remember the site I used last year for my state return and nothing looked familiar so I ended up going with H&R Block. Probably a mistake. I ended up having to go through my entire federal and state return again, it wouldn't let me just do the state return. And then it wouldn't let me just file the state return, I had to file my federal return again in order to file my state return. I read a couple places online that the second federal return would just get canceled out as a mistake so I went for it because I really didn't want to go through the whole process again.

I got an email later saying that my state return had been put on hold because my federal return had been rejected. The only way for my state return to go through is for me to “fix” the federal return. There is no way to cancel it, and I can't fix it, so it looks like sometime this week I'll be looking for another site where I can file just my state return, for free. Very annoying.

Also, a note on all the advertising H&R Block does, my returns from them were eight dollars less for my federal return and two dollars less for my state return, compared to TaxACT. So, yeah. Not quite as advertised.

Tonight I made some final edits to the Dr. Seuss picture quote things I made for the librarian if she wants to post them on the library's Twitter account. I switched 'Doctor' to 'Dr.” after my mom pointed that out, and I also added the username for the library Twitter account, so it will be tied to the source, not just some random picture on the internet. Although I put it at the bottom so it would be easy enough to crop that out. I don't know if the librarian will want to use them but I really like how they turned out.

Right now I'm watching a couple livestreams but I'm thinking about bed because it is after eleven o'clock. But I'm not really tired and I don't want to just lay in bed thinking about random things for the next two hours. Late last week they were predicted a whole bunch of snow this weekend, which could have lead to a much desired snow day tomorrow. We ended up getting maybe two or three inches early yesterday and it is pretty much all gone now. That is disappointing. I'll give it until midnight and then go to bed and hope for the best.

February 28, 2015

Today was very uneventful. So uneventful I am having a hard time figuring out where to start. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos and perused the internet. I made a discussion post and picked out my first resource for the group project. We are focusing on undergraduate students interested in going to graduate school and this week we needed electronic resources. I picked the student aid government website which has a ridiculous amount of information about financial aid. I decided on that earlier in the day but didn't get around to writing my brief annotated bibliography about it until after dinner. I'm happy with it though.

Tonight I have been watching the same guy livestream that I watched last night. He started with some GTA5, switched to a little BF4, and now he's switching to Minecraft. I'm definitely not going to stay up as late as I did last night but I'm going to watch for a little while longer.

This entry has been really short but I don't have much to say today. I do much better when I write earlier in the day. I should try and do that more often.

February 27, 2015

Today happened, I'm sure of it, but it also seems so long ago. I forgot to mention a couple things yesterday so I'll start with those.

Yesterday morning the school librarian asked me about setting up a Twitter account for the library. Several of the other school libraries have one and she wanted to try it out. So I set up an email account and then used that to set up the Twitter account. Fairly simple after finally finding a username that made sense and wasn't taken. I gave her all the information but I'm still going to help her out until she's more comfortable with it. We both have personal Twitter accounts but neither of us really use them so it will be a good learning experience for the both of us. I came up with some ideas for her today in terms of a tweeting schedule just so she can get in the habit of doing it.

Last night I found my house key. I was sitting in my chair, watching the Neebs livestream and I put my hands in my hoodie pockets. That's when I felt a key in my left pocket. It turned out to be my old house key but I have absolutely no idea how it got there. Like not even an inkling. My mom said the other day she put it on the counter which I never knew about and never saw it there. But then it shows up in my hoodie pocket. It has to be one of the freakiest moments of my life. Not in the scary sense but just the freaky sense. I can't even imagine a scenario where that key ended up in my pocket. None that make sense anyway. It is just so strange.

This morning I kind of helped with reading groups in second grade. A couple kids were working on the teacher's iPad making a cartoon. They had a story all laid out, which was pretty detailed but quickly turned into a very loose guide. They would pick a scene, drag characters onto it, and when they hit 'Record', they could drag the characters around to animate them and then they would speak the parts. We sat in the hall as they worked and I had to stifle my laughter several times because they were speaking in really high voices and they had some pretty good improvised dialogue.

I got a few more sixth grade baby pictures and had time to scan and edit all of the ones I have gotten so far, fixing the colors, adding in the border and the shadow. Slowly but surely. I still need to go through and edit the pictures I found on the faculty drive.

This morning I learned that one of the second grade teachers is missing the two teeth on either side of her two front teeth. I don't know if they just never grew in or what but they used braces to move her incisors and the rest of her teeth over and then ground down the incisors to make them look like regular teeth. I never would have guessed because she has nice looking teeth.

I think I figured out the testing dilemma. I emailed the principal ideas on how to move things around if she wanted to go that route and I also counted up the free spots based on how the schedule is now. There are at least twenty-two MAP tests (based on each class needing to take two tests) and there are forty-four spots available for testing. So we should be good. I don't know about my sanity having to test all day every day for a couple months, but at least in terms of getting the test done, we should be good.

After work not a lot happened. I eventually got around to responding to a discussion post sometime after dinner. I'll respond to at least one more tomorrow and another one on Sunday. I spent a large portion of my night messing around with a thing for the library Twitter account and watching a livestream. The same guy I started following after he was raided by Neebs a couple weeks ago. The last game he streamed, and is still streaming now, was Minecraft on the PS4. I assumed there would be some differences but I was able to help him out a little bit. It helped that there were only about six people watching the stream at the time and I was the only one offering advice. While I was offering tips on the building of his first farm another person joined in and I'm pretty sure they were an idiot. Or just a kid. Probably both. I still threw out some tidbits but it was like trying to argue with a kid, and arguing with a kid, or anyone really, is pointless, so I didn't.

I took a break from the stream to go pick my mom up from a bar. That makes her sound like a drunk but she's not. One of the paras at work is getting married soon so tonight she had her bachelorette party. They went to a place to paint paintings and then went bar-hopping. My mom didn't really drink much but she rode down with a couple other paras so she needed a ride home. Which I was glad to provide.

But now it is way too freaking late and I'm going to end up sleeping through most of tomorrow. Something I don't want to do because I need to come up with a resource for my group project. We'll see how it goes. If I wake up before lunch it will be an achievement.

February 26, 2015

This afternoon while kindergarten was in the lab working on Compass Learning, I was walking past one of them when this very animated girl came on his screen. She always makes big gestures and must enunciate very well because I can easily read her lips and tell what she's saying. I've never actually heard her but she looks annoying. And apparently she is because when she came up on screen the boy put is head on his hand and in a very exasperated tone said “Not Bethany.” It was hilarious.

Coming back to the present for a second, I'm going to jinx myself saying this, but it is late so this will be a short entry.

I helped out with literacy centers in kindergarten this morning and had a yearbook club meeting before lunch. There aren't any pictures loaded up on the website yet for the kids to play with but we did have them log into the site and play around with the design features.

Throughout most of the day I worked on transferring the information on testing schedules we came up with yesterday into my spreadsheets and calendars and then printing those off. Near the end of the day we learned they were moving the MAP window up a week, which is nice, but it is still in the middle of State Assessments. That had me double-check the MAP window and I saw that it actually only goes through the first week of May. Not good at all. I was assuming it went later than the State Assessments, and I think everyone else did to. The way we made the schedule would only leave that last full week, which has an early release day in it, for uninterrupted MAP testing. That isn't nearly enough time. The State Assessment window goes through the second week of May so we will probably try to move some of the assessments back, into May, and try to start MAP testing in April when the window opens. This is all ridiculous. Starting next month we're going to have two months of wall-to-wall testing. Good thing the point of school is to test kids on what they're learning, and not teaching them new things so they can actually learn. We're nailing it.

Tonight I got completely distracted by the Neebs livestream and it took me the entire night to write my discussion post about metadata. I didn't even attempt to write responses because it took all my distracted focus just to write my post. I am happy with it though. I had a bit of insight at the very end that came to me right as I was about to call it good.

And now it is bedtime. I'm looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday. And Sunday. And maybe Monday because we all have our fingers crossed for a snow day.