August 6, 2016

This morning I slept in and then read a bit of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child before taking a shower. Then I ate lunch and around 1:30PM my mom and I went to the church for a wedding. After six years of dating, my fifth grade teacher friend and her para boyfriend finally tied the note. It was a Catholic wedding, there was a lot of singing, and up and down, but it was a nice ceremony. The groom's side of the church was definitely more heavy on the Catholics because most of the singing was coming from that side.

After the ceremony several of us went across town to a restaurant/bar across the street from where the reception was being held on campus because we had a couple hours to kill. And after that couple of hours, we drove across the street, parked in the parking garage, and then went to the ballroom in the student union for the reception. It took a really long time for the bride and groom to show up but they eventually did and dinner was eventually served. Or rather, the lids were taken off the buffet and we served ourselves. They had a cooked mixed vegetable thing that reminded me a lot of the honor society buffet. When most people were done eating it was time for the speeches. They were all nice but the best was the groom's speech. He totally went for it, at one point saying he was never going to win an Academy Award so this was his moment. Overall the speech was pretty great. I imagine at least one person was recording it so my fingers are crossed it ends up online at some point.

Weddings are really not my thing because they are long and boring, but I am glad that the two of them are happy and finally married. It was also a chance to see all my former coworkers so that was nice. I'm going to miss working at the school but I don't think it will really hit me until school starts in a couple of weeks and I don't go back. Right now the library kind of just feels like a summer job but it will feel real soon enough.

Tonight I did laundry and adjusted my skateboard. I took off the riser pads so it is lower to the ground and I tightened up the trucks a bit more so it is a little more stable. I also played around with my stance a little and I think I feel more comfortable goofy footed. Based on all the examples people use for figuring out which way to stand I am not goofy footed but when I actually stand on the board I seem to do better that way. I don't know, I'm going to keep playing around. After the adjustments I made I did feel much more comfortable on the board than I did yesterday, so that's a good sign. Progress.

Tonight I played a little bit of You Must Build A Boat, which is the sequel to 10,000,000. They are both simple matching games but I like them. I have beat 10,000,000 twice and have wanted to play You Must Build A Boat for quite a while. Not too long ago I picked it up in a game bundle and tonight was the first time I actually got to play it. I was not disappointed. It's basically the same as the first game with a little more depth to it. I also played a little bit of Crashlands because I haven't played that in forever. I have no idea what I was doing when I last played the game and wasn't too interested on finishing a quest when I'm out of practice fighting, so I just wandered around and collected resources. Tomorrow I would like to jump into some GTA5 because they recently released all the new races and in all the videos I've seen they look like a lot of fun, even though the camera angle gets messed up sometimes.

Tomorrow I also want to read more of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and I should probably grade some of the survey responses for the assessment project. Tomorrow night we are eating at the Chinese buffet to celebrate my graduation. My mom and sister kind of made up yesterday via text so that should make things less awkward. Hopefully. My sister is also going to make me a funfetti cake, which I am pretty excited about. But now I must sleep so the new day can begin.

August 5, 2016

Today was a long day at work. In terms of helping patrons it was a slow day. I helped a patron on the phone get logged into something that wouldn't let her because her account was blocked. I also helped a patron use the microfilm machine. And I helped a patron find a book. But that was about it. Most of my day was probably spent find information about budgeting and financial responsibility. Research for the class I want to teach. I found a lot of good information, a lot of it from Mint's blog, which ended up being a bit of a rabbit hole. I also did a little research at the end of the day about presentation websites, because I'll be teaching a class about PowerPoint alternatives in October. I should probably be focusing on developing my class on digitizing family photos. And that was pretty much my day at work.

The friend I ran into the other day in the nursing home while delivering books was in the library today. He stopped by the reference desk and we ended up having a long conversation. Part of it was about a kid that I graduated high school with who went missing three days ago. I was never friends with him but one of my friends has gotten into it a couple times on Facebook in the last year or two because this guy will go on long political rants. The other day my friend showed me that the guy was on the missing person list, after apparently walking out of a hospital without telling anyone. The friend I was talking to today said he had grown up with this guy and always knew something was a little off. He also said that the guy had a Twitter account, which is family didn't know about. I thought the rants on Facebook were bad but it was apparently even worse on Twitter because he was under an alias. I guess he was recently self-diagnosing his own schizophrenia and he had replaced his meds with alcohol and marijuana. Not a great decision. When my friend told me the other day he was missing my first guess was that he had gone off his meds (which I didn't know about at the time) just based on what I had heard about his social media presence. It's all sad to hear about because even though I wasn't friends with him in high school he always seemed like a nice guy.

During my break I made the scavenger hunt for my practicum in Google Forms and then used an add-on to turn it into a mobile app. That was pretty cool but I think my practicum supervisor will have to recreate it and be the owner because if I make it I will be the only one with access to the data. Which would be inconvenient.

I got a card at work that my coworkers all signed and it had a $25 gift card to Jo-Ann's, so that was really cool. Unexpected but very much appreciated. I'm excited to buy crafty things.

For dinner my mom got Pizza Hut. I can not remember the last time I had pizza from Pizza Hut. It has been several years, if not more. And it tasted amazing. Pizza Hut pizza can be a little overwhelming and I wouldn't want to eat it regularly because it is so greasy, but once every several years or so is a good idea.

After dinner I did a load of laundry and gave my mom the two books I got her as a small thank you for helping me with graduate school. Those books were Baa Baa Smart Sheep and the sequel I Love Lemonde, which are funny, potty-humored, kid books. She liked them.

I turned in my self-evaluation for my practicum tonight, which was the last thing I needed to do in my graduate education (minus the course evaluations). Immediately following that I unboxed my skateboard. It looks so cool. The first thing I did was take the orange wheels off and put the green wheels on. Which makes it look even better.

I'm pretty sure looking at it as a work of art will be it's main purpose, however. It rolls so freaking smoothly that stepping on it feels like stepping on ice. I just expect it to shoot out from under me going one way with me going the other. It is even more terrifying than I thought it would be. I need to find carpet or something that is thick enough to let me go slow but not too thick to prevent me from moving. I also might try taking the 1/2” riser pads off because I think they might be unnecessary and getting the board lower to the ground will help with my stability. I tightened the trucks up quite a bit to make the board more stable and even if I hadn't, I don't plan on doing a lot of carving, so I'm not that worried about wheel-bite. But we'll see. I'm going to keep trying.

After all that, I watched YouTube videos, flipped through the jelly roll small quilt book I checked out today, and started reading Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. There are just so many things I want to do that I am a little overwhelmed by the choices. I should make a To-Do list of all the things I want to do and haven't been able to because of school, and then start checking things off.

Tomorrow afternoon I've got a wedding to go to, which will probably take awhile because it's a Catholic wedding. And it's late now so I'll hopefully sleep through most of the morning. So who knows what I'll get done tomorrow.

August 8, 2016

`This morning I woke up, got ready, and headed to campus for my practicum wrap-up meeting. I think it went well. My supervisor showed me her evaluation of me and it was pretty good. We also talked briefly about the assessment project, she gave me the ten scavenger hunt questions the picked so I can use Google Forms to create the scavenger hunt, and we talked about some random stuff. She also liked the bookmarks.

On my way home from campus I drove by one of the houses I have looked at online. I'm pretty sure it is out of my price range but it looks cool and I was curious about the garage, which is detached and behind the backyard. When I drove by it was maybe a double garage, certainly bigger than a single, but the door looked like it was about to fall off and there was just a grass slope leading up to it from the road. Good to know. Speaking of my price range, sometime in the near future I might go to the bank to see how big of a loan I could get, and I might talk to a financial guy to see how much I should spend on a house, if any at all.

At work today I did things. I made a sign for the Staff Picks display. It was just a bunch of book covers lined up but it turned out looking really good when it was printed. I came up with some class title ideas and a description for the lady who primarily teaches one-on-one tech classes. They recently changed the design and layout of one of our ebook and video sites and she wants to teach a class going over the changes. She wanted help with the title and description, hence my work today. I also made something that could be a handout, that is basically all the information the site posted talking about the changes.

I also helped patrons today. Another librarian and I helped a woman download books to her iPad. I helped patrons on the phone with interlibrary loan and the state library. I helped people print. And the best interaction was probably looking up information for an old man on Ancestry.com about his mother. I really only had luck finding a census record from when she was three years old and ten years old. But, if we did in fact find the correct person, the man learned that his mother was actually born in Tennessee and moved to Kentucky sometime before her third birthday. He had thought she was born in Kentucky. It was pretty cool looking into that stuff. I just wish I had more time and that I had a better idea of what to do on the site. I did a decent job but I feel like I could have done more.

Tonight I finished responding to all my classmates that posted comments about my group website. So that class is done. My capstone is also done, unless there is something I'm forgetting, but I don't think I am. That only leaves the practicum. I was going to submit my self-evaluation tonight but now I need to edit it to include the fact that I am actually making the scavenger hunt with Google Forms. Before I thought I was just doing the question portion but I guess not. I can probably knock that out tomorrow, so no big deal, I just need to re-word part of my evaluation. Then I can turn that in and be officially done with at least the school part of my practicum, which means I'll be done with school. And that is cool. I'm going to open up my skateboard tomorrow night and that makes me happy.

August 3, 2016

This morning I got up and went to work at nine o'clock. It is surprising how much nice nine o'clock is compared to eight o'clock. Getting off at five o'clock is nice but I don't know that it is worth going in at eight o'clock.

At work I did things. I read through to issues of Library Journal so I could get them out of my mail tray. I only have one left. I also researched some stuff for one of the classes I want to teach in November. I did other things, I'm sure, even if they escape me. I did help patrons, though. That I remember. Right before going to lunch I got a call about a patron trying to find something through interlibrary loan. That ended up being a much more involved process that extended past the time I was supposed to go to lunch. I think I kind of got her sorted out, talking her through how to use the advanced search features to narrow in on what she was looking for. At least in the ballpark anyway because it didn't look like any library had exactly what she wanted.

This afternoon I also got a little overrun. I was actively helping two separate people in our online chat service, helped two people in person, and answered to phone calls. All at the same time. One of the phone calls was from the teen librarian asking for a quote from me to put with my picture that she was posting on Instagram. My brain was little overwhelmed but I managed to say something that at least kind of made sense.

Tonight I wrote my self evaluation for my practicum. One step closer. I'll probably submit that tomorrow after I have time to read over it again. I also added a few books to the resource section of my group website. I found them at work today and checked them out. They are the first books I have checked out from the library in a really long time. Possibly decades. I am interested in reading them, or at least skimming some of them, but I also think some might be useful to a couple of my classmates who asked questions about the site. I wasn't able to respond to any of those tonight but my partner hasn't responded to anyone's posts about our site and I don't want to take all of them before he has a chance to. I'll answer them tomorrow probably.

When I was done with school stuff I sewed two quick bookmarks to give to my practicum supervisor tomorrow as a 'thank you' for making time for me this summer. They are two I already had sewed together and turned inside out but the thread screwed up on my machine when I tried to sew the outside of them, back at the end of the year when I was making bookmarks for the teachers and staff. My machine was being much more cooperative tonight.

I also had a long texting conversation with my sister tonight and I think I at least got her to agree to come to my graduation dinner on Sunday. She's still super pissed at my mom for some bullshit reason, most likely because my mom inadvertently hit a nerve or touched on some insecurity and now my sister is taking it out on my mom. I tried talking some sense into her, maybe some of it will sink in at some point, but for the time being she seems determined to hold onto it. Fantastic. Dinner should be fun.

August 2, 2016

 This morning I had to get up much earlier than I would have liked so that I could get to work by eight o'clock. This was my first time setting up by myself and I think I did pretty well. I ended up doing a lot of cleaning so I didn't actually get to sit down at the desk until nine o'clock.

I did things today and I remember some of them. This afternoon I was able to switch out my historical fiction display. I have it for two months and after the first month we rotate out all the books that didn't check out. This meant quite a few books had to be removed because the historical fiction display doesn't circulate well. I would say mostly because of it's location, tucked away by the reading room.

I also finally filled out my reading preferences form for one of the other librarians, as well as my staff picks bookmark. It is really hard to pick three favorite books, or four in the case of the bookmark. I finally had to just pick some and then make the conscious decision not to ever look at it again so I don't second-guess my choices.

Other things also probably happened today.

Tonight was Chipotle night but I was flying solo. My sister is still not talking to my mom and because I didn't side fully with her I am apparently guilty by association. Whatever, she's got until Sunday to figure shit out because if she's still holding onto this grudge and skips out on my graduation dinner then it is my turn to be a dick.

Tonight I was super productive. I responded to the last two group websites and responded to a couple classmates who left comments on my group website. I also submitted my capstone video and the capstone link itself. That link was due on Sunday and for the life of me I don't know why I didn't submit it. I was done with my portfolio but for some reason I didn't submit the link. It's a pass/fail class and the record on the site shows I haven't edited it since Sunday, so it's not like I was still working on it, and losing a couple points won't hurt me, but it is still frustrating that I slipped up like that.

I spent a decent chunk of my evening compiling my reflective journal for my practicum. It took awhile to track down everything I wrote about it in my regular journal but I only had to do a little editing to get it to make sense as a standalone journal. I submitted it via the assignment link but it is meant to be posted in the discussion thread. It is over eleven pages long though so putting it in a discussion post would be a little ridiculous. I sent my adviser a message to clarify my action and let her know I could post it to the discussion thread if that would be easier for her. I sent the supervisor evaluation to my supervisor yesterday, and we have a wrap up meeting on Thursday, so the only thing I have left to do is my personal evaluation. That has to be less than two pages and I just have to talk about my experience, so that will be really easy. I should be able to knock it out tomorrow.

If I can do that, I think I'm done. The capstone is completely done and the only thing I would have left for the conference class is to respond to anyone who comments on my group website. I will still have the assessment project for my practicum to finish but that has gone outside the scope of the semester. I would also like to finish the Twine story I started at some point but that has to take a backseat to everything else.

I'm so freaking close.

On a last note, my skateboard arrived today. At least I assume it did because a long box arrived today from the company I ordered my skateboard from. I didn't actually open the box, however, because I said I wouldn't until I finish all of my schoolwork (my the assessment project stuff). Soon.

Going back to the assessment project for a minute, I think my goal should be to finish it before August 12^th because that is when No Man's Sky comes out. That seems like a good goal.

August 1, 2016

 We've made it to August. This summer has been filled with stress and new experiences and has flown by. It seems ridiculous that it is already August.

It was a struggle to get out of bed this morning after my late night working on the video last night. Because of this I only got in about an hour of work in this morning before going to work. Better than nothing.

At work today I spent the first part of my day redesigning my Most Popular display sign. I had a lot of ideas and after several tweaks I was finally happy with my ninth version of the sign. I have six portraits of famous authors from the late 1800s and early 1900s with a wood background. I think it turned out really well. I don't know that it will get people to actually check out any of the books but the sign is badass regardless.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. I worked on my book lists for both of my displays this month, worked on the desk and helped a few patrons, and probably did other things. I spent about an hour tonight taking down the old Most Popular display, pulling a bunch of books, and setting up my Most Popular display. It's set up on an old card catalog and it looks pretty cool. I might change the position of some of the books but it's a good start. I still need to swap out the books on my Historical Fiction display but I ran out of time so that will have to happen tomorrow.

When I got home tonight I talked to my friend for awhile on the phone because he had a question about how to find a point on a supply and demand curve when you already know the other point. I started looking through my old college textbooks but that was difficult while also trying to carry on a conversation so I'll have to look more in-depth later. I definitely had to do that type of math at one point during my undergrad career but that is the kind of stuff I promptly forgot after a test, if I managed to memorize it in the first place.

I also managed to post comments in the discussion thread for the group websites. I made one post this morning and I have responded to two classmates who made comments on my group website. I only have two more websites to post comments on and then respond to whoever comments on our site. And that is all I have left for this class.

For my capstone my video is done, I just need to watch it through when I'm not completely sleep deprived and make sure I can live with it. I'm hoping it doesn't completely suck because it seemed decent enough when I watched it last night.

The bulk of the work I have left is for my practicum. That being my reflective journal. I still need to compile that. And of course the assessment project. My practicum supervisor and I are going to have a meeting on Thursday morning to wrap everything up, at least as far as the end of the semester is concerned. The assessment project will remain ongoing. She said her goal is to have it done by August 22^nd so I have plenty of time to finishing grading responses. I have no intention of dragging it out until the 22^nd, however. I'm not too sure about this weekend because I've got a wedding and hopefully a family dinner at the Chinese buffet on Sunday in celebration of finishing grad school, if my mom and sister have reconciled by then. We'll see. It's bedtime now.

July 31, 2016

 This morning I slept in a bit but was wide awake early than I would have liked so I got out of bed. I worked on the group website and got caught up on an annoying formatting thing for way too long. All I wanted was for the bottom picture on one of the pages to connect to the footer so there wasn't an annoying strip of white. That proved impossible. I had somehow managed it with the other pages but nothing I did seemed to work on this particular page. I searched online and saw numerous instances of the same problem pop up on the Wix help forums but almost every time the response from a Wix representative was “I fixed it for you” with no explanation as to how they fixed it. That was frustrating. And I wasn't getting anywhere so I made my last few edits and posted the link to our site on the discussion board. I also submitted the feedback form so I am officially done with that assignment. The only thing I have left for the class is to post comments/questions for the websites the other groups made. I can possibly knock that out before work tomorrow.

I think when I finished that I started working on my capstone video. Not the actual video part but the script for what I wanted to say in the video, periodically reading through it and timing myself to make sure I wasn't going to go way over on time.

I took breaks from that to write my last discussion post for my capstone class, which means the only thing I have left is to submit the video. I also responded to a couple of my classmates' comments and questions on the group website I posted earlier.

It took me the rest of the night, until around 12:45AM but I managed to record the audio and video for my capstone video and edit it all together. I'm not entirely pleased with the audio, and I'm worried that some of the Prezi aspects are going to be super laggy, but we'll see after it finishes rendering in twenty-four minutes. Hopefully the final product is something I can live with so I don't have to redo it. I have until Friday if I do decide to redo it but that is not preferred.

My sister came over for dinner and sometime after I left to work on schoolwork she and my mom got into an argument that involved all the things friends and family aren't supposed to talk about when they know they have differing opinions, like politics and guns and significant others. My sister ended up leaving and who knows when she'll get over it. Hopefully soon because it started over something stupid, even though she obviously doesn't think that. I would say the majority of arguments start over stupid things and people's inability to recognize or acknowledge that only prolong the anger. My fingers are crossed for a quick resolution.

After the video is finished rendering I'm going to go to bed so I can hopefully wake up early enough to get some stuff done before work. Just to restate it for my own sake, I've got to submit the video for my capstone, post comments on the other group websites for my conference class, and start/finish writing my reflective journal for my practicum and also start/finish grading responses for the assessment project for my practicum. All but the last thing need to be done by Friday and that is totally doable. What would be fantastic is if I could also get the assessment grading done by Friday but I don't have a day off this week so I don't like my odds. But we'll see.