27. Keep on truckin'

Well, I asked for my life to pick up, and that's certainly what it's been doing. Sure, I spend a lot of time playing WoW every night still, and with the ne Ulduar 3.1 content, you can't much blame me. (Take my word for it) but at the same time, I'm not just playing WoW to fill the hours anymore. I hop on, do my dailies to relax while listening to music for an hour or so in the afternoon, then I log off until raid time pretty much. I've gotten into a new RP, which while it sounds like more nerdy internet time - it's very invigorating for me. I've been writing again because of it, which is why I'm addicted to RP, plus, you know Harry Potter nerd + other writers/HP nerds = Love. But I like writing enough to want to do it a fair amount, but not enough to do it without motivation or incentive to. So I love having that going again, gets me off WoW and doing something a little more stimulating on the computer.

I've started working out again too. We finally cleaned off the damn treadmill and it's been really nice outside, so I've done some walking and jogging lately. Always feels good. Last Thursday, a few online friends of mine stopped by to visit and go to the Mall of America with me - so fantastic to be doing things and have plans and be out with people. Kate basically shopped for summer clothes for me, which was awesome because now I have stuff I can wear for my new office position that's nice and casual-professional. I'll have to go shopping again in June when I've hopefully lost a bit of weight. Then Friday night my brother and I roadtripped up to Eau Claire to meet my friend Kayla for dinner and gossip, then we stayed at a hotel watching a horrible "scary" movie with Nathan Fillion in it. It was really cool getting away from the house with my brother. We never run out of things to talk about (even if conversation does dissolve into WoW half the time) and I say this every time it happens, but it continues to surprise me every time I realise he's an adult now. Weeeeeird. He had to get up the next morning to go take his UWEC placement exams since they were kind of the reason we were in Eau Clair to begin with and I couldn't help but wonder what next fall's going to be like without him. He'll be at college living his own life and I'll be the one stuck at home and doing things here.

It's kind of a bummer, really. I mean, I'm so happy he got into UWEC and I hope he really thrives there with his music. To hear him talk to Kayla about the program was so fantastic. I could just how into music he's become and that hell, wow, he really does know his stuff.

Continues to motivate me to look into going back to school, at least part time. I need to. I'd love to keep my job at the moment, but what I do outside my job needs to be different next year. I want a life again. I called River Falls and it looks like doing something part time's gonna be difficult as most of the classes I need are during the day, but the good news is, I can see their class schedule for the fall already so I can go and find all the ones I could possibly do and have them ready to list if the admissions office/advisors seem skeptical. And the part time gig would only be for a year, so maybe I can get any gen eds or requirements like Spanish I need done out of the way that might be available later and then I can come on full time fall 2010. Other option might be some classes at century, although most outside of normal hours classes are probably online, and I'd really like something to get me out of the house and motivate me.

Then again, this is all assuming I even HAVE this job next year. I got my pink slip yesterday, so as of now I technically don't have this job next year, and it says I can reapply online as an external candidate again, but my ob in particular also relies on grant money. Sure, grant money they've gotten for 10+ years now, so I don't see why they wouldn't again, but it's frustrating that I cant do anything about it until I *know* either way. So my parents advised me to look into other avenues in general, which I suppose I will.

But now I must go home and veg. for a bit.

22. Stories from the... computer lab.

Had a fairly relaxing weekend - brother's birthday party happened Saturday night, so that was "exciting". Woo ten 18 year olds hanging out in the living room playing rock band. Wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been trying to do heroics for the first time in a few weeks, and was on vent at the same time. But yeah, they didn't help me try to reset my sleep schedule.

Anyway, I've got some stuff I want to write about but I'm not really in the mood at the moment, soooo I thought I'd share some stories the kdis have been writing for the newsletter. We've got a variety today:

"I am thankful for big leaf piles." - I can't help it. The writer/artist in me loves this simple sentence.

"Aliens today were invading my house and they had mind controls so they used mind controls on me. Ten I was one of them. Then they took me home." - I just love that mind control is plural.

"My mom feels like a bear. She wants to sleep all winter long. When she wakes up she will feel angry and I just feel like a kid." - ... whaaaat? I'm not sure if I feel sorry for the kid or the mom here.

The rest are standard "I like butterflies. They are cool." "My tooth fell out yesterday" etc.

20. Girl-Vader NOOOoooo...

Thanksgiving break's over and while I really enjoyed sleeping in, and even spending what little time I did with my brother, I need to get back on a normal sleep schedule. I've gotten about 2 hours of sleep for the last couple nights. My problem is I have a really hard time getting to sleep unless I'm so exhausted I have to pass out. Finally got there last night at about 2:30am, konked out while reading something on my laptop and woke up to find my glasses still on and it sitting on the bed in sleep mode.

Ross got Rock Band on Sunday for his birthday, and I think I like it just as much, if not more than he does. We've been having an awesome time with it, even if I have to play drums. I even bonded with his girlfriend when she came over Monday afternoon because she played it with us, and is brave enough to do vocals. We laughed and made fun of the ridiculousness of Ross's character (viking hat, goggles, blue hair and beard, plus the ugly, UGLY color comb of teal and red in all his clothes AND a warped toaster painted on his face). Jen's may have been pink up the wazoo, but at least she matched and had a decent ensemble. But yeah, been gettig my videogame fix from there versus WoW for the last few days. Plus after the mad rush to 80, I think my brain wanted a short break from it. AND I've been getting back to my forum rp a little bit. Took the time to make new journals and write up some bios.

I'm still feeling really good about my job. Seems like every time Im beginning to feel it's at all routine, I have a day that shakes things up. Not always in a positive way, but a lot of times so, and I love it. Today, we had a boy who's usually very enthusiastic and energetic acting sort of blase and apathetic. He didn't want to stick around to finish his work and he was getting unusually poor scores. One of our parent volunteers was starting to have some trouble with him arguing back about trying a lesson again, so I stepped in to deal with it for her - and apparently he needed a bit of a cry. Poor thing had some kids tell him they didn't like him this morning, and he told me he was lonely and asked why no one was playing with him. He's a good kid, too, so we talked about being lonely and that just because his friends weren't playing with him that morning, it didn't mean they didn't like him, etc. etc. He calmed down and seemed to understand, then tried his lesson again, acing it.

I dunno, kids get upset about this stuff all the time, plus some kids are just little assholes to each other, but this morning struck me a little bit. Not so much that he had that problem, it's not an unusual one for a kid to have, but that I knew how to talk with him about it. Not only that but instead of just trying to get him to cooperate and do his work, that I knew him well enough to ask "what's wrong?" instead. I could just tell he wasn't being himself. It reassured me that yes, I am good at this job outside of the computer part and busy work. I'm getting the differences in how to handle the kids, from the kids in the new play and having a Respect Rule during play practice right from the get-go, where no one talks while people are reading their lines, to this boy who really just needed to talk to someone before he could go back to feeling better and doing his work, to Girl-Vader, who I sadly caught literally CHEATING yesterday. The scores for the lessons just come up in a text document, and as awesomely smart as H is, she figured out it's easily editable and switched the numbers so she had a 9/9. I'd been suspicious for a bit when she'd been getting 7/9, the exact minimum she needed right, on her last 5 lessons but hadn't been able to catch her or Undo the document to the point to see it. (Stupid 1-step only Undo/Redo - I hate it) Luckily, the boy sitting next to her caught her and told me and I was able to Undo and see her original 5/9 score. Sigh. I think the saying about intelligence vs. obedience in dogs can be so true with kids too - the smarter they are, the less they listen to you. It's almost frightening how manipulative Girl-Vader can be. I hope she learns.

But yeah, I'm definitely feeling more comfortable in handling the little kiddos lately. Now if I could just stay awake for the week, I'll survive to winter break.

EDIT: HAHAHA little C, a boy I adore, is sitting across from me doing Spelling Blaster. I coughed and he turned to look at me - then he WINKED and said "piece of cake" and turned back to his computer. Oh yeah, and this morning I had J ask me "Are you even doing work?" when he saw me working (yes, working) on my laptop while the volunteers took care of the lab supervision. <3 them.

19. Ms. Livermore and the Case of the Wrong Pants

Okay, so I admit it - I FAIL at NaNoBloPo this last week. Oh, I've got plenty of excuses! Good ones too. (If you played WoW, you would understand.) But during the week I usually blog at work and I had to use all my free time to get the newsletter all formatted and ready to proofread for the teachers. It's a good thing I did, because they got it back to me this morning and Barb's printing them all out right now with the edits I made. Much less of a rush this month. And then along with that I was sick as hell from Wednesday night on, and when I was home I was either in bed, sleeping, eating, or attempting and failing to level my mage on WoW. Which is srs business you know. And yeah that is my third excuse. WoW Expansion = LVL 80!!! I'm almost there, and then I can chill out. Jesus, it's like a race... I mean I haven't been really busting my ass over it, but I do feel unproductive if I'm putzing around in game instead of gaining experience.

But after all that, I'm back. It's a pity I didn't blog some of the week last week because I went to a Mozart concert at Orchestra Hall on Wednesday night which was amazing. I forget how much I like his stuff that isn't the Magical Flute. Felt good to be enveloped in a musical experience again. Sometimes I miss playing in band so much.

Otherwise though, I didn't have a whole lot to update about. However - onto the topic of today's post:

Tomorrow is the play performance. The kids would actually be prepared if they shut up enough to concentrate on their cues. I don't think they will, though. At any rate, because tomorrow's the play, today was dress rehearsal. Some kids finally take it seriously at dress rehearsal. These kids did not. Every prop and costume piece was just another thing to distract them. So it was yet again another very frustrating day of play practice. I even saw Kathy, who's son is in the play and who's parents came to see it last week, and she told me that her father had "had to leave he was going to laugh so hard and he said 'that poor woman...'" meaning me. Sigh. That made me feel like a loser. But it turned around after play practice. The boys were sent to the boys' restroom which I stood outside of, and the girls to the girls' with the teacher. All was well and good, the girls somehow got changed much quicker until I was left with a couple boys. B, came out and I heard A shouting behind him "He has my pants!" So I stop B and ask him if he's sure the jeans he's wearing are his. He says yes and trots back off to the colony before I can stop him. Meanwhile, A's peaking at me through the door in just his underwear and a pair of jeans covering his front. "He's got my jeans! These aren't my jeans!" I'm trying not to crack up at this point and people are walking by hearing pieces of the conversation:

"A, just try them on, if they don't fit, we'll get B and exchange pants."
"A, you can at least put your shirt on while you wait."

On of our receptionists walked by and asked me if I was loitering outside the men's room with a laugh. Another embarrassing moment was when, after telling A repeatedly to keep the door shut while he waited, it opened and I proceeded to call his name in reprimand and a full-grown teacher walked out and looked at me as if he'd done something wrong. "Oh.. uh... sorry, I'm waiting for the student in there..." I look a little creepy then. Most teachers knew exactly what was going on when i said "dress-rehearsal" as they walked by.

But I was basically laughing throughout the whole thing. Finally I had to go and get B myself and drag him back up to the bathroom so they could switch jeans. Sigh. Crisis averted.

"He has my pants!!"

Totally worth it.

18. Stone Soup... I hate you.

UGH, I hate being a female and overemotional at times. Although, considering my usual track record I didn't actually break down today, so, I suppose that counts as a win for me? I don't know.

Had the kids to myself at play practice today and they decided because their teacher wasn't there they were going to be the most rambunctious group EVAR. I know they're all good, smart kids and I know I have it easy compared to teachers who deal with the kids who have severe behavior problems but I was ready to cry today after trying a few different ways to try and get them to calm down and quiet down enough so they could hear each other say the lines. They wouldn't pay attention so they never knew when to come in, they only see me as the computer lady and not a teacher with authority, so they don't hardly take me seriously. No matter what I did, they wouldn't STOP. I kept trying to remind myself, they're first graders, they're not going to actually ever sit still like you can expect from older age groups but at the same time, that wasn't particularly what I was asking for I was just asking them to listen to me and each other and it wasn't happening. Everything made them laugh, some just blatantly ignored me, some provoked others, and a couple even got pissed at the others because they were ruining rehearsal. It really doesn't help that I get them for this right after lunch when they normally will be outside burning off that little kid energy, but there's no other time in the day for it.

It was just embarrassing because there was a parent there watching since it was bring a special person to lunch day and even she felt the need to step in and tell them how disrespectful they were being. Maybe it'll be better when I have actual education training under my belt, maybe this age group just isn't my ideal age group to eventually teach, but it's days like these and moments like this where I question my ability to be a teacher. Because I know things could be much worse off, and I was getting so upset that a bunch of 6 year olds weren't taking me seriously? It feels a bit pathetic. Heh, one little girl who was obnoxious before I stopped them midrehearsal and sat them down to tell them how uncool their behavior was, spoke up afterward "C'mon guys! It's hard enough for her already!" I both adored her at that moment for being a mature enough human being to realise this wasn't easy for me, and wished she hadn't said anything because I'd hate to look like I can't handle it, especially to students. I mean, a sympathy/empathy plea can work with older age groups and did awesome when I was an RA with peers, buuuut for kids you're supposed to have ultimate authority over? I dunno. I just feel like jeez, if I get upset over this, what's in store for me when I'm a Real Live Teacher, and dealing with teenagers who do a lot worse than be loud at play practice.

I suppose all of these things help me get prepared for that. Not to mention I just haven't dealt with so many young kids in this capacity, where as I have done so with teenagers. So maybe it was just inner panic I was feeling at such unfamiliar territory. I do always have this voice in my head wondering what's taught as common practice when dealing with this age-range. And being in an actual school rather than a non-prophit organization camp has me all paranoid I'm going to handle things by going with my gut at some point and it's going to be completely against school policy or something cause as many times as I read the protocols, it's so vague and subjective. Sigh.

At least I got a lot of newsletter work done today. Productivity nom nom nom.

17. ita iz stoopid? maybee?

I get to half way and I nearly lose it - but I just haven't had a whole lot to write about. I mean, I got Wrath on Thursday night and that's pretty much all I've been doing beyond work and sleep since then. I'll be over my hardcore-ness once I reach 80 and all, but right now I've got guildies to keep up with. Gotta love feeling like you should be out of breath when you're sitting at a computer for hours at a time. Plus I have to say it's been awesome experience content for the first time with everyone else. Sure, people have already reached 80, but in terms of really enjoying new content with my friends and us all going into dungeons saying "who knows, let's do it" is so fun. Plus, Blizzard's really done a great job on most of these quests. They're almost all so much fun!

Today I did some stuff for work though. I shouldn't be bringing things home, but the lab at school literally doesn't have the resources for me to scan and crop this clip art that I need to, and I refuse to do it the old school way by photocopying the pages then trying to resize them with the copier to be just the right size and all tiny for the graphics of the newsletter. I was talking to my dad, and we starting discussing how a lot of things are getting frustrating because of the advancement of the technology in school. The computers in Colony 1 are probably the oldest in the school - granted, they're not that old. I mean, they're the computers that were big in the 90's, I used them in Jr. High. They're not quite back to big floppy disc Apple's that only had black screens with neon 8-bit colors that I used at these kids' age. (I'm not trying to sound old here, I know that in most terms even that isn't CRAZY long ago, but technology gets old fast.) They're old iMacs, most with the old OS 9. Apparently the only reason they haven't been updated to the much more compatible OS X like my desk's iMac is because the ita programs the kids use won't work on those. It uses HyperStudio, which I'd never heard of before working here but as far as I can tell it's like an old Mac version of an interactive PowerPoint? All the kids do is have slide they click through with a voice over reading things or asking them questions to answer, but the trick is that it records their answers, calculating their score and spitting it out at the end. Programming a bit beyond what I know at the moment. Also, only the iMacs support the ita font - which boggles me a little bit because if it's a font file, it should be compatible with most systems, unless Mac switched their font format somewhere in the last 10 years, which is completely possible.

So, while all that would be fine and good if they just said "we have these computers and will only use them for ita things", they're not. Teachers are asking me to have kids go play the educational games online, they want the ita font used in the newsletters I write on more recent operating systems, and they want to keep integrating new technology into their education. So - why don't we contact the ita foundation that gives us this grant to not only hire me but buy supplies for all the custom-made ita books, etc. and say can we have upgraded software? Key word is custom-made. Not only are the books created basically from scratch by staff here, so are the computer programs. The school had a woman with some background in animation and programming (I guess) make all these HyperStudio programs for the kids. It's her drawings in front of them, it's her voice reading the questions, everything. And she no longer works for us/with us, not to mention I heard she... wouldn't be available to ask about them, either. I have no idea why.

So, therein the dilemma. Bill, the tech-head for our side of the district elementary schools say he hopes to have the Colony 1 lab upgraded to all OS X operating systems next fall. Problem is, it literally can't be done with these ita programs holding us back. If you ignore my personal beliefs on ita that gives one simple solution, K-1 here is stuck because there's no getting rid of it. Stonebridge prides itself in this alphabet and it's use, even though most schools stopped it after the sixties.

I ponder aloud to my dad if that was a difference between me and the women who've held this position in the past. They were certainly capable with computers, but were they as tech-savvy as your average 22 year old? Or what about a fairly dorky and geeky 22 year old who spends half her life on the computer and is baffled at the mere concept that someone in the education field can't format a document in Word? I wonder if Kathy and Joan just dealt with what they had because it was all they new how to do wheras I'm sitting here analyzing what all could be changed for the better and literally how it could be done because the limitations are driving me nuts. Hell, maybe they investigated all the avenues I'm thinking, or if they haven't, wouldn't Bill have? He sure as hell knows a lot more about it than I do. But dad said maybe I should take it upon myself, if I have the time, to see what I can do to move things ahead. Of course, as he also said, there's a point where you just have to tolerate the resources you have and that's that, but the thing is I think we have more than we could be using, and I know already Bill wants to move in that direction too.

So the next course of action? Well, before I go forward and do all this shit, I need to consult people - make sure I'm not just overthinking things that have already been attempted and found impossible.

Questions for Kathy and/or Bill:
- Have they contacted the ita foundation about new software/an updated version of the font?
- Is there a new version of HyperStudio that can be looked into?
- Can't a new font be made somehow?

Aaaand back to kicking some Scourge ass.

15. No means No!

What another day at work. I'm blogging now at the end of the day so I don't accidentally forget while WoWing it up tonight, but today was insane. This afternoon at one point I had one of those out of body experiences and saw myself in a movie - I stopped and put a hand to my head while ten 6 and 7 year old kids were all asking for my attention at once. I can just see the blurring, the voices of "Ms. Livermore? Ms. Livermoooooore!" in the background. Man. Barb was "sick" today, and she was supposed to have a sub, but I guess they couldn't get one or something because she definitely didn't. Then I got a call from the office saying that my usual Friday volunteer wouldn't be in again until December because she's now on crutches. Ouch. In both senses. So that leaves Tuesday AND Friday with no morning volunteers, and now that art's done, I'm getting a buttload of kids coming to me in the afternoon too. I felt so awful the whole time cause kdis come in and are either standing in line for ten minutes at a time or sitting there with their hands up for 5, waiting for me to go check their work. But what am I supposed to do?? WHY did both orange and yellow have to be sent at the SAME TIME this morning! And figures the one morning that there's pretty much no badges up on the badge board because instead of staying an extra 15 minutes like I usually do here yesterday afternoon to put up badges, I went home on time to play some WoW. Usually I ave time in the morning to go add badges to the badge board too, I didn't think anything of it. This was the first morning I had kids coming to me about no badges. That was intense.

Of course later, Mary, one of the other paras was just like "Why didn't you tell them you were full? Just send the kids back if you're overloaded." Heh. Oops. Duh, right? Well, I don't even know if that would work, because every time Barb tries that, the teachers are all "no, they're not, go back". Poor kids. I don't mind the afternoons as much because then I can at least have a little more easy-going conversation with the kids. JK, one of my favorites, brightens my day every day.. He comes on in to do Spelling Blaster every afternoon and hell, I don't even have to do anything with him. I give him a smile and a nod, he goes on back to his computer and just opens the program up and gets going no problem. It's brilliant. Plus the kid's just a cool guy. I used to play catch with him on the playground at recess and his mom volunteers every Wednesday morning - she's a pretty cool lady, so I guess it makes sense!

I was definitely in a Mood after lunch though. DST (Super Sweet Teacher is now Disturbingly Sweet Teacher) catches me while I'm handing out phone messages and asks me if I've taken pictures to send to the ita foundation people yet. What? Pictures? When there's a newsletter coming out in a week and a half, a play being put on in the same amount of time, you're sending me all thirty of your kids at once for 20 computers and I was supposed to be taking pictures since you mentioned it briefly as a 'what if' in passing yesterday afternoon AFTER making me send and format and edit your e-mail??

I said No.

And then I walked away.

5. Day in the Life...

Going to make this post a bit different... jot down little notes from the day. With the election news and all, thought it'd be easier than trying to sit down at the end of the day and summarize everything.

11:11am - omg make a wish! HAHA. I just looked at the clock to put down the first time and that's what it is. Gee - wonder what my wish was! Anyway, just finished the mad morning computer lab rush. Was trying to find somewhere online to track exit polls or something, but I guess those are still only tracked when they closed. FOOD TIME. >:D

12:30pm - JESUS. I swear all six year olds are bi-polar. HR came up to me while I was putting up badges, and I always get surrounded by kids when putting up badges, so I try to do it when they're busy/not around. They rarely are though, so usually I have at least 5 kids trying to "help" which means grabbing at the badges in my box and arguing over the new ones I'm putting up. Anyway! HR is a bit of a feisty little girl, I think she may have a slight mental thing, but it's not really noticeable. Could just be severe A.D.D. or something. At any right, she's funny and cute so as much as she can be a stubborn turd I don't dislike her in the least. She wants to help with badges but I tell her I don't need any help right now cause I'm almost done yadda yadda. So she asks if she can help later and I said maybe, so she gets happy, gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek (I'm sitting on a mini-chair, so I'm at eye-level) and I'm all awwww - then she turns around and goes "WHERE'S MY PINK" in a growly voice. I don't even know what that means. But I am amused.

12:52pm - ... okay, teachers, let's have me work my ass off on ballots to the point where I drew the clip art. And then not use them. What. The. Hell.

1:00pm - All right, my ballots were used by about half the kids. Slightly less frustrated now.

1:45pm - Owned. Obama - 85, McCain - 41. If only my students determined the fate of the nation... er... in this one issue. Hell yeeeah! 1.75 hours until I vote!

4:15pm - VOTED! :D Took me longer to get through the McDonald's Drive-Thru than it did to vote. Wooo for getting off work an hour and a half before rush hour. Whew. So that was pretty easy, haha! Now, to try and chill until Kara tonight... oh yeah, path day in WoW. The Hallowed title, you are mine! Also, talked to Corlett on the phone on the way home and we squeed about Obama's chances.

7:11pm - Watching the results avidly until Kara raid starts up! So far, nothing to worry about but TV stations are putting a ridiculous amount of information on the screen at once. I'm trying to figure out what all these different numbers mean - is that projected? Is that called? Is that for the president or a Senate seat? Bleh! Megan, Kevin, and I disagreed with a guildie who was supporting the electoral college by saying he'd rather that than have the mostly uneducated public deciding these things and it got me a bit riled up. I really disagree with the electoral college - I think it's flawed and outdated and while yes, sucks to have the morons of the country make stupid voting decisions, but if we're a democracy then stay with that and deal with it, yeah? I don't mind everyone having a voice. And it's not even like the electoral college is made up of people making more educated decisions, it's supposed to reflect the majority of the votes in the State. It hasn't always done that in the past cause people screwed up the numbers, not because someone with an electoral vent went "I think they're dumb and uneducated, I'm voting opposite of them." Basically, the college is not doing what it's supposed to be doing and if we go on and on about everyone having a voice - let everyone have a freaking voice! /soapbox

10:04 pm - NBC HAS CALLED IT FOR OBAMA, along with others. I'm not gonna completely breathe easy, but pleeeeeeease. Now just keep Al Franken up there. And a miracle would be nice to get rid of Bachman.

11:38pm - Okay, I have to post this before the night is up so it still counts, but I was just talking to Whit on the phone and I can't believe how relieved I am. I can actually be proud to be under this president. This will take some getting used to.

3. Cute vs. Badass?

So I have to make ballots for the kindergartners and first graders at school, and I couldn't find any little bits of clipart to use for a cartoon elephant and cartoon donkey that fit what I was looking for. So I drew my own, by starting with the elephant cause I knew more what an elephant looked like than a donkey. (As in, how to draw a donkey that's obviously a donkey and not a horse.)

Then the dilemma arose: I was very proud of the cute elephant I drew.... Dammit! I'm a democrat! I can't make the elephant CUTER than the DONKEY! Cause I know the kids will probably be voting based on the drawings more than anything else. I know I would at that age.

But how do you make a donkey look cute? Sure I could make it look like a badass devil-donkey - ala Stillwater High Schools making the Pony mascot slightly satanic looking so we didn't look like total wusses (example) - but that'd a) probably only appeal to the boys and the girl who dressed up as Darth and b) is totally not equal to a Cute Elephant. Not wanting to be biased either way, I went ahead and did my best:

2. Halloween & Co.

So yesterday was Halloween and it was a pretty crazy day at school. I dressed as a Hufflepuff student from Hogwarts and most of the kids I work with, being K-1, just called me "Harry Potter". That's cool, at least they got it! Colony 1 has a party for the morning half of the school day where all the paras get a station and the kids spend 8 minutes at each. My station was where they stood in front of a castel backdrop and I took pictures of them in their costumes. It was a rush to get through each group in 8 minutes but it was cool to really be able to ask each kid individually what they were. I think my favorites were H, the girl who's tried to trick me into giving her badges before was Darth Vader. Not only was I thinking yeah badass, you BE that chick that's a guy character and secondly... well I mean, how fitting? Then S, the little guy who's IMPOSSIBLY adorable but who is majorly hyper and ADD was Speed Racer and did a cute thumbs up pose for the photo. That boy is too awesome. There were probably ten clone troopers of various colors and five Anakin Skywalkers. It fills my heart with fluffy, nerdy goodness to see Star Wars still be one of te most popular Halloween themes. Even if they're prequel-related or animated Clone Wars related. It means they'll still be interested enough to check out the original series eventually.

So after lunch it's my job to run to Wal-Mart (still in my costume) and get the photos all printed. Takes me a bit to put them all on a CD-R, in case the digital camera of Colony 1's card is too old for the Kodak machine I like having back-up. So I get there and find that a huge amount of the photos have red eye and all this so I start enhancing them one by one. There ended up being 139 photos to print. Oi. There should really be a mass enhance on those machines. Then it took forever to print each one AND I made both rolls run out of paper. Was a weee bit embarrassing, to say the least. But after spending an hour and a half of my workday at Wal-Mart I hurried back with an hour left in the school day and handed them out in time for us to all glue them to cut out bats to make cards, I guess. Turned out decently!

My brother dressed up as an undead samurai to go trick-or-treating a little bit and then go to a Halloween party with his girlfriend (the undead geisha). It looked pretty sweet, actually, I wish I'd not been taking a nap half the afternoon so I could have helped with his make-up more since I discovered special effects make-up is SO fun to do in costume and make-up class a year ago. I got to help a bit with his hair and touching up some make-up while Jen was doing her own thing. Then once they left the parents and I sat down to watch Speed Racer and they loved it even more than I did, I think! I personally thought it was a fantastic movie, the style's awesome , I don't much care if people said they think it makes their eyes bleed. It's based off a cartoon, an anime, nonetheless so if you keep that in mind, the movie's right on base.

And woo me almost forgetting to blog on day 1 of NaBloPoMo.

1. Daddy, our baby's gone...

As I start off this blog, I'm not really sure what it'll become. I have a LiveJournal, but it's full of emo and rants and things very personal that I'm not particularly wanting the world at large to see. But I wanted to try NaBloPoMo for a month now that I've got a job and things to actually talk about every day besides trivial online drama or my own little mind. So I decided to start anew, with a blog rather than an LJ.

So anyway, I'm now working in an elementary school as a paraprofessional - Colony 1 computer tech. It's fun! I feel like it's my first real adult job - hell, I even get insurance! And the kids call me Ms. Livermore. I'm officially an Adult. Colony 1 is Kindergarten and 1st grade so I've gone from working with middle schoolers and high schoolers at the summer camp to the tiniest of the tiny. It's different - crazy - but not in a bad way. Just different. I've adjusted well enough, I think, instead of saying "Holy Crap" I've forced myself to say "Holy Cow" etc.

One thing I've found is similar whatever the age group, though - Parents. As horrible as a kid can behave, the parents take an entirely different skill set to deal with. Some are great! They volunteer and help with all the kids and have senses of humor and low and behold - their kids are usually great too. But there are the parents who either think their kid is God's Gift to the world and can do no wrong, so their kids end up being spoiled brats who don't think they need to follow the rules everyone else does. OR they're clingy, nosy, and hover around when they should really be letting us do our job and end up with oversensitive, babied children who are used to special treatment. It's ridiculous. We have a boy in our colony whose mother volunteers, which is great and all... but I never see her with a child that's not her own. She just follows him around all day! He comes outside late to recess, and if the kids do, they're not supposed to be able to go up to the big playground, they're supposed to stay back on the small one with the kids who chose to because they've missed the bell to go up. Teaches them to be on time and not dawdle getting their stuff together or in the lunch room. He comes out late, so we say he has to stay down, and his mom's all "Oh, I'll just take him up..." Lady, our inconvenience isn't the point here. We're trying to teach the kids the importance of being on time.

Then today, he comes in to play computer games, which the kids are allowed to do in the afternoons IF they have all their work done and have a computer pass. Well, they said that the substitute didn't know where the computer pass was, so that's all well and good, I set him up on a computer - and his mom follows him in and sits down next to him to play together. Bleh. I want to eyeroll a little bit but go on with my work when later it's time for his gym class, so i tell him it's time to stop and go to gym - he proceeds to have a fit if his mom won't come with him, which she won't because it's gym. But the fact that because his mummy wouldn't go with him he decided that meant he just didn't need to go - he said he was going to go home early with her and that gym and music weren't important. I winced. What an arrogant little turd. He's the type who argues with us over everything, and I know it's because of this. I hope he ended up going without his mum and if not that he doesn't get a bloody grade. It's ridiculous! You'd think parents would be easier to deal with, but the fact that you have no ability over them, can't hold them accountable - as bad as a kid can be, you have the power to do something about it. Parents know they can get away with it all... and I've come to really detest the ones who do.