bugsii

This morning, Dan drove me to Dayton, where I had to do a presentation for ODE.  I was nervous, but I felt pretty calm and it went very well.  I may be beating this stage fright thing after all.  While I was working, Dan was figuring out my computer problems.  He managed to clone my hard drive and then replace my hard drive with the clone, so as of right now, my computer is working beautifully (knock on wood).  I was able to get a paper done and read some articles for class, and I feel much better.

Tonight, we are at Dan’s parents so Dan can work on his joysticks.  We made our own pizzas for dinner and they turned out pretty good.  Now, I’m tired and dragging, which is why this blog post isn’t so great.  My apologies.

Today at work, I “attended” a training on how to do research on the state library of Ohio website.  I say “attended” because it took place online, while I sat in my cube with headphones on.  This was an experience because who in the office could know that I was “attending” a training?  So, a few people walked by and tried to talk to me and I was like, “uh, yeah, uh” as I tried to keep listening.  Overall the training was pretty good and helpful, but there were some interesting things going on as well.  First, the training was led by a kindly librarian-type older man (at least that’s what he sounded like), but all of the trainees were women.  I’m not sure what that means, I just thought it was interesting that the only people that signed up for this voluntary training were women.  As we were logging into the “conference room” there was some general confusion about sound and our trainer muttered something about the limitations of this online training.  I thought that was a weird thing to say because there are benefits of online training over face-to-face (convenience for one), just the same as the other way around, but it can be frustrating especially when you have lots of user error.  Another strange thing was that the only person with a microphone was the trainer.  The rest of us could listen to him, but had to type our questions into a chat room-like box.  It worked out fine, but I almost felt deaf or mute or something.  He could speak to me, but I had to hurry up and type a response.  It felt odd.  Later on, someone asked if the databases that we were learning about were safe from viruses and “misinformation,” and our trainer assured us that these were “completely safe” because they were commercial sites and they were not some “screwball’s website.”  I thought it was funny that he had so much faith in anything commercial as though company’s don’t have any ulterior motives or misinformation.  Throughout the training, he also kept telling stories to illustrate how to use each database.  These stories, for me, helped also to illustrate that not everyone knows that Google exists.  He told a story about how a guy came in to the state library because he wanted to know how to build a raspberry trellis.  So, he showed us how to search a database of gardening magazines.  In the meantime, I had opened up a new window in my browser and googled “how to build a raspberry trellis” and got 714,000 hits.  The first link also had a way to share “how to make a raspberry trellis” via facebook, delicious, twitter, etc.  It kinda blew my mind that anyone would go to the library to try to figure out something like that, but I guess Dan has taught me too well.  I am now a member of the digital generation and the library is still catching up.  Ah, computer training…

Act I

I got to sleep in today, which doesn’t happen that often.  The thing is, when I sleep in, I remember my dreams a lot more often.  My dream last night?  I went on a date with Barack Obama.  I’m not kidding.  From what I can remember, he was quite a gentlemen and when he talked about universal healthcare… just dreamy.  But seriously, what kind of nerd dreams about the president of the United States?  I am so lame.  However, I do think he’s the most attractive president at least since JFK.  Right?  I just hope that tonight I don’t have any dreams about Dennis Kucinich (shudder).

Act II

It was a beautiful day.  A little cloudy and breezy, perfect running weather.  It was also the first run on my new schedule to prepare for the Memphis Half Marathon.  So, what do I do?  I trip and fall and really mess up my elbow.  It was toward the end of my run and I was hot, tired, and I just so happened to come across an uneven sidewalk.  Not a good combination.  I have scrapes on my hands, elbow, hip and knee.  Remember when you were a kid and you fell all the time and it was no big deal?  When you become a big lumbering adult, you fall a lot less often and when you do it’s so much worse.  You can’t just stand up and brush yourself off.  When I fell and saw my bloody elbow I thought I was going to pass out or throw up… twice.  I had to stop and put my head between my legs.  And I’m thinking, really?  I just got scraped up.  I held it together though until Dan got home, then I cried like a little girl.  He bandaged me up and said, “Running sure is a tough sport.”  Yeah, yeah.

Act III

For dinner tonight, Dan and I went out to eat with some ODE buddies.  My boss’s last day is Friday, so it was sort of a going away dinner and I’m sad because he’s a pretty cool boss.  We met at a coworker’s house in German Village.  She lives with her daughter and her daughter is an artist.  They had cool art all over the house, but I was a little startled when I saw this in the backyard:

Plaster statue

Scary, huh?  But, good too.  It made me want to get some paint and be creative.  Anyway, then we walked from her house to Lindey’s.  It was a really cute place with good food.  I heart German Village.

Yesterday morning, I was at the pool in Florida.  This morning, I was in my cube in Ohio.  It’s just not right.

I worked from home today again.  I am preparing a presentation for the Ohio Association for Gifted Children in the fall and I found this cool presentation tool to use.  It’s called prezi and it’s an alternative to PowerPoint that let’s you see the big picture and zoom in and out and all over the place.  I will definitely be using this more often.  If you want to see the presentation click here and then use the arrows in the bottom right hand corner to click through the presentation.  When you get to the black box, it’s a movie, so you have to click on it to play it.  Fun stuff!

Today, I had a presentation to do at ODE on digital tools for collaboration.  I had somehow put it out of my mind all weekend, which was good because I didn’t worry about it… until last night when I remembered and then had a terrible night’s sleep.  And all morning at work, as I was trying to get other things done, I was worrying about my presentation.  I was all tense and nervous, but by the time I had to present I had calmed myself down enough to do a fairly decent job.  I even had my voice shaking under control!  It helped that there were only about 8 people that showed up to the presentation, but even so, it wasn’t terrible.  My work friends that came even said I didn’t seem nervous!  I really like talking about this stuff, so maybe that helped too.  When it was over though, I got really tired.  The adrenaline from the nerves were no longer keeping me all twisted up and I felt like I need some food and a cot.  The cot never arrived, but it was no time before I was off to class.  Only one more long day for the summer and I am done for a while!

P.S.  I’m trying to stay positive, so I’m not going to tell you that the busride to school was so slow that I decided to get out and walk.  The second I stepped out, it started to rain and I was ten minutes late for class.  But, I’m not going to talk about that.  Almost done!

So, the state finally came to a concensus (sort of) on the budget.  Here’s the latest from the Dayton Daily News:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/proposed-state-budget-could-lay-off-thousands-203190.html

I don’t want to be a party pooper, but please note that the title of the article is “Proposed State Budget Could Lay Off Thousands.”  Hmm.  I wonder what will happen to the intern?  Hopefully everyone will forget about her.

Makeshift Sign

So, things aren’t so good in the state of Ohio.  Strickland and the General Assembly have yet to agree on the budget and are now in an extension period (see an update here).  There is a showdown over the use of slot machines as a source of revenue and no one, of course (to protect their political butts), wants to raise taxes.  So, this all trickles down to ODE, which is a state agency.  And here we are, forced to use colored paper because they don’t want to order any more white and I guess we had a lot of colored paper in storage.  It’s strange because colored paper is more expensive, but I guess not more expensive when you already have it and don’t have to pay for it at the moment.  So, today, I went to print out some forms for my Individual Professional Development Plan (IPDP) and they came out on yellow paper.  Then, I went to make 9 copies to send to the committee and they were fuschia.  Seriously?

I’m just gonna say it, because it’s true. I have too much to do right now and I don’t have much time to sit and relax. Last week was stressful, but this week the grading has begun.

Yesterday, I felt pretty good. Saturday I had spent all day grading, so Sunday I cleaned the house, went grocery shopping and did some laundry. That was nice. But then, I checked my work email and discovered that I needed to go to training in the morning at ODE. This was okay except that I had planned to work from home, which saves me time to get ready and get there and back (about a precious hour and a half). This got me upset because it meant that I needed to get up earlier, find work clothes, pack a lunch, etc. I guess I was really upset too because I even forgot to blog. And I got a really terrible night’s sleep too. But, I decided to get up, work from home, then go in just for the training and come home, which meant I didn’t have to pack a lunch and I would have a little more time between work and class to have a quick snack and get going.

Class was good, now I’m with my lab group and (dare I say it?) I have a moment of calm. They are working busily on a paper that doesn’t require too much technical expertise. Wednesday won’t be so zen though because the video project starts. I used to do a video project with my 6th graders and it was utter chaos… fun, but utter chaos. 4 weeks to go.

5:30am- Wake up.  Hit snooze.

5:40am- Wake up. Get up.

5:40-6:05am- Get dressed, grab lunch that I packed last night, head to work.

6:05-6:35am- Walk to work, carrying mace (no troubles though, beautiful morning)

6:35-11am- Work.

11-12:30pm- Lunch out with work friends to celebrate my birthday and Nicole’s birthday.

12:30-2:35pm- Work.

2:35-3:30pm- Ride home with Nicole, pick up computer and workout clothes, drive to OSU.

3:30-4:45pm- Lecture portion of class (I am the TA and teach the lab afterwards).

4:45-7:00pm- Lab.

7:00-7:15pm- Get car, drive to rec center.

7:15-7:30pm- Wait in line at rec center because new student information system is all messed up.

7:30-8:15pm- Run, stretch.

8:15-8:30pm- Drive home.

8:30-10pm- Eat, watch the Bachelorette.

10-11pm- Shower, read, bed.

Tomorrow’s schedule is not much better at all, except that I start the morning with my new yoga class!  I’m trying to have a positive attitude and enjoy it all because this schedule will only last 5 weeks and then I’ll be off from school for 9 weeks.  And, I do like this class a lot (the students are great and it’s fun), so I just have to make sure I get to bed decently early every night.  The best part of the day by far… introducing myself to my students as a SECOND year doctoral student (woop woop).