Saturday, June 16, 2007

6/15: What I Accomplished Today

1. Got the Level 26 Human Mage to 27 working on Duskwood quests.

2. Got Pogo badges to 60%; since I didn't play much last night, I played extra tonight to do that.

3. Watched Lawrence of Arabia. I hadn't seen this before. Very interesting movie.

4. Read some for the Arthur course.

5. Got the Level 27 Human Mage to 28 and started the Mor'Laden and Missing Diplomat chains. I've got all the Duskwood quests done until about level 30, but I still have level 23 Redridge quests to do because, as I've said before, I think they're mislabeled.

6. Tonight's BigFishGame was another Find the Stuff game. I had e-mail that another game is in Playfirst, so I did my hour testing that. That was way fun.

I played these silly games until much too late at night/early in the morning, so now I need to go to bed so I can get some rest before the cleaning lady comes tomorrow.

Friday, June 15, 2007

6/14: What I Accomplished Today

1. I just realized I forgot to wish anyone a Happy Flag Day. Bummer.

2. Last night, I thought maybe I'd play the day's BigFishDay game, Cinema Empire. (I tried a previous game, Cinema Tycoon, and thought it was a colossal disappointment.) I'm not sure whether the problem is the game or the installer, but that game was just clunky and unresponsive. Blech.

3. Graded two classes, prepped the in-person class, taught the in-person class. Finished the Placement statistics for May, finally finally finally.

4. Didn't get much done on Pogo badges. Didn't watch much television. Read an issue of Mother Jones.

5. WOW. Found a nice group of people, and we got the stupid Level 26 Human Mage through the Deadmines! Hurray! Worked on some quizzes in Duskwood. I think I'm gonna call it a day there.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

6/13: What I Accomplished Today

1. We had several Space Bags of clothes in our room. Now it's early June, and we had enough clothes that neither of us have even thought of opening the Space Bags, nor did we go into them last winter for the winter clothes, so we decided a few weeks ago we must have enough clothes, and we need to go through the Space Bags and decide if we actually want those clothes. (Over Christmas break, we redid our master closet, so we have enough room in our closet for a few more clothes.) We did that this afternoon; we each took maybe a dozen things, and there are four Space Bags full of clothes to donate to our friend who works for a charity.

(Do Space Bags actually work for anybody? I've never seen any that stay closed, so despite all your good intentions, your clothes smell gross anyway, plus any that you tried to store under the bed will just be hard to get out because they'll puff back out to full width. At first, I thought maybe we bought a defective set, and then I figured I must be doing it wrong, but even when someone else closes them, I've never seen them stay shut.)

2. Got at least 20% with the Pogo badges.

3. Worked a little on the Placement Statistics in the hopes that I can finish them tomorrow.

4. Started reading seriously for the Arthur course; I've read most of the stuff over the past few months, but it's time to start putting the course together.

5. Got the Level 25 Human Mage to 26. She hasn't done Dark Mines yet, but she's done Stalvan up to the next to last and a few little doodads here and there. (I really hate the Redridge Mountain quests. The Duskwood ones are good, but the Redridge ones all seem undernumbered to me.)

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

6/12: What I Accomplished Today

1. Graded two classes, prepped the in-person class, taught the in-person class. I had other things I was supposed to get done at school today, but things are taking longer than they should, so I suppose I need to go to school earlier than I have been.

2. Don't remember what we watched on television today.

3. Worked a little on premium badges. Didn't finish the backgammon badge, the first weekly badge this year I haven't finished; when it becomes available as a Personal Choice badge in six weeks, I'll see if I can get some backgammon mojo going there.

4. Read a little for my Arthur class.

5. Finally got my stupid Night Elf Druid to 30! Hurray! Gathered stats, did a mail check for everyone, and started the Level 25 Human Mage.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

6/11: What I Accomplished Today

1. Had some little tweaky Placement issues to deal with. Always a good way to start the day.

2. Same deal as last night with Pogo; worked on some premium badges, but didn't have Backgammon in me.

3. Read some magazines, particularly the Atlantic Monthly.

4. Watched some television, notably the last episode of The Sopranos. Best possible way to end the series, I think. If Gandolfini's smart, he'll never resolve what happened.

5. BigFishGame was Chocolatier, which I already have.

6. WOW. Finished the Howling Vale sequence, and got the Missing Diplomat up until you have to fight the two level 34's. Dinged 29 and took level 2 of whatever 3-level talent I'm working on. Finished Raene's Cleansing up through talking to the Uncorrupted Furblog and did various other Forest Song quests. I was hoping to get the Night Elf Druid to 30, but I lost my server connection, noticed the server's only going to up another hour or so anyway, and decided the time would be better spent sleeping.

Monday, June 11, 2007

6/10: What I Accomplished Today

1. Came in second for Puzzle Day, but we had to go to three puzzles to do it, which means we and the Fellas tied on the main crossword puzzle and on the second puzzle (which was this week's kid's puzzle). Also celebrated our brother-in-law's birthday today, so that was good.

2. Worked on Pogo badges. Won most of them last night, but whittled away at some premiums tonight. Still have to do the Backgammon badge, but didn't feel like I had backgammon rhythm tonight.

3. Finished laying out the Autumn online 101; my division is supposed to move to the next version of our online course management system over the summer, so it was recommended we have our online courses ready to go as soon as possible so that conversion goes smoothly and quickly. I really can't tell you how awe-stricken I am with myself that the whole course, including the gradesheet (which lists every assignment, so I always leave it for last), is done. Hurray!

4. Television. I have no recollection what we watched.

5. WOW. Finally got a good group and got my stupid Level 28 Night Elf Druid through the Deadmines! Did a few other quests, including finally finishing the level 24 quest in the Tower of Althalaxx chain. It's more fun when you're productive, I think.

6. At night while I fall asleep, I've been watching DVD's from The Learning Company, and I've really been enjoying them. I was afraid I'd feel really inadequate ("Oh, geeze, you mean I've taught similar courses for years and never hit this topic? What a maroon I am!"), but that hasn't happened. Of the ones I've seen so far, the instructors obviously emphasize different things than I do, and they go into more detail than I do on some topics and less in others, but it's been interesting to see how much my course and theirs do, in fact, converge. (One of my assignments to help students review MLA format is have them write my list of course resources as a Works Cited List. I had a set of cassette tapes from the library and a video or two; now I finally have a set of DVD's.)

7. Talked to my mother on the phone for a little bit; I was going to call tomorrow to wish a happy anniversary, but I said that today. She said two things; my 25th high school reunion is this summer (not going), and she & my second father will be out for a few days in July, so that'll be fun. The only thing she said she particularly wanted to do was see the Blue Man Group, so I'll see if they're still in town; I know they've left the Luxor.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

6/9: What I Accomplished Today

1. I forgot to blog yesterday. I'll just lump what I accomplished yesterday into what I accomplished today.

2. Finished my gradesheet and final layout for the six-week 100 I'm supposed to teach starting in July. That's ready to go now. I've also gotten about a quarter of the way into the fall's 101.

3. Got the questions asked that I need to have answered to finish the May Placement statistics. (These are shamefully late, but I keep coming across riddle after riddle.)

4. Finished three Pogo badges. Couldn't get a rhythm in backgammon; I'll try again tomorrow.

5. We watched the next episode of the Outback House show. The young people who signed up to be servants never have any clue what they're in for, and turnover is high for those positions. However, to be fair, on this show, it also looks like, to a certain degree, they want to do what they're supposed to, but a) no one has shown them what to do or given them much guidance about how often to do it, and b) they're seldom self-directed enough to do what's supposed to be done. It seems as if they have to be told each day and each week specifically what to do instead of thinking, "Well, it's Wednesday, so the laundry has to be done" or whatever. It also looks like it's just easier for the cook to do heavy work herself instead of instructing them; it's hard to know if that's because she enjoys it, she can't be bothered with showing them how to do it, or they just don't do it to her standard. They also genuinely seem to have no concept of what servants in 1860's Australia (or whenever, for servants) would have been permitted to do. They decided they'd camp out every Wednesday night and sleep under the stars so they could have a proper lie-in on Thursday. Now let's just count the wrong things in that scenario (starting with just basic safety). Yeah, in 1860's Australia on an outback sheep station, the squatter's wife would definitely be thinking, "Oh, the maids don't really get a good decent sleep-in; perhaps they should sleep outdoors one night a week." No, no, no. Here on Planet Earth, that wouldn't have been physically safe, that wouldn't have been socially acceptable (where, precisely, do the station hands sleep), it wouldn't have been socially classfully (here's a word I probably didn't need to make up) acceptable ("You've decided where you're going to sleep and when? Oh, I think not. Do as you're told and get back to work"), and nobody would have given a rat's ass how late the servants got to sleep. In fact, this would have been rather a bad thing, I should think.

We also watched the last two episodes of Studio 60. I know I've discussed that before, so I won't do it again. I am a little disappointed we'll never know what happens to Tom's brother or Jordan's baby, but I'm glad to see Sorkin freed up to do something more Sorkin-y. (I also sort of hope Matt just gets on his knees and prays with Harriet; it won't hurt him or anyone else, and it's a way to feel like you're accomplishing something at times when you otherwise feel powerless. Over and beyond that is obviously a matter of faith, but sometimes, just trying to make some sort of connection to the It, regardless of what you think It might constitute, is good for the soul, so to speak.)

6. My mother-in-law had to take some online courses to maintain her professional certification, so she came over today and took one, and afterwards we watched a Netflix movie we'd gotten because she'd enjoyed it many years ago and had mentioned wanting to see it again, Cary Grant's Once Upon a Time. This is a very cute movie.

7. BigFishGame for the last few nights hasn't been of interest; I think last night's was another Find the Stuff, and tonight's is another Three-Matchy.

8. Didn't really get to play WOW today because my mother-in-law was taking her online course on that computer. I can't remember whether I dinged 28 yesterday or the day before. The goal for tomorrow is to get this stupid level 28 Night Elf Druid through the Deadmines. I'm really beginning to dread Instances.