Monday 30 September 2019

Summer's End 2019

This post is basically a tradition since 2013. Meaning it also ran in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018. (In 2016 I wasn't teaching.) But to reiterate, the end of August is the true end of the year, no matter what the Gregorian Calendar claims. That's teaching life. Of course, this year I'm a little delayed, because it's not easy to find free time any more.

Turns out, when I'm not with little Alexandra, or doing teaching-related things, I tend to be relaxing by watching online videos, or doing edits and reviews for the websites I contribute to... this blogging site is even lower in priority than trying to catch up in my webcomics. But to answer the big question, I was ready to go back to work, if for no other reason than to get a chance to adjust to this next stage in parenthood.

So, what happened last year? It's taken a month to compile, and even now I'm still filling in the gaps on October 5th. (If I didn't post the intro to end September, I'd have lost the motivation.)


The main thing over the past year has, of course, been raising a daughter. From taking her on the train (Thanksgiving), to planes (March Break), to a boat (summer), she's been well travelled. My reading has consisted of things like "Baby Sign Language" (from November). My home upkeep has involved baby proofing. A major point of stress last June was finding Alexandra a daycare.

It's all good, her smiles are genuine; she's now my desktop background.

Oh, she also had her first swim classes, was invited to her first birthday, and had her nose clogged enough to necessitate turning bathrooms into saunas for a short stint at the end of February. But hey, this post is meant to be about me, so let's hit the usual categories.


WORK RELATED


At the start of last year (again, September), I tried to implement a "math puzzle of the week". By second semester, this had turned into a puzzle of "the month", but at least it still existed. I also had to handle the Student Achievement (Drysdale) awards early on, in addition to the usual dealing with math contests all year. (It involved being a sponsor and doing a runoff vote in November.)

First semester, I was only on a morning schedule, to support my wife and daughter at home. This also helped me to do some MAJOR revisions to the 3M course at the time, hitting a regressions unit early, before periodic functions. Essentially mixing things up a bit at the start so students had to consider the individual relationships. (My other course was data; I did some updates there too.)

Semester two, when I was full time, there weren't enough 3U textbooks for both my classes plus the other one running. So I supplemented with a PDF version, including making individual files of the 3U text questions I was assigning. (I ran into quota issues, because apparently google sites is completely independent of actual storage in the cloud or something.)

We had two consecutive snow days to end Semester One, necessitating the creation of a powerpoint that my MDM students could critique. (I couldn't even get into work on the second day.) I used my paid day off to finish March Break later, so that I could be there (in France) for Alexandra's 9 months day. We also lost one day per semester to a tornado and a massive snow dump respectively.

We did two performances at school, "Seussical" in early March, for which I did the usual line counts along with act comparisons early on, and then I helped with a number of February rehearsals. (I also brought my daughter to the final matinee performance, and she behaved really well.) The second performance, "Almost, Maine" in May, I helped out with as far as the show run (and Cappies), but wasn't involved with rehearsals.

OAME 2019 (the annual math conference) was local to Ottawa this year, and I was part of the registration group. I did get to one session Thurs, two on Friday and two on Saturday. (I also took a bookshelf on a bus.) I'm still the COMA secretary. Since I mentioned it last year, I just checked my Cubic Formula song and it's at 5,643 views... I haven't made time to respond to the few additional comments it's received.

I did another holiday math parody, but let's put that in Hobbies.


UPKEEP RELATED


We had to replace the Furnace in August (last month), after returning to town and finding a big puddle of water in the basement. (It was the AC control board, but there was also a crack.) The big TV has been moved upstairs, I think in late 2018. I managed to shred a bunch of old bills and things to tidy my office in the summer.

The only other housing item of note happened after March Break, when the others were still in France. I moved all the empty boxes under the stairs into the garage, moved my boxes of old binders to underneath the stairs, and moved a chunk of my office (including my old Windows computer) downstairs into the alcove where they had been. Including the large bookcase of anime items from the main room.

This was all part of the baby proofing, the remaining bookcases were bolted to the wall and chemicals got locked away. There really wasn't any time for much else; the cedars outside have officially died, and some spots on the hedges don't look great either, but they're low priority for me.

Me and Anne-Lise have made it out to a few movies when her relatives have been available to look after the little one. Mostly Marvel ones; the other movies were Wednesdays with the little one.


HOBBY RELATED


Much like last year, went to CanCon in 2018 (for less time than prior years) and blogged about it 10 months later. Went to Anime North in 2019 and was on a panel about History of Anime Fandom (also blogged about that trip). This led to be being interviewed on a podcast in August ("Zannen, Canada"), as that event, coupled with my old "Sailor Mercury" interview, makes me reasonably interesting.

Most of my writing this year was for the "Time Travel Nexus" - my "Drawing on Time" column. I wrote reviews for "Bill & Ted Save the Universe", finished my BTTF run (with "Hard Time Served"), did three "Jughead: Time Police" columns... and then 14 columns for "Steins;Gate". (Most covered two episodes. The first stood alone but then the trilogy was one episode. The "episode 25" OAV and Movie were separate columns. Each column averaged about 2,000 words.) This also necessitated doing timecodes for screen captures.

I've switched back from posts there every two weeks to monthly posts again.


HEATHER BRIGHT
Commission from Mouds_art
"Time Untied" had been sitting at around 52,000 words from 2018. It gained another 30,000 words or so, over 25k coming from last November's NaNo. The last time I worked on it was the end of January/start of February. I did get commission character art at Anime North, so it's in my mind. The "Ink & Insights" results had the judges suspect it was a sequel. Speaking of, an old thread on RoyalRoadL came back from the dead, and I still get some links to "Time & Tied" from there.

I participated regularly in the "Comic Tea Party" (formerly of StArt Faire) on Discord Thursday nights, until it ended on May 23rd. It moved to a week-long format, and I haven't carved time out of my schedule for that. Kind of spent so much time reading the new comic of the week that I wasn't keeping up with the others I liked. Hope to get back to discussions though.

I haven't worked on my own "Any ~Qs" webcomic at all. I did manage the usual holiday parody in December, including some art. I wrote a new parody at the end of August to debut in my classes ("Only When We Train"). And I did write a stand-alone story about the characters for the "AlphaworldZ" website in July. I have an idea for a 2019 banner but haven't gotten around to creating it. My run on Tapas concluded at the end of June with 11 subscribers.

On the serial website side, "Chanced Erasures" (Epsilon Story #5) continued from entry #6 through to #14. There was also one image art created for it in January, and a "Behind the Scenes" post at its conclusion. The site then shifted to "Balancing Act", the old Virga story that was 50k+ words. That has required several edits, which started at the end of January and continued through to mid-August, turning it first into a 4-Act, and then a 6-Act story.

A number of other words were added there. In particular, the Trixie-liking-James plot thread was morphed.

On THIS blog, the 500th post occurred ("Off Target"), which involved editing an older offline story to have a more PG-rating. I decided I didn't have time/interest in creating something from scratch.

To have a couple of images for it, I also used my Wacom Tablet for the first time back in August, meaning the first time I went all-digital with nothing "hand drawn". There is also a random R story from years back that's into it's 8th iteration, with more added to it on occasion; I suspect that won't see the light of day but it amuses me.

I completed my OAME 2018 recap in late Sept 2018; my OAME 2019 recap has been transcribed electronically but still needs some formatting and other work. There has also been all of my "Parenting" posts (replacing "Teaching"), some silly "Doki Doki Literature Club" poems I posted to Lotus Prince's videos (as he was playing in February), and for live RP our group got through a session of "Tales from the Loop". (Trek managed one session after.)

I put together two videos, one before my daughter's birthday to celebrate her first year, and one after, to commemorate the birthday itself. Mostly still images with music. And I have a skeleton of a story for my daughter's origin, which I need to flesh out and add images to.

I'm actually somewhat heartened by this section. I didn't think I'd managed to do much at all.


MISCELLANEOUS


Our TV connection seems to be intermittent, it fried some time in January after the "Doctor Who" New Years special and before "Discovery: Season 2" (so I never got to watching the latter). I wonder how cable survives these days, I don't have time for it. I switched to watching the "Daily Show" online, and stopped entirely after being away for the summer.


I was forced by Bell to upgrade to a flip-phone (sim cards are the latest thing, they don't support earlier stuff). Initialized it all before Anime North so that I could keep in contact with my wife. Still rarely use it. (My dad had to upgrade their car phone too.)

My pedometer bracket broke and had to be duct taped. It finally fell off and was lost forever in the airports when we went home for Easter... my parents bought me a new one for my birthday then, so there's barely a day missing in the record. There was a gap in the stars streak but I don't remember when.

During the three weeks in France/Channel Islands for my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary, I was able to catch up on some of my online reading backlog. I also read the "new" Hercule Poirot book "Closed Casket" by Sophie Hannah when offline. And one of my pictures of the Guernsey cow (that I got for my daughter) won their tourism promotion for July, so we had some neat items shipped to us, that was unexpected.

I've bought more yuri, some of which I've had time to read. ("Kase-san" & "Gakuen Polizi" hells yes, "Yuri is my Job" & "After Hours" ok, "Nameless Asterism" & "Bloom into You" not bad, "Citrus" no.) For comics, "Jughead's Time Police" is back, and "Life is Strange" has a continuation. And I attended a Dad power evening workshop in May which I guess goes here rather than in Upkeep?

Also, I cook most of the dinners (do meal planning) at home. Which I guess makes sense since I tend to do the shopping too.


WHERE TO NEXT


I want to post the math stuff from last year which is nearly done but needs TIME to be hammered into the final version of posts. Then I want to get Alexandra's Story finished up. If all that can happen in October, perhaps a return to "Time Untied" for November's NaNo is in order, and I have people wondering if I'll do a math holiday parody for December already. (And will I get the 2019 banner done before 2020?)

All that is going to eat up my free time until January. In particular because I'm dealing with the MAP 4C course, updating material from four years ago, and am remaining full time... I also seem to be part of a cross-curricular lesson study.

If we assume everything comes together for February 2020, and I'm caught up? Who knows. I do hope to actually graph out my stress metres to see if there's patterns I can use going forwards, it's part of the reason I'm still doing those. Not sure if it'll happen.

Honestly, as long as things keep working out on the family side, I think I'll be happy overall. And that's all I think I'm going to say this year. If you have any tips for me, PLEASE let me know. If you have any particular questions about teaching or parenting, I'll see what I can do? Thanks for reading my mental rambling.

Sunday 29 September 2019

Now Parenting: Sept 2019

Week 63
-Sun Sep 1: Alone with Alexandra in bed was fine. Managed some reading amid play.
-Departed 3pm after lunch, arrived 7pm, dinner with her 8:30pm, in crib hour later.
-Awake 5:20am for soother, restless but in crib to 6:15am feeding.
-AL for morning, Labour parade, me for evening. Lawn mowing also.
-Needed holding @12:30am. Tears at Daycare but got better. Duty first day back.
-Wednesday was groceries then pickup at Chapel and on to playgroup. Only ones there.
-Home 7:30pm, in before before 9pm, awake @2 & 4 but in crib to 6:15am.
-Thursday was gas/strawberries then dinner at Chapel. Had to abort before dessert.
-Couple disruptions in night (@10, @1:30) but in crib until 6am, I took morning.
-Friday 6pm was Manor Park festival; got balloon, dinner, went well.
-Didn't settle overnight but then slept late. Took morning, then brunch.
-Others departed Montreal @12:45pm. Tidied up, watched "Primer" and explanations.
-Lotus Prince, "Amnesia" #9-20 & "Justine" (3).

===
Item counts to Saturday (Sept 7):
Step Count 2016: About 49,000
-CanCon 2015 posts, as CanCon 2016 began.

Step Count 2017: About 69,800 (14 stars)
-Returned to work, spent most evenings dealing with CompSci.

Step Count 2018: Over 72,700 (10 stars)
-First bus ride, car battery death, cemetery movie.

STEP COUNT 2019: Over 81,500. 14 stars.
Monday was over 21k, between parade and snooze for nail cutting.
SCHOOL EMAIL 2019: 70 New (10 sent)
We have completed DAY 4.


RH Stress Level: 4 (Accel Shooter)


=======
Week 64
-Only slept from 1:45am-8am trying to process all I wanted/needed to do.
-Did listen to my podcast on Zannen, Canada. Family returned after 2:30pm.
-Time with Alexandra between 4 and 6pm, bed by 7pm. Managed full night.
-Monday teaching and math meeting, home before 7pm for story and bed. No photos!
-Tuesday, abysmal. Change needed @2am, barely slept (weird dream*), laptop charger broken (didn't work overnight) so lost lunch finding $100 replacement, staff meeting meant immediate daycare pickup, needed to find old Gr 9 binders, essentially 13 hour day.
-Wednesday, better, caught back up and in-laws by at 5:30pm to help and provide dinner.
-Thursday morning, up for over 2 hours from 1:30am with an awake little one who's apparently having teething issues.
-Thursday = Tuesday but with a lunch, and replace staff meeting with groceries.
-Friday, better, though duty and anime club make it busy. In-laws come to play with Alexandra for an hour before dinner.
-Friday evening spent doing review work. (Dishes were done after work.)
-Saturday morning back and forth, then group. Hid to get some prep work done.
-Alexandra used the sign for "more" to get more up and down at the mirror with mom!
-Afternoon with Alexandra, then alone as she was with in-laws, then a dinner out.
-Videos: Random creators, including "Cube" & "Nanoha" by SF Debris.
-Green Godzilla's been missing a week. RIP. :(

===
Item counts to Saturday (Sep 14):
Step Count 2016: About 76,300
-Went to BC with Anne-Lise. Considered making posts into a newsletter.

Step Count 2017: About 69,000 (19 stars)
-Many meetings, network fail as part of the CS horror show. CTP VIP.

Step Count 2018: Over 74,900 (12 stars)
-Long days with dinners, hot water heater issue, updated OS for laptop.

STEP COUNT 2019: Over 68,300. 13 stars.
SCHOOL EMAIL 2019: 84+88 New (22 sent)
 Separating the 88 new OAMEs
 We have completed DAY 9.
RH Stress Level: 5 (ACS Stand by)

=======
Week 65
-Sunday with Alexandra for 4 hours from 6:30am. Then mowed lawn, and off to in-laws.
-Afternoon managed to finish review work and start quizzes.
-Monday everyone was by for Alexandra play and dinner before departure.
-Tuesday finished MAP review, shopping, no break until after 6pm.
-Tuesday night, she's awake 12:30am-2:30am. Then had to be woken up(!) at 7:20am.
-Wednesday I'm just trying to get stuff done and not go crazy, mostly.
-Cappies is registered, new test worked out, dishes done.
-Thursday I take point in the morning, staff Welcome BBQ at 5pm. Home 6:30pm.
-Some trouble getting her settled. In crib to after 5am though.
-Friday is a busy day, but all students accounted for in test. Yay.
-Unanticipated solo dinner and putting Alexandra to sleep. Then dinner.
-With little one Saturday morning too. Managed afternoon snooze. Then to library.
-Play time after 5pm, then evening was a total wash out.
-Caught up with Lotus Prince's Resident Evil2 Board Game (to 12B).

Item counts to Saturday (Sep 21):
Step Count 2016: About 67,900
-Felt like I’d be busy until end of year. But with writing, etc. not teaching.

Step Count 2017: About 61,500 (14 stars)
-Daily injections, cutting back on everything to deal with tech, stress level 8+.

Step Count 2018: Over 57,200 (10 stars)
-Step counter bracket broke, cut little one doing nails, tornado in town.

STEP COUNT 2019: Over 64,500. 14 stars.
SCHOOL EMAIL 2019: 155 New (15 sent)
 We have completed DAY 14.
RH Stress Level: 5 (ACS Stand by)

=======
Week 66
-Sunday quiet in crib until 4:45am. Managed to fall asleep again after 6am departure, into a lucid (no beard) dream, but woke up when they returned to her room at 7am.
-Completed some grading and creating MAP task in morning and during snooze.
-Final(?) water table morning, trip to DQ, red ball play, Guernsey puffin.
-Evening was more MAP prep and AL did some grading for me. Then was sick.
-Monday I dropped off little one. She got a onesie coverall. Some evening tears.
-Managed more prep and percentiles sheet, plus shopped, dishes and recycling.
-Tuesday got the week worked out, still no chance to grade.
-Alexandra put socks away one by one. Then 1.5 hrs to settle for sleep (post 8:30).
-Standard day on Wed, though baby shower for teacher after school.
-With little one Thurs morn, delayed to school, then PhysEd on call. @.@
-COMA Social after school, rough drive, breakdown in grocery store. If self-checkout doesn't take cash, don't tell me to use it, and why no express lanes?
-Also daycare pickup was delayed over 30 min due to bad bus traffic.
-Little sleep (in little one's room), work included anime & retirement messages.
-Earlier pickup from Daycare (after 4pm), later somehow a math exec mtg 1+ hrs.
-Got sleep. With Alexandra early morning, then after group, then before dinner.
-1.5 hrs of grading twice, during group and afternoon library. More in evening.
-Only one hour of snooze so much yawning, dinner before 5:30pm and early bed.
-Lotus Prince's "Asura's Wrath" #1-9

Item counts to Saturday (Sep 28):
Step Count 2016: About 62,500
-Had an eye appointment, queued T&T for all Oct, started playing Sakura Dungeon.

Step Count 2017: About 65,500 (14 stars)
-School reprieve, sort of mending; became Time Travel Nexus writer, bought pants.

Step Count 2018: Over 63,500 (10 stars)
-Assembled playpen, little one rolling onto front, resumed some RP.

STEP COUNT 2019: Over 68,900. 13 stars.
SCHOOL EMAIL 2019: 145 New (16 sent)
 We have completed DAY 19.
RH Stress Level: 7 (Starlight Breaker)

*****

CONSTANT TO-DO LIST:
 -Recap for OAME 2019
 -2019 Banner for TPolys
 -Write a TANDQ article on Polling and Bias
 -Write a post about types of praise/encouragement
 -Catching up with web serials/comics (from ~August 2018)
 -Read some of the books sitting at my desk