I didn’t really get up with my alarm this morning. I was still tired, I didn’t have anything to really do until the leasing office opened so I could put money on the card. Zane didn’t want breakfast. He was taking left overs for lunch… Yep, staying in bed.

 

I did get up to give him a hug goodbye when he left for work. We’ve made plans for him to take Friday off. We even have plans to do pancakes for breakfast, something special and slightly indulging.

 

I poked around in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and running it, making coffee, heading up some left over veggies for breakfast. Zane and I have actually done well as far as not letting food go to waste.

 

I procrastinated for a little bit by checking my email, but eventually I began grading the most recent project files. I tried out a new system that I think I might stick with. Testing the rig files doesn’t take very long at all. What takes forever is creating the comment files and updating the Excel sheet with the grades.

 

This time, instead of trying to comment and grade while examining the file I used Quicktime to make audio recordings of my comments as I “graded” the file. I think the longest I spent on a file was 8 minutes, which was awesome. I know that doesn’t seem like a lot of time. How can I possibly go through and know everything about the file?

 

All I can say is that I do. I don’t know if I’m fast, or efficient, or if I process things differently, but I can typically analyze everything I need to about a file, including what is broken and why it is broken in less than 10 minutes. It might also help that I’ve been doing this for literally four years.

 

Add doing all of the commenting and such on top of it and a typical file is anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes. In all honesty, I don’t think my new system is going to “save” me any time. If anything it will make it take longer because I will be essentially grading the project twice.

 

What it does do is allow me to break the grading up into more manageable steps. I can get through all of the hard work super fast, and then all of the thinking is done. I can create the comment files whenever, wherever. I don’t have to worry about a student coming up and interrupting me while I’m in the middle of working on a file. I can pause the audio clip since all I am doing is copy / pasting really.

 

And even with that, I have an idea for a tool that might make it even easier to do, integrating the comment files with Maya, and transitioning the comments into a point value which can be exported into Excel.

 

It would be a bit of a project, but I think that’s what I’m going to work on over the holiday break.

 

Anywho. I got through all of the files within two hours. An hour and a half I think.

 

By then the office was open so I walked down there, put money on the card, came back to the apartment, got the laundry, and started the wash. I cooked the second half of the Sriacha chicken, since Zane wanted to cook it in batches. I ironed Clavan’s cross stitch since I let it soak overnight in OxiClean.

 

I packed up the cross stitch afterwards along with mounting board so I could use the mat cutter at school to size everything properly. I messaged Terri about my new schedule to see about personal training. She’s off on vacation next week so we’re going to arrange something later. I’ll still be going to the gym so it’s not a big deal in my mind.

 

I also messaged Paul and set up a meeting with him tomorrow around noon so Zane and I can do the phones. Since I didn’t think I would be up for any sort of real brain intensive stuff I decided not to work on Marcus’ commission today. Instead I prepped a new cross stitch which I will be making for my older brother. A Christmas gift I think.

 

I switched the wash, unloaded the dishwasher, put the food away, then took care of the dishes. I ran out of time to put the clothes away, but I felt pretty good about everything I was able to get done.

 

I showered then headed to school, packing a container of salad into my backpack, even remembering the fork. There was a bit of a breeze, but it wasn’t the massive wall of force it was the other day. I think I made good time but I wasn’t using my app so I honestly don’t know.

 

I ate after clocking in .Lab wasn’t all that busy and between the two I was able to get all of the commenting and grading done. Even posted the grades to the online plateform so grading is 100% done and I can enjoy tomorrow sans work related tasks.

 

I scanned Clavan’s cross stitch so I have a picture of it. I cut the mounting board and put the cross stitch on it, so all that needs to happen now is for it to be framed. My new endeavor is to make custom frames. I’m buying the material tomorrow. According to Google it’s not that hard.

 

I messaged Sabrina. We’re going to do lunch on Sunday. Anthony and Tica want to hang out. I messaged him my new schedule, saying weekends were best, but I am pretty sure that conflicts with his schedule. We’re going to wait until after Thanksgiving to try to meet up.

 

I called my mom while I was on break. I’m most likely going to be going home for Thanksgiving. She wants to see me, but with having had the stroke she isn’t comfortable making long drives by herself. I really want to see her, too.

 

Zane and I had tentative plans to spend Thanksgiving together, so I wanted to double check with him that it would be ok for me to go, and to extend the invitation to him to come with me. I don’t think he will. We haven’t really discussed it since I’ve been home. Mostly because I devoured food and went to sleep.

 

I should mention that it was raining when I got off of work and Zane was super awesome and picked me up. So much warm fuzzy feels.

 

Social wise I also have a schedule phone conversation with Jin on Sunday again. I feel bad that the last time we talked I basically highjacked the conversation and did nothing but bitch about work.

 

I think that was about it for my day. I ate once I got home. The kitchen was spotless still since John hasn’t been home all night and Trevor and Danielle went out to eat. I work up when Zane came to bed, which is why I’m awake right now. Since he’s taking tomorrow off he stayed up for a while playing Fallout. I’m going to go back to sleep for a bit, but I do have things I want to get done today.

 

Since I work on Saturday tomorrow is my day off. I think Zane wants it to be mostly an introvert day, so we’ll spend the morning together, I’ll go off and do my stuff, then we’ll reconvine later in the evening. Tomorrow is also supposed to be date night…

 

I have anxiety over it which I’ve already told him about. He wants to go to the sushi place, which led to a bit of discord last night.

 

We were both in the kitchen and I mentioned how I would like to go out on Thursday for date night instead of Friday to try to avoid the typical Friday crowd. I mentioned how I would like to go to sushi because I really don’t want that to be a negative place for us. I want to feel comfortable going there.

 

He said that it would be better to go on Friday because Hannah doesn’t work on Thursdays. I honestly hasn’t known her schedule. I hadn’t cared if she was there or not. If she was, cool. If she wasn’t, cool. It wasn’t about her.

 

Zane’s comment made it about her though. It’s not about having a nice night together. It’s not about the atmosphere or food. It’s specifically about seeing another person. That led to a whole bunch of not cool feelings. It made me not want to go out at all, and I sort of still don’t want to go. I don’t think the food will be wroth the emotional discord of sitting for over an hour in an awkward situation I don’t want to be a part of.

 

I don’t know if I’m ready to go back now. If we go when Hannah is there then it’s for her. If we go when she’s not there, we’re going on that day specifically because she’s not there and it’s about avoidance.

 

It feels like I can’t win and if I can’t win I would rather not fight that battle. Blah… Dates aren’t supposed to feel like punishment. But it sort of does now and it’s the one part of my day I really am not looking forward to. How messed up is that?

 

Zane has to see Hannah at some point regardless. She’s going out of town for the holiday and he agreed to cat sit for her.

 

I really wish I could write these emotions off. I wish I could berate myself for feeling petty. I wish these negative feelings weren’t here because honestly they’re the only ones messing with my inner peace right now.

 

Tomorrow is a full day, and it’s already 5am. I guess I should try to get a little more sleep before tackling anything. It’s not like any of the places I want to go to are open anyway. Because they’re lame like that. I mean, come on, who isn’t awake at 5am?

 

Oh yeah… the rest of the world…