I resolved one challenge today, more or less, and then ended up starting a couple more.

I’ve mentioned before how I’ve been tinkering with Excel and MS Word to make files do what I want them to do and trade a lot of work and swearing now–Cortana, make this sh#t work–for only having to swear at the students then–work you little sh#t. (Something like that. Although, officially, nothing at all like that. Really.)

As expected, I found an easier way to do what I wanted to do and that, oddly made the linking unnecessary. I did it anyway because 1) it is still useful and 2) helps me satisfy two “work” days instead of one.

The project partially passed phase two in that the main file works on my tablet and the linked file works when everything is brought back to my desktop computer.

However, my success (in so far as it can be described as such) created a level of overconfidence that led me to try to fix something that isn’t broke. I’ve used the same spreadsheet to record and tabulate students marks since I started at the school. The form has gone through very little change as it does exactly what I need it to do. The only changes I’ve made were to record the scores in class using a tablet rather than recording marks on paper and entering them in computer later.

The problem with the latter system is that I often put off entering the marks until the last minute. However, the form does have a couple limitations, the main one being is that it can only handle one term at a time and there’s no way to keep a running score of how the student is doing for the entire year.

My confidence has led me to experiment with this. This means that I’ll have some “work” to do on Monday, and that the neighbors are probably about to learn a few new swear words.

When it comes to making things with Photoshop, I usually can’t stop tinkering. On days like today, though, that might actually be a good thing.

In the past I’ve done things like combine two pictures of our girls to get one photo with both of them looking good and in focus. I’ve also pasted in a face on She Who Must Be Obeyed to have all three of my girls looking at the camera at the same time. (This is nearly impossible, which makes many photos of them look like an album cover where no one smiles and at least one person is looking in the wrong direction.)

I’ve also, in fits of boredom, tinkered with photos of my friends to practice my photo editing skills. These “simple practice sessions” have resulted in a friend’s head being pasted on our oldest (back when she was our only) to show my friend holding himself as his own baby (that made sense at the time, more or less). The sessions also provided photographic evidence that a person involved in Canadian politics fathered Anna Nicole Smith’s child.

Today, though, my Photoshop powers were applied to evil purposes or, more specifically, my job. My plan was to whip together a simple waiter’s pad graphic to satisfy the terms of my imprisonment. However, that turned into something more complicated.

Once I got started, the perfectionist urge took over and instead of just drawing in a few lines and some numbers and hitting save I had to add a restaurant’s name at the top and a place for the waiter’s signature at the bottom and then I had to add a serial number.

It took more than an hour, but I suppose that satisfies my “work” day. (Keep in mind, I’d already premade this week’s “work” but couldn’t resist once I started playing.

Tomorrow, I’m tempted to add the graphic to a worksheet involving a waiter and customer. I don’t have to, but it will give me a head start on next week’s “work”.

Anything worth doing isn’t supposed to be easy, but I’m not sure if my making it difficult actually makes something worth doing.

Even though today is a national holiday here in Japan, I spent the bulk of the day working. If I do the work today, then I don’t have to do much work tomorrow. (Although, officially, I’ll totally be working hard.) Because the company I work for has decided to trap me at home during the days when I’m not assigned to the school where I work, I have to show some evidence of work tomorrow.

However, because I have other plans, I went ahead and did this week’s work in advance, sort of like someone preparing their meals for the week on Sunday so that all they have to do is unwrap and reheat for the next seven days.

The first part was easy: make a couple worksheets, make a badge graphic for a worksheet I won’t even need until almost a year from now and find a way to update the spreadsheets I’ve been using for over a decade and make the data they produce more robust and more easily accessible whilst making sure it’s usable on my tablet.

That’s where the difficulties began. My master plan was to create a system where I could simultaneously record speech scores and have the data linked to individual forms I could print and give the students. I also wanted to be able to change the formatting and fonts on a whim without having to change each individually.

A few hours later, I finally figured out the best way (thus far) to produce the forms for the students. There were a lot of web searches, a lot of experimentation and no small amount of swearing. In general, with things like this, I tend to learn as I go. I’ll struggle with one way of doing something and then finally figure out what I should have been doing.

Tomorrow, or the day after, I’ll sit down and probably figure out what I’ve been doing wrong. By then, though, I’ll have probably abandoned the project in favor of a different idea.

For a minute it appeared as if most of my choices were going to be absent. Then one showed up and things got odd.

Part of our responsibilities at the school where I work is to assign, correct, chase down, listen to, choose, correct, cajole and threaten students during the speech contest phase of the year. For high school, we assign the speech topics at the end of the autumn term. Students, in theory, have the winter break to finish it. The first four classes in January and February are spent correcting mistakes and listening to students perform their speeches.

The trouble is, most students already know, more or less, who is going to go to the contest and who is going to win once they get there. (Kind of like me being forced to enter a slam dunk contest against Michael Jordan and Zach LaVine. Spoiler: I’m not going to win.)

Once the best two from each class are chosen, we then spend time 1) convincing the students that, yes, they actually must go and 2) chasing down copies of their speeches. This year, one of my students performed a speech that was good enough to win the class. He then refused to 1) give me a copy and 2) go to the contest. This means one of two things: he improvised or he cheated. In the end, he claimed the former but I suspect he was using someone else’s speech. Because he has a fairly passive homeroom teacher, he was able to argue his way out and someone else went in his place.

Then, today, my first two choices were absent from the contest. On the one hand I like this because it shortens the contest a bit, but it looks bad for me. Then, towards the end of the contest, the emcee made surprise announcement. “Mr. X is absent, but Mr. C has arrived and will give his speech instead.” My student walked up to the podium.

Students in the audience started yelling “fix,” “it’s rigged,” or “hacks”. (Not really. Most were not aware there were still speakers at the front.)

My student, was in jeans and a hoodie as if he’d been hanging out with his friends and suddenly remembered he had an appointment. He gave a good speech, and I suspect would have won if he’d been on time and been in uniform. Instead he didn’t place.

Now we’re done with speech contests until next year. We already know who will probably win, but maybe he’ll show up late and out of uniform.