phew, it's the weekend

I had a good day Friday. We all stayed on task (even me! I am, on occasion, the most distractable person in the room); we all finished our work (okay, I couldn't enter my grading because they shut the system down, but the grading is DONE), and then we all went to the first school dance of the year.

It was great! Each dance, one village is in charge of chaperoning and can sell food at the "snack shack." I like selling the food. I think it has its links in the fact that my first real job was in a restaurant; I also like being somewhere where I can actually hear what the kids are saying. Plus, I am not that tall--having me chaperone is about as useful as having me direct traffic--those with early growth spurts or SUVs just run me right over.

But it was fun. I like watching which of my kids will dance with wild abandon and which have grown too cool for the entire phenomena that is a middle school dance. One of the best moments of the entire dance for me was seeing a girl who was, last year, on the fast track to becoming on of my lost children--lost to gangs, and adulthood, and complcations that no young person should have to face--dancing, spinning, laughing, with all of her friends. She has transformed this year and is beautiful and happy and committed to school and to surviving.
It was great to see. Even if the soundtrack to the moment was a song by Kanye West.