Friday Fun!

It was such a long week, but weirdly at the end, the students and I couldn’t remember what we had done. Every Friday morning, we brainstorm a list of highlights of the week and at the end of the day, they choose a few to write about in their family journal. As we sat in brainstormed, we all were at a loss! I had to pull up my pictures to remind us, and found that I hadn’t even taken that many this week. It was busy and productive, but didn’t have a lot of standout moments. It’s struck me that the little things we do become the greatest moments for kids and all the work in planning I do to give them meaningful learning doesn’t compete with a “Olympic” game with the other third grade class!!

Everyone has to volunteer for one CCA (co-curricular activity) in the school year. If you choose to do more, then you can get paid. I was kind of voluntold that my CCA would be the school musical. “You won’t need to start right away,” they said. “You’ll just be an extra set of hands.” In reality, I went from helping out on Tuesdays to helping out on Tuesdays AND Fridays. I have to drive to Johannesburg to pick up costumes for the cast after my colleague and I measured every cast member at their chest, waist and hips, which was a good time with middle schoolers, and as the show gets closer, it will mean late nights and weekends. They pick the newbies who don’t know any better and who never make the same mistake twice! I was in musicals from sixth grade through my senior year of high school, and they are some of my very best memories. I was a terrible dancer and a terrible singer and probably a terrible on stage presence, but I just loved the whole cast vibe. And the cast parties at the end! So I will channel my musical joy!

Anyway, when that was done, I went out for happy hour with a few colleagues. Ellen‘s parents have been visiting, so they treated us to dinner and drink drinks. It was a pleasure getting to know them. Despite their age, they are so adventurous and travel a good deal. I had my gluten/dairy cheat with a very thin crust pizza and a lemon gin and tonic.

I came back home and reminded myself that I couldn’t get too comfortable, or into pajamas, because I was going out dancing with a group later. I was looking forward to it, but I definitely would need a self pep talk.

I rallied and met Yuri, Rakhi, Tanya, Becky, Keanan and a couple I didn’t know at The View in Hazelwood, which is a suburb of Pretoria. It’s very popular and therefore parking was a bit difficult. The rooftop bar was indeed up many flights of stairs! Our group was crowded into a corner right next to the DJ. I only recognized three songs the whole night, so though I danced to the beat, I couldn’t sing along, which bummed me out. It was a fun group and I got to talk to Tanya a bit, who I will post about later.

One beer and an hour and a half of dancing later, the bell rang, the DJ packed up, and although some were considering going to another club, I called it a night.

I intended to get to bed early, but stayed up too late texting with a local friend.