WaHo Life

It's been a week since my last post.  In that time, I have spearheaded a talent show, held some hardcore Spring Break Camps meetings, volunteered at a mentoring day in Boyle Heights, and had the single best day of work since I got back from Christmas.

Today, all of the bad kids were gone from our after school program.  The girl with the attitude and an excuse for everything.  The boy with anger issues and the permanently sour expression.  The people they egg on.  The boy that has some learning disabilities that makes it hard to get him to focus.  All of our kids who aren't fully invested in Starfish Corps and what it is and what it does...they all didn't show up.  They had choir or drill team or cheerleading or class prep for a performance.  Regardless, today was beautiful.  And, after seeing how beautiful it can be, I am not going to put up with the bullshit anymore. 

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In other news, I'm cooking ribs tomorrow and watching a movie with Val.  This movie promises to be fantastic for rewatching movies.  On the docket are Pink Flamingos, Wild Tigers I Have Known, and Mean Girls.  This should be epic in its camp fantasticness.

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Currently Pondering:  When it comes to education reform, it seems like a huge number of external organizations (Teach for America, City Year, 826, etc.) enter schools as unique external organizations to provide services.  However, because schools don't provide their own services, they are at the mercy of external groups to meet all the needs of their students.  Thus, do external organizations engender a system of codependency that doesn't actually remedy the education system?

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I wish that I could go to the New York Film Festival in LA (a nomenclature clusterfuck if ever there was one), a debate at the Hammer Museum, and Patton Oswalt's concert in the next week.  However, I don't think I'm going to be able to do any of it.  Gah.