Jessica's first prom

I got home from the hotel and started getting ready for the big dance.

I got Jessica's printer from upstairs, my new photo printer from my office, my laptop computer, a whole bunch of extension cords, USB cables, multiplugs and other sundry wires and loaded everything in to the car. I then went up to the ground floor and got the coat hangers and tons of food which Desney had prepared and put that in the car. Finally I got dressed.

This year I did not wear a tie. I haven't worn a closed neck shirt since my operations and I still don't feel ready to do so yet. My ORL (ENT) doctor said I should be able to after the one-year mark (September) but that it's up to me. The longer I leave it the better.

I got to the school at about 18:00 ready to get started setting up all of my equipment (computer, two printers, note pads, ...). The salle des fêtes was in a pandemonious uproar as usual. Nothing was quite ready yet. The girls who were painting a beautiful venetian backdrop for the photos hadn't even finished painting it yet let alone hung it up. People running around lost not know what to do next. This lasted at least another hour and it wasn't until around 19:00 that I was able to get started setting up my part of the stand. It also wasn't until about that time (18:45) that Jessica was able to leave to go home and get ready for the dance.

I spent the next half-hour rapidly preparing the stand and testing what I could. Of course the inevitable had to happen. Something had to go wrong. I had brought two printers this year, a new photo printer to replace the one that got broken at the last end-of-the-year market, and Jessica's Deskjet printer from her bedroom in order to hopefully increase the time it takes to print the photos. I had bought and brought extra ink cartridges for both printers, extra cables, extra camera card readers and lots of extra photo paper. I printed fine on the new photo printer which I had tested at home. However Jessica's printer was bust. The top cover which closes on to the rest would not stay closed. This stopped it from printing. I don't know if the printer was already bust and Jessica hadn't mentioned it to me or if it got bust in the move and preparations. I'll never know. However I now found myself in the same old position of having one printer to print all of the photos at the end.

We all had agreed that we would stop taking photos at 22:30 and I would print from then until midnight. I would also print, whenever possible, in between transferring photos and getting the students' choices, up till then.

I hadn't prepared a sign. I was going to do that on Jessica's printer actually at the school. With that bust I had forgotten. For the first hour or hour and a half practically no one came to get their photos done. Richard, who is a professional photographer in real life and was taking the actual photos, made a hand-written sign "Photos 2 €" and next thing you knew there were crowds. Richard, being a professional, took way too many shots per group and it would take quite some time to go through them. But he took really great looking shots, with no red eye whatsoever, and the final result was worth whatever it took to get there. I had difficulty getting him to stop taking photos at 22:30 and at 22:45 it was obvious I was never going to be able to print everything in time as has happened so many times before. I printed like a maniac right up until after midnight but at least half of the photos hadn't been printed. We quickly worked out an arrangement where the students could come collect the photos at the same time as we would be selling the yearbook in about 10 days.

The dance itself appeared to go well. It took quite a long time to get started. Perhaps it was just too nice a day outside as the students seemed to spend most of the beginning hours outside... minging and schmoozing. Finally everyone started dancing and it was going full blown when, of course, the music system blew. Yet again they had not actually hired a professional DJ but someone who plugged in to the school's antiquated sound system. The cables never fit, the amps never adjust, and it always fails us eventually. There was no music for a good 45 minutes! Finally it came back on but they were very careful what they played afterwards. A group of students did a 2-song rap performance that was quite enjoyable and during the music blowout one of the kids played a piano solo for a while which was more than enjoyable.

The students looked amazing this year as every year. I have quite a lot of fun checking out the who's wearing what as quite a lot of these kids I've seen growing up for the past 3-5 years. For some it was their third and final prom and I can still remember taking their photo at their first prom two years ago. Some of the outfits were pretty incredible while many were just plain beautiful. They all looked great!

At the end of a long night of pretty loud music, bright lights, screaming over the music so the people picking their photos could hear me, dozens of dancing adolescents and such it was time to pack up and crawl out of there. I got home at about a quarter to one and passed out in bed. Unfortunately I could already feel that my throat was going to pay the price for this long day of non-stop talking throughout the morning and screaming for at least 2 or 3 hours at the dance...