Scrubbing each dish to the beat of the music, Thursday dish crew gets ready to tackle the big dinner dishes. From 6:50 to 7:15 we have one focus: finish the dishes. As I turn up my dish crew playlist, we all mentally prepare for the rush of dirty plates that are about to land themselves in our sanitized hands. One by one we scrub down each dish and pass it down the assembly line to be sanitized and washed again. While our hands simultaneously scrub, our voices sing in unison. Although the rush of dinner dish crew is an exciting part of the experience, the best part comes when we clean the last dish and move onto the mops. Only two people can mop at a time, but no one is allowed to leave until the whole job is done. While those two lucky candidates mop away, every member of Thursday dish crew, also known as the best dish crew ever, dances around them. Smiles and laughter illuminate the dish room. Students, Teachers, and CEI researchers all come together and let themselves go for these few minutes. Forgetting about the homework, research or grading we all have to do later that night, we allow ourselves to be swept away by the moment and the rhythm of the music. Although I have always associated cleaning dishes with a punishment, here at the Island School it has become a Thursday tradition that I actually look forward too.

-Noelle