I was honored today!

I was honored today! Well, a team of teachers of which I am an integral part of were honored today for a program I created. Actually, a team of teachers of which I am a part of were honored today for a program I became a part of after it was already established for a few years.

While the honor was very prestigious, the county I work in gave our team a historical society award, it was an odd experience. First off my team and I had a meal ahead of time, which ran long and we were in fact late to our own honoring! It started at 7:00 PM and we were walking through the metal detectors (The County Freeholders meet in the same building as the courthouse) at 7:01 PM and by the time we got upstairs the program was already under way.

It was at that point I thought to myself, self: your shoe is untied, your shirt it too tight, and you ate way too much at dinner. I remedied the shoe pretty easily although I was afraid my shirt would pop open as I bent over (it didn’t). Also it would have been nice to be in the room but the presentation was still going strong and my team and I were stuck in the hall.

The speech covered a story I struggled to hear about a heroic paramedic who “using non-verbal communication” (I crap you not) took out the terrorist who was holding him hostage, threw him to the ground, and cuffed him… in a simulation, in which he broke the rules as he was supposed to wait for police support and not physically provoke the “terrorist” whom he later had to actually drive to the hospital. It was at that point I thought to myself, self: they give awards to people in simulations who break the rules? Why am I even here?

They then gave 7 consecutive awards to various people and groups all significantly worthy of being honored more than our simulation ruiner. During this time my team members had snuck into the room and I managed to be in every single picture that was taken with the honorees as I was standing directly behind them. It was at this point I thought to myself, self: Is your fly unzipped? But I couldn’t check because I was standing in the front of the room. Then they came to us, it was an odd moment as I had to pull myself out of the potted plant that had grown around me during the exceptionally long ceremony of 25 minutes (fly was zipped).

It was pretty cool, we got a plaque, that had a misprint and they needed to repress. I got a piece of paper with my name and my team teachers names (no misprint) and we took a group picture with the Freeholder who did not introduce himself to me so I did not introduce myself to him out of spite when I shook his hand. Everyone else introduced themselves so I felt like I was being a bit too harsh to my nameless Freeholder.

The picture was a bit awkward as the Freeholder was holding the plaque with my Superintendent, I was standing directly behind the plaque, and then my other four team members were crowded around me, the plaque, and my Superintendent.

Unfortunately we had to listen to a few more people get honored and then finally we got to leave the room. While we were chatting in the hall I had an odd moment with my Superintendent who was crammed on my right hand side. I had a giant bald eagle statue about 6 inches from my head at the moment and it was pre-occupying my thoughts. When my Superintendent asked me: “So what did you think of the program?” I responded: “That is a huge bird right?” I then attempted to recover by saying: “Oh that it was pretty awesome”.