So, we had this thing at the school today. I’m going to call it a pageant. There were five guys and five girls "competing" for the titles of Mr. and Miss Western Heights. Teachers nominate the students, then the student body goes through a couple rounds of voting to choose the winner. Yes, it’s a popularity contest. Yes, I have issues with the principal telling me this is the "most prestigious" award we offer. But that’s neither here nor there.

The cool thing is that one of the candidates actually included me among those he thanked. That was just amazingly cool.

Of the 10 candidates, there was only one I haven’t had in class. Most of them I’ve had in more than one class. The girl who won is currently in my AP class.

Of course, there were some hard feelings among other students over who was nominated and who won. One of my other students was especially ticked about it. I’m glad I never gave a crap about that kind of stuff when I was in high school.