Today I went with one of my students and her mother to the awards ceremony for the California Division of the Scholastic Artists and Writers contest, the oldest and more prestigious contest for youth in the United States. The time of the event was 4:30 in a city 50 miles east of LA. Rush hour. Yikes. We left at 3 pm from my student’s school and waded through bumper-to-bumper traffic for two hours, arriving exactly at 5 pm. We had long since accepted that we might miss the award presentation we were making the trek for, but once we were on the 10 East at that hour of the day, we were committed. Even turning around in the height of rush hour traffic was a feat that required much concentration. The gist of this story: we arrived six minutes before they called my student’s name. She won a silver all-state medal for a memoir piece, plus received an honorable mention for her short story entry. She was given a silver key and I received a silver pin for my work as her teacher. We sneaked out of the room right after her presentation and in less than ten minutes from our arrival, we were on the road heading back into town. The traffic was relatively light heading westbound until we were almost to downtown. Then, we were back to bumper-to-bumper. We arrived back at my student’s house in slightly under two hours. One hundred miles in four hours. Oh my. Remind me next time to ask them to mail that certificate and silver key. We had a good time – my student, her mother, and I – but there are few awards in life that off-set four solid hours in traffic. Next time we will all know better…