[smurfgirl]

I'm not sure if I can pick just one greatest moment- I've had a lot. I love my FIRST family- it includes my own team, and the many other teams and volunteers I've encountered along the way so far. I hope it will continue to grow. FIRST has meant a lot to me, and I want to help to give back to others and to inspire the way I have been. This is why watching people learn and grow as individuals create the fondest and the proudest memories for me. I've seen so many wonderful things happen and people flourish because of their time in FIRST. This is why my greatest moment in my FIRST career is reading my team's first Chairman's Award submission. I have pushed for it to happen since I joined the team, but it didn't happen until this year, now that I'm gone for college. Besides asking some open-ended questions to kick-start their brainstorming and a little bit of proofreading, I really had nothing to do with the process- it was all them; their motivation, their creativity, their learning experiences. The result of their efforts was just absolutely stunning, it was a brilliant compilation of our team story, beautifully written. It made me cry. Reading it, I could tell how much it did for them as individuals and as a team. I was thrilled with the result, and truly proud of all of them. Watching the people I've worked with grow into stronger people and benefit from the program means a lot to me.

Being on Einstein last year was also an incredible experience, and quite humbling... but I don't think it topped the Chairman's Award submission. I've experienced hard-earned victories after nail-biting matches. It feels good, I admit it... but it's a fleeting feeling. In the long run, as great as those moments were in the present and shortly thereafter, those aren't the things that count the most, or make us better people. The moments that we spend with our FIRST family, and the little moments where we learned a big lesson, are the moments that stick with us forever, the moments that ultimately matter the most. I don't really care that much if they win the Chairman's Award, the thing that is most important to me is how much they got out of putting the submission together.

Edit: I finally just closed this after like my 3rd edit to make it sound the way I wanted it to... and then I realized how much this sounds like my "catchphrase"- It's not just about building a robot, it's about building a team. (: