It had already been a stressful morning, I don't remember why. The class before them was being particularly frustrating that day or something, or perhaps that was the year we had robotics 1st period and maybe the robots were misbehaving... whatever the case, I wasn't enjoying the morning.

My CompSci 1 & 2 students began to enter the room, and all the CompSci2 students came in, and they were doing... something over at the computer. I don't know what. And suddenly a bunch of noise is coming out of about a dozen of the computers, their screens a bright yellow. How annoying.

And as I'm about to tell them to shut off whatever they're doing, all the screens in unison have little python turtles running around the screen, drawing out the letters to spell Happy Birthday. The sound coming from the machines was the happy birthday song. 

They've all finished college and started their careers: 

• Santiago: software engineer for Microsoft, 

• Raman: freelance software dev in Dallas, 

• Ali: senior associate at an accounting firm,

• Paige: ground software engineer in California, 

• Brian: systems architect engineer with AT&T, 

• Christwide: site engineer in Richardson,  

• Preston: MechE with the Airforce, and

• Matthew: fintech/data engineer in New York.
  
  

Despite that we're approaching ten years ago, I still specifically remember that moment. You have the ability to make a difference in someone's day, and create a longstanding memory; if you choose to.