I've had a rather rough month and I haven't gotten quite as much done as I would have liked, but on Monday I had a bit of a wild experience and I'm still laughing about it.
The professor I'm doing my operating systems research with is on multiple committees. We talk over Slack fairly frequently about both the research I'm working along with random happenings. On Monday I asked him a question and he asked if I knew about the Graduate Student Teaching Assistant Excellence Award. Apparently he recently was added to the committee in charge of selecting the winner for this award. I said I had heard about it, planned to nominate one of my TAs, but forgot. He then asked if I knew I got two nominations from students for it. I did not. He also told me that I managed to get three votes before they realized I was an undergraduate student, not a graduate student. I also didn't have a personal teaching statement or faculty recommendation, both requirements to win the award. I somehow still managed to get three votes from the committee, which would've put me in the "highly commended" category. However, since I'm an undergraduate student, They removed me from the pool and any articles about the award. I don't know if I'm even supposed to know this, much less share it. However, it's really tough teaching during the pandemic. This is a really unique achievement and I'm quite proud of it, even if I'm completely ineligible to win it. It's a much needed reminder to keep doing what I'm doing.