Some of you may be wondering why it took me so long to post yesterday. Well, that's because yesterday was HUGE day on my calendar; it was the Mid-Cities regional Destination Imagination (D.I.) tournament!
DI is, essentially, creative problem solving. It is so hard to explain to someone who's never heard of it! There are five different kinds of challenges: improvisational, theatrical, technical, structural, and hybrid. Teams, from kindergarten all the way to college and sometimes even after, are comprised of 7 or fewer members. The kindergarten to first grade teams are called Rising Stars and don't actually continue on to state, but are highly encouraged to perform anyway for the sake of forming team building skills. Also, high school seniors who have done DI previously can apply for quite a large scholarship! So, each team chooses one of the five challenges to solve. They then incorporate their solution into an 8-minute or shorter skit to present to the Appraisers, NOT judges (the j-word is profane in DI lingo but don't ask me why because I don't know), on the day of tournament. Some time before or after a team's presentation on tournament day, the team goes to an Instant Challenge. The Instant Challenge is previously chosen and supplied by the Appraisers, and is also one of the different categories of challenges, though usually not the same kind that the team is already doing for their main challenge. There are 3 divisions of the same challenge based on a team's level: Elementary Level, Middle Level, and Senior Level. After the regional tournament, the first (and sometimes second) place teams from each level and challenge go to state, and then the winners from state go to the global tournament. State is hosted in a different city each year - the first time I went to state, it was in Corpus Christi, and this year it's in Corpus again. It's been in Lubbock, Dallas, Round Rock, pretty much everywhere. At state, the night before tournament is like a big mixer of all the regions, complete with pin trading, which sounds lame but it's actually really cool. I've won the Mid-Cities pin design competition from 6th grade to this year, so it's really fun to see thousands upon thousands of people walking around with my design on their shirts and pinned to their hats and whatnot. Speaking of hats, there's always a DIme store (nothing there actually costs a 10 cents, they just needed to use DI somehow in the name) that has SO many cool pieces of junk there. Yesterday, I saw a pizza hat, a flying pig hat, a jellyfish hat, and many, many more. Also they have noisemakers aplenty, for the awards ceremony the night of the tournament.
I did DI from second grade to eighth, and will probably do it again next year. The only reason why I didn't do it this year is because I wanted to get my feet under me and get situated with the new high school experience. The good news is, my friend Addie's team got first place yesterday in their challenge (they did structure), so they're going to state in April! Hopefully I get to go with them...I'm kind of going through DI withdrawal as of yet.
Love from your faithful blogger and (David's girl)friend,
Meridith
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