Destination Imagination Information: Part 2
Destination Imagination is tournament that encourages kids and youth to access their creativity by competing in a competition by solving a challenge. If you haven’t read my Regionals Blog Post , I would recommend checking it out now to gain a greater understanding of it works. So shortly after Regionals we were asked to start preparing for Provincials. My group went back and looked at what categories earned us the least points. We seemed to not have many points for our team choice elements, so we changed it completely and added a better one as well. We made the ukulele part longer and louder and added a staff prop that was decked out and made by us. We also revised the script a touch. The one thing that really helped us was all the practicing we did. We learned all of out lines better, we practiced the vanishing act and everything in between. We hadn’t got to do a lot of practicing last time because we had run out of time. The extra time really helped and made us just that more confident.
As the time to compete came, we were getting just a bit more stressed. In the morning of the tournament we went to the school and made sure we had all of our props. The whole day was spent watching other performances and perfecting ours. I thought the actual presentation went pretty well, and so did the appraisers because we got second place overall. There was a few minor difficulties with the rainbow again but so much better than last time. The one major thing I think helped us get second, was how confident we were. We said our lines loud and proud, we weren’t afraid to explain how much work we put in (to the appraisers), and we actually had fun presenting it.
Looking back at the whole DI experience, I can truly say it had its ups and downs. Sometimes I hated even thinking of it and others times I couldn’t stop raving about our finished product. I think this is a good thing because it means a learned a lot. I learned how to build a set, time management, became a better actor and most of all, teamwork skills. In the process, my team had a some issues regarding ideas and leadership. At the begging everything was great, we all got along and started building a really interesting story, but after we started splitting ways. Half of the group wanted to change the whole entire story completely and start fresh and the other half did not see any reason for it. So we made a compromise and created a new story with remanence of the old one. This of course set us back a whole bunch of weeks but we still got it done on time, despite two teammates being away for a while during the work period.
Overall, DI was good. When I say good, I don’t mean bad and I don’t mean that I would do it all over again next month. I mean that it was an experience and I enjoyed it for that. As I said before, I learned lots that I can take away from this experience and I am thankful for that.