I just got back from my first time at the Destination Imagination Global Finals in Knoxville, Tennessee. Against all odds, my team qualified this year. Along with the other team from our school that also qualified for globals, we were the first ones from our school to make it to the global level. First I’ll outline what I did, then I’ll share a bit about what I did and did not like.

What I did

Monday/Tuesday

We drove from my home state to Tennessee over the course of two days. We left Monday morning and arrived Tuesday in the afternoon. Since our team managers had to go to a meeting when we arrived on Tuesday, we just chilled at the hotel. Not much else to say here.

Wednesday: Prop Storage + Opening Ceremony

On Wednesday morning my team and I took our props to the prop storage area, which was something I actually enjoyed (more on that later). After lunch we went back to make a few repairs and double check that all our technical elements were working. After that we went to the opening ceremony, where we saw some really hyped-up twelve-year-old DJs and enjoyed a time of fun facts about all the countries participating.

Thursday: Central Challenge

We spent most of the day at the prop storage area on Thursday. We basically remade two costumes out of tin foil, which took most of our time. By the time they called us to actually present, we were all ready for it to be over. Our Central Challenge went off without any real issues, and a huge weight was lifted off our shoulders as we prepared for our Instant Challenge the next day.

Friday: Instant Challenge and Chill

Our Instant challenge was in the morning. Out IC was “That Sinking Feeling.” It involved using provided materials to try and keep up to six ping pong balls underwater. Unfortunately, we were only able to get five of the six ping pong balls to stay under. What was really frustrating was that as we were running out of time we realized what we would need to do to get the sixth ball to stay under, but, as I said, we ran out of time. Nevertheless, we were still able to get one of the top five IC scores in our category. After reviewing our scores I think that successfully getting that last ball (along with a little more conversation between teammates) would have put us in the top ten. However, I don’t live in the past; what’s done is done. Considering that this was our first time at Globals, I am quite happy that we made it into the top 25%.

After the instant challenge we had a lot of downtime. We went to lunch, then did some pin trading for a while, then went to see the other team from our school compete. After that it was time for the international block party. More on all this later.

The last thing we did before going back to the hotel was stop at Chipotle, where my best friend drank a bottle of Tabasco sauce in exchange for five dollars. He threw up afterwards.

Here’s a rundown of what I liked and what I didn’t:

Liked: Pin Trading

I liked pin trading at globals much more than the pin trading at the State Tournament we went to. Maybe it was just because this time I actually had pins to trade. Regardless, I had a chance to interact with several international students, which is what I wanted most of all out of globals. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to talk to nearly as many people as I would’ve liked, and I didn’t have any real (longer than 3 minutes) conversations with new people.

Disliked: International Block Party

“What? Didn’t you just say you wanted to meet international students?” Yes, I did. Unfortunately, the environment didn’t exactly lend itself to meeting new people if one (such as myself) was not outgoing enough to initiate conversations with strangers.

As a side note, there was a dire lack of diversity in regards to food. I was hoping I would be able to see foods from all over the world, when in reality I saw very few options.

Liked: Prop Storage

I know; this is a weird thing to list as something I liked. I found the prop storage to be very convenient when compared to what we had to do at out regional and state competitions. Whereas at regionals/state, prop storage and transport was haphazard (the organizers didn’t really care where your stuff was as long as you had it with you for check-in), at Globals the props were conveniently stored right next to the competition area and organizers came looking for the team well in advance to make sure everything would stay on schedule. This made transport easy (especially in venues like the Tennessean, where the props were stored in the same warehouse as the presentation site).

Liked: Chilling With Friends

This isn’t really something specific to Global Finals, but one of the things I like about extracurricular teams is that it forces you to spend time with other people. I had a great time laughing and joking with my teammates and the memebers of the other team that were with us.

Conclusion

After writing this post, I realized that there wasn’t really much I didn’t like about globals. Overall, it was a fun experience and I hope we qualify to go again next year.

Did you go to global finals? What did you think? What did you like/dislike? Tell me in the comments below!