I'm the first one to post about Worlds!

ha. Ya'd think it would've been Galen, but no, I got to it first.


Anyways, Worlds was awesome! Of course. Our buddy team was great, they were so sweet. Unfortunately we didn't get to spend much time to spend with them (they weren't in the same dorm with us *mumbles under breath at whoever arranged that*) but the little time we did spend with them was really nice. They told us all about Singapore. Did you know that to get a drivers liscence (sp?) in Singapore you have to be 21? They seemed jealous of us, some of whom already have their permits.
Speaking of buddy teams, we did get to talk to some members of last year's. We found out that Some of them were on a team competeing against us (as soon as we learned this, we all thought "we're dead!" as anybody who saw their machinery last year would understand). Kuba-not-Cooper had split up and joined a different team (Wonderful Muses) but Schimmon, Julian and Woitech (sp?) were on the team competing against us. Woitech was their coach (!!) and they came in second AND won a Rentra Fusca. Of course none of this was surprising. If any of us were surprised, it's that they didn't win first. We got to talk to Kuba, Julian and Schimmon. Julian and Schimmon have both grown taller. I know it's hard to believe.

Now I'll actually talk about US. We had been having a good time, all ready to go and give it our best, when in the prop holding room (where we were before going on) two judges came and told us we couldn't use the gift card picks as creative use of materials.
You should have seen our faces.
They went on to say that since Alec was already being judged on "quality of appearance" he couldn't be judged as creative use of materials in style.
I was almost in tears, John was clenching his jaw so much it hurt for the rest of the day, Juliana had a murderous look on her face and was opening and closing a box-cutter behind her back.
That wasn't the half of it! Apparently the humor of the flying saucer and teacup couldn't be judged because the entire performance was being judged on humor. Same case with our second free choice, the humor of the MPPG.
AGGGH!
So they helped us twist "humor" into "irony" for the spaceship (I think we bent the rules a bit there, but hey, the judges were fine with it. They gave us the hints that led to it.) and humor of the MPPG we changed to the artistic quality of the dino on a stick. DURING all this there was a much ado over nothing as to whether or not Juliana's flip-chart-small pages thingy was a prop or not. (artistic quality of a prop in the Mesozoic Era) The time-keeper had to go get the problem captain, who, thank goodness! said that it definitely was a prop. phew! So then, after what was practically the most stressful half hour of lives (yes, it actually took that long!) we performed. "Uh-oh, a bunch of kids who just had to restrain themselves from breaking down in tears and/or comitting murder had to put on a humorous performance? ouch"
No, actually we did great! We all gave the best perofrmance we had done so far, everything worked, and the audience seemed to love it! Thank goodness for our buddy team, they gave us a standing ovation before we even started. They all stood up and shouted "GO BUDDY TEAM!" when the time-keeper announced us. I don't know about everyone else, but that definitely made me feel better.
Spontaneous went well... I suppose. It would've gone better if we had found out that there was a Starbucks in the same building as spontaneous BEFORE going in there than after. We did find it afterwards though. mmmm!

The moment you've all been waiting for...
We placed....

11th!!!!!!!!!!! Out of 46! WOO! Pretty good, if we do say so ourselves. Technically, in long-term we were only nine points away from first!
Another fun fact, the first place team was from Irondequoit, NY!
Of course nobody understands why that is so fascinating to me. I lived there! When I was like five. Fond childhood memories and all that jazz.
And yes, at the awards ceremony I cheered for every team from Connecticut who placed.

That's about all I have to say that relates to how we did and our buddy teams, past and present. There's more about the actual experience, the annoying things the boys did, the inside jokes that developed, etc. but my grandma is probably wondering why I'm taking so long on her computer so I should get off. I have no pictures, but I'm sure everybody else will post more pictures than can even load on the page.
ttfn
Katie