Odyssey of the Mind

As I mentioned a couple of nights ago, Lisa and Natalie have been in Iowa since Wednesday for the Odyssey of the Mind World Competition. A lot of times people use the word "World" loosely. As in the Major League Baseball calling its championship game the "World Series." It ought to be called the "U.S. and Canadian Series" since teams from--oh, I don't know--Cuba, Mexico, and Japan aren't invited. 

I'm off point, though. My point is that the Odyssey of the Mind "world" competition really is just that: something like 16,000 competitors from 45 countries. Don't quote me on that. I read an article earlier in the week and the numbers were something like that.

Anyway, the whole thing is over now, and Natalie and her team finished 19th in the world! That's pretty darned good. In their problem and age group there were 41 teams that competed, so her team finished in the upper half. Not too shabby! And typically, the international teams are hard to beat. After all, they're not state champions. They're NATIONAL champions. But Natalie's team bested teams from Canada and Poland. They also bested a team called the Europoean DoDDS, which I thought was an international team until I did some research online and found that it's the name of the American school system in Europe for children of soldiers stationed in Eurpoe. Ehhhh! They live in Europe. Let's call 'em an international team anyway!

You can read all of the scores for teams in Natalie's group and age division by clicking this link. 

The other Beechwood teams all did well, too, all finishing at least in the top half of the rankings. One team, made up of Beechwood seniors who had been performing in Odyssey of the Mind since they were younger than Natalie, finished 6th in the high school level for their problem. 6th place gets an award and gets their name shouted out during the awards ceremony, so they were ecstatic (The photo above is of Beechwood team members celebrating their 6th place win. Sorry, Natalie's not in the picture anywhere that I could tell). 

The last I heard from Lisa was at 11:30 PM Iowa time, which is 12:30 in the morning in the real world. She and Natalie and some of Natalie's friends were at the big "Pre-teen Party" which was located in some indoor practice football field on the Iowa State Campus. So there's no way they were getting to bed before at least 1:00 in the morning our time. Which means they won't be up at--as her dad says--"O Dark Thirty" to head for home. It's a 10 hour drive and they lose an hour coming home, so I don't expect to see them until after dinner sometime. I think Natalie had the time of her life, but I'm sure she and Lisa will be absolutely exhausted. 

But I'm also sure they'll look back on it and say it was worth it!