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Recent News in Hopkinton By Tessa Patapoutian Destination Imagination Tournament Once a year, a Destination Imagination (DI) tournament is held. DI is a creative arts activity; a team chooses a specific challenge from five other challenge choices and devises a creative 6-8 minute skit that follows the rules and guidelines of that challenge. There is usually an improvisational challenge, a sculpture challenge, a robotics challenge, a drama challenge, and a technical challenge. After writing a script and practicing until the skit is nearly perfect, the team performs at a Regionals tournament in front of a panel of Appraisers and an audience. There is also an Instant Challenge, or a small improvisational in which the team has to come up with a solution to a problem that can be technical, drama, structure, or any other genre. First, second, and third place ribbons are all awarded, but the first and occasionally the second placers get a big surprise. They get to compete in the States tournament!! So the team has another month to prepare and get better and then perform once more at WPI, where the States competition is always held. And if you manage to win at States, you get to go to Globals where all the top contenders for each challenge meet and compete. If you win at Globals, you get a trophy and a huge resume boost!! This year, Hopkinton teams performed Regionals in Douglas, MA. It took the whole entire day for all the teams to do their Main Challenge and their Instant Challenge. Everyone who did the Instant Challenge also had to take an oath of silence, stating that they knew nothing about the Instant Challenge and they would not say anything about it to any other person until Globals. At the end of the day, around 7 o’clock, a parade led all the different teams into the gym where the Award Ceremony would take place. After everyone was seated (trust me, it took a long time), many awards were doled out; the Spirit Award, the DaVinci Award, and the Renaissance Award are only a few. A raffle gave away a couple DI shirts and a hat full of DI pins (DI pins are pins that represent each challenge for each year from each state and can be collected). Then, finally, the white, red, and blue ribbons were handed out to the winners. Some Hopkinton teams got ribbons and a few even got to go to States! The States tournament takes place on April 3, 2010 at WPI and the Globals tournament takes place on May 26-29, 2010 and is at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to know more, then you can visit the official DI site ([]) or the MA DI site ([]). Please feel free to attend the States or Globals tournaments! J Central District MMEA Central District Music is essentially a band that is created new each year. Actually, there is an orchestra, central band, and a choir. If you would like to be in one of the groups, you have to prepare a chosen piece and play for a single judge at the audition. Many kids from Hopkinton tried out, but only four 7th graders made it. Caitlin Wilson got into the choir; Nina Cok played the saxophone got into the central band; and Cam Montgomery with the violin and Tessa Patapoutian with the flute made it into orchestra. There is a flute playing in the orchestra because if you get a good score at the audition, then you can have a chance at playing in the orchestra with a non-strings instrument. Orchestra seats are valued because there is only one person playing a part, instead of a couple people per chair. Districts has two main performances; high school level performances and 7th/8th grade level performances. So 7th graders are competing against 8th graders! Also if you get invited to play in Districts, you must attend two rehearsals in April so you can practice with the whole ensemble. The 7th/8th grade division performs on May 1st at ---. Feel free to come and watch them all play! J Why Braces Are Just Plain Stinky Do you have braces? You probably wish you //didn’t// have them. They hurt, they make your gums sore, and they rip your mouth to pieces. Sometimes you even have to have elastics in your mouth so they can tug your teeth closer faster. I have developed 10 reasons why braces will //not// fix your teeth or are just plain bad. (BTDubs, all this stuff is just my opinion.) 1. By trying to move your jaw different ways at the same time, your teeth can get wicked crooked and they sometimes even move your whole entire jaw line. 2. These days, orthodontists can find a microscopic problem with your teeth (e.g. “Your front teeth are 2 millimeters off” or “You have a 0.2 millimeter overbite” or “See this tooth? If you don’t get braces, there is a 6% chance that in 50 years you might have to get surgery”.) and you will just //have// to get braces. 3. They tell you that you don’t need braces when you’re 10-years-old, and then when you’re 10¼ years old, they tell you that (Oops!) you do! 4. They offer you this brilliant new technology of braces and tell you that they’ll be much less painful and come off faster, but they’re just a //teeny// bit (a.k.a. A TON) more expensive. Then you end up massaging your gums just as much as anyone else and you get them for, say, 4 years or so. 5. They extend your ‘braces off date’ by months/years. If they say 2 years, expect 3½. 6. They give you this wax to put on your braces so they don’t scrape you skin to pieces, but you either have to put the whole container on, or it just falls off and you swallow it. :P 7. They hurt A LOT. As in, you-can’t-feel-your-gums-they’re-so-numb hurt. (Kind of obv, but still) 8. If you play an instrument or sing, you get a slight lisp and it’s soooo much harder to do. 9. Every single food in the whole entire world gets stuck in your braces and it’s wicked hard to get it out. Plus, you can’t chew gum, nails, eat apples, caramel, gummy worms/bears, popcorn, taffy, toffee, and loads of other stuff that would make you faint just thinking of not eating them. 10. Look at 2006’s yearbook. Then look at last year’s yearbook. Check out the survey. Do you really think all those people //actually// need braces? So you see, braces are NOT really that good at all. So if you’re parents are trying to convince you to get braces, you know just what to say to stump ‘em.