O.M.

This past November I got wrangled into Coaching an Odyssey of the Mind team. This is how it happened. I was in the teacher's lounge on my first day of work having lunch. It was really quiet and in order to break the ice and try to make friends I noticed one teacher was wearing an O.M shirt, so I told her I was in O.M all through middle and high school, even placing 4th at World one year. To which she happily replied, "We need Coaches!" AGH!!!! I had to open my big mouth!

In February we were supposed to have our district meet. (I was secretly hoping we wouldn't make it on to the next round!) Not that I don't enjoy helping out for the most part (we'll get to that), but O.M was really eating up my time. We meet 3-4 times a week, for 2-4 hours at a time! However, the meet got cancelled due to snow, and since our problem only had 2 teams competing anyways, both teams got passed on to the next round.

Here they are at the Performance Night last week. All the local O.M teams performed and got judging feedback since they didn't have the competition.


Yeah, all those props and costumes are being redone! But as I discuss later on, they had no money and did the best they could. One judge actually asked me pertaining to their costumes, "So, did they just cut holes in sheets?" Ummm, yeah!!

The Chili/hot dog feed at the Performance Night we put on as a fundraiser. Big props to the parents on my team, because they basically did all the work putting it together and running it!


And Oh, those people on the left side of the table, are they buying food? NO! They are the F-ing health inspectors who showed up and tried to shut us down!! It's a fundraiser; FOR KIDS! Ahh, this is the drama I get to deal with. Our food "failed" the inspection and we sold it anyways! Made $600 bucks too!

And here we are, the beginning of March, and most my time is still being dedicated to my little O.M team. They are a rag-tag bunch, most participating for the first time ever, and well, I don't think they realized the commitment it takes nor the detail of work necessary. They have a great skit, but the props are severely lacking. So all the props and costumes are now being re-done so that they might be able to win and go on to World. We'll see though, World is in Michigan and if they do win they have to pay their own way (we're talking international flights here)!!

For the most part, I enjoy working with the team! The girls are cute and have an unimaginable amount of energy! I actually told the parents last week to cut off all their sugar; they all need to be on diabetic diets!! The part I absolutely hate, and will be the reason I will NEVER EVER volunteer to do this here again is dealing with the O.M Head Coach for our school. I can't get into all the antics she's pulled here, as it seems the stuff she does keeps getting worse and worse, but mainly she's a pompous ass, only cares about herself and her individual team, and controls all the finances to the point that I have to beg for pennies!!

But we'll keep on trucking. Next competition is at the end of March, and they have lots to fix and improve upon. Thankfully I will not be able to help out for the next 2 weeks, so I am now passing the responsibilities on to a couple of the moms. I will be enjoying my break!! Hope they have fun! :)