Infinite Potential

This week was definitely busier than any week so far! Instead of school though, I was in Indianapolis, Indiana for National FFA Convention. Our FFA dairy judging team had won the state competition and we would be competing at the national level! We left for National Convention on Tuesday Oct. 19th on an Abbott charter bus.

The bus ride was terrible, as always. Not that it wasn't fun being with everyone, it's just your typical 'stuck on a bus for 10 hours' scenario that no one truly enjoys. However, once we finally made it to the hotel everyone was in awe. The hotel was different, nothing like we'd stayed in before. The middle was completely open and the rooms had an "outside feel" to them, although everything was inside.
Then, the fun began. Studying for the contest. Although our coach said that she was not going to make us cram for the competition, most of the members of the team still studied making sure we knew as much as we could before the competition.

Team pictures were at 2:30 on Wednesday, and team orientation started at 3:30. Shortly after team orientation, our written part of the contest was to begin. This written part included an exam, sire selection and pedigree classes, and a team problem. While our team was as prepared as we could be, the staff running the contest definitely wasn't. We realized soon after that this was one of the most disorganized competitions we had ever seen.

The next morning we had hoped it would be better, but it was not. We were supposed to begin judging cattle at 8:30, we did not start until at least 9. After judging 6 classes, we went on to our 5 cows for linear  evaluation. As soon as linear ended, we had a short snack/lunch break and started to study our oral reasons. Eventually oral reasons began and then the contest was over. Unfortunately, we did not end the contest that day until 3:30.
Luckily, we were able to fill out comment sheets and our displeased team made sure to inform them of how unorganized they were.

While the competition wasn't what we were hoping for, we ended up with a silver team rating and we were pleased with that. Three team members got silver individual ratings and one received a gold individual rating. Our team still managed to have a blast at National Convention! Half of our chapter went ice skating one night, while the other half went to see Secretariat (which was an amazing movie). Everyone got along and we had a late night competition of Bananagrams!
While it was my last year, I'm very happy that it was a mostly overall positive experience for the others who will be returning next year!