And so ended my spelling bee career. Is congradulations congratulations a second grade word? I was thinking it seemed too long for a second grade word. But I’m sure that the bee was in Mrs. Bishop’s class at Lincoln School and I had her for second grade and I remember it because that was the only year I was in a classroom on the west side of the south wing of the school except for sixth grade. By sixth grade, I would’ve probably *purposely* spelled a word wrong so as to not win a classroom spelling bee. But I didn’t misspell congratulations on purpose, so it must’ve been in Mrs. Bishop’s class. And that was second grade.

Around eight o’clock last night, I was restless. It was too late to start anything new and it was too hot to go for (another) walk and I knew if I just sat around reading and listening to music, I’d go to sleep. And it was too early to go to sleep. So I started rumbling around wondering what could possibly be on the (gasp!) telly. We argued around about that for a while (I don’t know how to turn on the set) and I threatened to download a movie from iTunes but I really didn’t want to do that. The last thing I need to do is start filling up my Macbook hard drive with movies at $10 a pop. And then the raccoon family started up their nightly chattering and the GG disappeared and I found him and LofP in the driveway discussing various possibilities for dealing with the raccoon family (which’ll be *nothing* if I have my way, and I will). It was LofP who suggested that the national spelling bee was on TV.

Spelling bee? It was a *riot*! Gripping, edge of the seat television. These kids were well beyond congradulations congratulations! I hadn’t ever even heard of most of the words they had to spell. They were allowed to ask questions, like “what is the definition?” and “what is the etymology?” Etymology? These were middle school kids! We got up to about the tenth round and Isabel and two boys were left. I wanted Isabel to win because she’s a girl 😛 but she went out on cyanophycean. The Canadian kid was my next favorite but he lost out on coryza. I don’t know what a coryza is. Have any of y’all heard of one? Hmm?

It didn’t really matter who won. All of these kids were obviously intelligent, hard-working kids and I was glad to see them get recognized for an academic talent on TV. I probably have skewed memories of this, but it seemed like when I was in high school, every year, we’d have to sit through an interminable awards ceremony. Sure, they honored academic achievement. The seniors with the top five grade point averages (out of about 360 graduates). And the National Merit Finalists, usually around five or ten and *not* usually the same kids as the ones with the top grade point averages. After that, it’d get to the athletic stuff. On and on and on forever through every 1st, 2nd, and 3rd string player of every sport. There was a very small smattering of awards for artistic pursuits, including *one* measly music award. Every year, from 7th grade on, I’d sit there in the band playing inspirational graduation type music and dream that when I became a senior, I would be awarded the John Philip Sousa award. I was a shoe-in, or so I thought. Not. And, yes, I was ticked! 🙂

Anyway, congradulations congratulations to all the participants in the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee! Winners, all!

And I have never spelled congratulations wrong ever again! Er, except on purpose! 🙂

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.