Can you use that in a sentance?

Live from Georgia State University, it’s the GAE State Spelling Bee!!
Yup, I’m blogging from the spelling bee on my day off from work. Nerd? Totally.
I’m taking notes on how to run a better bee, from the judges’ and callers’ point of view. For Mom. You know...for research. Not cause I'm here for my own enjoyment or anything...

Rupee (the monetary currency in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, etc) is a practice round word. These kids are for real-real; they don’t play-play, y’all.

I have a weird fascination with spelling bees. Firstly, I cannot spell like these kids. But I love any kind of academic competition. I find the strategy of spelling fascinating. There are so many more rules than “i before e except after c”. For example, words with Greek origins use ph to spell the f-sound. Many of the kids read the dictionary each night…literally. (Get the pun?) Some kids write out the words with their fingers. Some tap their leg to keep the rhythm. I'd love to claim that these ticks and quirks are voluntary, but some of these kids are just weird like that.

For so many of these students, they’ve never, ever failed. Anything. Then they find themselves on a stage, facing their parents, with an intimidating mic in their face, and a domineering female prompting them with a word striaght out of their Latin-to-German-to-French nightmares. You can see the panic sweep over their little pre-pubescent faces. They keep asking for definitions, sentences, and parts of speech in order to stall for three more minutes.

There is ONE chance to get it right. No going back and correcting yourself. No sound but your racing heart and clicking cameras. All the attention in the room is on you.

Damn…that’s a lot of pressure.

On a superficial note, I LOVE real red-neck kids with thick accents who spell. Especially when they’re given long scientific work and spell real slow. I mean…who doesn’t love a country hick talkin’ out of his head?


Apparently, I have readers!! Unused to seeing any comments, it took me a few days to realize I had some. I didn’t realize that my subscribe button doesn’t work either. I tried messing with the HTML code, but I have no idea how HTML works. I just copy and paste. So bear with me until I can get a tech-savvy friend to fix that. Yay, for want-to-be-followers!