1/21/2011

Spelling Bee Spell















Spelling Bee Spell
So Ethan got selected from his class to be in the spelling bee this year and was pretty excited about it. There were about 29 kids from the whole school that got up in front of the school and parents and spelled each word. Pretty intense. To make it even more challenging they had several pages of words to study and each were words that originated from different cultures/countries.

In the first round it took the total down to less than ten. Ethan didnt make it through as he got hung up on preferrable. (Is that how you spell it? I dont even know.) Two more rounds went by. Then the last two were up and it became more of a Mispelling Bee. The last one mispelled a word so the next to last had to come back and it went back and forth for the next 30 minutes. A spelling bee rule I didnt know of) They had a gong that one of the officials would hit each time someone mispelled. There were a couple hundred kids and parents sitting there hearing how to not spell each word and then the gong, mispell, gong, mispell, gong.

It was getting to be a boxing match or maybe a part of a the story in one of the "Wimpy Kid Diaries". Kids were oooing and ahhing. Teachers were trying to keep them still as they were getting all antsy in their seats waiting to hear someone make it through a corretly spelled word. It was pretty entertaining... for a while. Then old... then ridiculous. I was afraid we all were stuck in a Spelling Bee Twilight Zone with no way out. E, his teacher, other parents and I in the back row started joking around to pass the time as the curse continued. Mispell, gong, mispell gong. About this time I was thinking ok, Re-do! Lets just start this thing all over again. It definitely would be quicker than hearing how many different cultures and countries SHOULDnt be spelled. Then they kept asking.... "please use that in a sentence" or could you "please give me the definition?" My idea to E was maybe modernize it and just ask "could you please use that in a text" and then the student could get it, spell it out loud and all this could be over. (Corey dared E the night before if he didnt know how to spell a word just to use his favorite saying....I.D.K ( meaning:I dont know) "Contraption.... I....D..... K.... contraption").

So E didnt make it and was pretty bummed but he got a few good laughs out of the next almost 40 minutes back and forth between the two girls who evidently didnt know many spelling words either. He suddenly had forgotten all about mispelling his word.

Then it happened. One of them got a word right and the room exploded. Everyone jumped up, cheered and gave them a standing ovation. Kids were excited. The winner was amazed. Parents were headed for the exits. We had all suddenly been released from the spelling bee spell. After dozens of words had been mispelled... the officials were just waiting for someone to get one right so they could have a winner. And a miracle had just happened.

Just when we thought the long battle was over and people were leaving the official said..... "If you could please be quiet now as we continue. We have a 1st and 2nd place winner and now we have to have a 3rd and 4th for the final competition." ( another spelling bee rule I wasnt aware of)
and that is when I quickly left....
(Congrats Ethan on making it to this competition! How awesome. P.S. I apologize for any mispelled words in this blog, It's not my fault.)

1 comment:

hape1britt said...

OMG, I can only imagine the scene. Things have really changed since my kids were in the Bee. Congratulations to Ethan for making it as far as he did.

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