I am probably the only one, but AARP's super-low age (relative to how long Americans actually live, on average, not to mention when they actually get to retire) for joining cracks me up. In my extended family, whenever someone treats me like a child because of my generation in the family but despite the fact I'm 28, I point out that I'm more than halfway to my AARP membership.
@vamusical: Yay Arlington! (I'm from East Falls Church, which contrary to its name is part of Arlington!) I'm hearting all my fellow Arlingtonians here.
At 64, hopefully I'll be too busy spelling r-e-t-i-r-e-m-e-n-t, b-i-t-c-h-e-s, w-o-r-k i-s f-o-r s-u-c-k-e-r-s, ,p-r-i-v-a-t-e i-s-l-a-n-d and m-a-n s-e-r-v-a-n-t to worry about a spelling bee.
The Spelling Bee will always have a special place in my heart. If memory serves, the year I was in it, the winner was a beautiful Indian girl, and at the ceremony/dinner, they displayed her school pictures on a huge projection screen and everyone clapped and cheered. I was SO jealous. She was so nice, too, like not snotty or anything. Which made me even more sad because I really wanted to hate her. (I went down on my first word. Still chaps my ass to this day.) I'm always so nerdily proud of the kids; they've beaten everyone in their state, and they and their families get to go to DC and be on television and it's so scary and exciting. Spellers, I salute you all!!
There were so many kids with quirky personalities in the Bee last night. I think I even saw some future Jezzies (Serena & Aishwarya). And I loved the sentences-- nice touch to keep people's attention. I also loved all the food words.
@save jinger: It was like the Olympics; you're trying to watch the events, but the constant chattering of commentators drives you a bit nuts. With every word last night, they were like, "Oh, the origin should be the key to this one for her," or "She's probably debating over the beginning letter to this one." Shut up and let the kids do their thing! They were all so cool in their own ways. I thought Kyle Mou had it in the bag because he seemed so calm and didn't even ask all the questions for each word, but Kavya knew her shit. She seems very knowledgeable about the roots of words. This was the best thing I've seen on tv in a while.
I couldn't watch this, because stuff like this makes me feel woefully inadequate (and I was dog-tired and fell asleep). But when I woke up and saw that she won, and saw how happy her family was for her, I got teary-eyed. Girls kick ass. Too bad I couldn't even make it out of the school spelling bee (I got close a few times, though).
I used to do spelling bees when I was younger and cherished great ambitions of this one. Turns out I'm not actually a great speller, or memorizer, but dang were they fun.
@battleaxonista: I would watch the HELL out of some chem, bio, or physics olympiads. And math ones if they had really good announcers. Unsurprisingly, I did chem olympiads in high school, which were buckets of fun.
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Can he spell l-o-v-e-r-s? Because that, and e-q-u-a-l-r-i-g-h-t-s are all that really matter.
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+ Watch video
Just in case...I'm from the C-dizzle-izzle myself...although when I grew up there it was all Vietnamese and no yuppies!
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*w-h-e-n-y-o-u-g-e-t-s-e-t-t-l-e-d....
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There were so many kids with quirky personalities in the Bee last night. I think I even saw some future Jezzies (Serena & Aishwarya). And I loved the sentences-- nice touch to keep people's attention. I also loved all the food words.
05/29/09
Competitors - adorable, full of win
Competitors' siblings - adorable, full of win
Commentators - annoying, full of shit
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I really want that set of reference books though.
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I loved Kavya's hand-spelling technique, so cute!
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Oh, and:
"X. Y. L. O. C. A. R. P. Xylocarp!"
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