Hey guys- a little late, but I shoulda updated this blog while watching the national spelling bee thursday- friday:
Wow. What an experience. I really stumbled upon the spelling bee in november, when i read James Maguire's book "The American Bee" and just became fascinated with the concept of this national spelling bee testing the wits of young students across America ( and other English parts of the world), and watching the documentary Spellbound really cemented that interest. I was hooked.
Over the course of the first part of the year, i studied a big chunk of the spelling bee Consolidated Words List ( CWL). By big chunk i mean just 1/3 of what they had given out, and whew, i gotta tell ya, there are a lot of obscure words in the english language, and it really gave me an appreciation of what these kids go through.
Anyway, then led to the national spelling bee aired on thursday-friday. Thursday was the quaterfinals, a.k.a. round 3 + 4, which weren't too bad but there were a lot of kids, and it really served to separate the pretenders from the contenders, narrowing the field from 90 to about 45, i think? No favs went out ( each year there are favorites in the field of the spelling bee, usually kids who have been to the spelling bee multiple years in a row and have shown success previously). This year i'd say the major favorites going in were Tia thomas and matt evans ( both five-time national contenders) and Kavya Shivashankar, the ESPN favorite, back for her 3rd year. ( Later we would find, of course, neither of these favs would win, which happens too, but like EVERY other year the winner was a multiple-year competitor, in this case a fourth year.)
Beginning of round 5 and friday's rounds gave us some shocks, as all the remaining canadian spellers went down like ducks in a row, even one of the favorites anqi dong ( when you get an ESPN video about yourself, you're usually considered a favorite too, at least one of the top 10). Then in round 6, biggest shocker of the day matthew evans struggled with "secernent" and spelled it "secernant." Common mistake if you don't know a word, and secernent's one of those words that's just weird enough to trip up a speller but easy to hide in a sea of words because of its relatively simple structure. No one would think to spend too much time on it, instead moving on to similar tougher words like "eleemosynary" or "triskaidekaphobia," so secernent lies in the weeds. I think that's what happened to matt: he'd probably seen the word before, but didn't give much thought to it. It's unfortunate. That's a lot of time and effort in practicing 5 years for a bee, and then this last year he does all that and finishes worse than he did last year. Probably one of the worst feelings, not that i'd know.
Anyway, so round 6 ended with 16 spellers, then i thought they'd break it up to make it the "finals," but instead they did another round to try to cut it to 12, and they really did, thanks to a pretty easy round. However, one of my personal favorites that'll probably do really well next year, got out on "sphendone." I can understand whey she got it wrong: It's not on dictionary.com, it's not in answers.com, it's a weird word that was somehow in there, and she made a great guess just missing the "y" at the end, probably a 50-50 that she lost. Truly unfortunate, she was probably a top 5 speller in terms of preparedness this year, i really think so. Should be strong next year.
Anyway, so 12 got to the finals, with 2 of my favs from the home state Illinois representing, especially Kyle Mou of peoria. Lol, really reminded me of myself when i was in 7th grade, really. Good kid though, got out later in round 10 , but should be back. Also Rose Sloan from Riverside, IL, which i think is where Brookfield zoo is in Chicagoland suburbs, about 15 minutes from my old house. She did really well, and apparently from throwingthings.blogspot.com, a real crowd favorite ( or viewer favorite, whatever). Tied for 4th, really solid. That's a lotta, lotta studying. Man, 4th best speller in the country, that has a nice ring to it. And it really might be the 4th best spller in the country, cuz excluding all the former spelling bee contestants who've went on to high school, ( like anurag kashyap, samir patel, kerry close), the spelling bee seems to get harder and harder every year, kids really study more and more to get to the top, the words they spell are just ridiculous.
The 2 other favorites, Tia Thomas and Shivashankar, got 3rd and 4th respectively, really respectable showing for Tia, she has to be really proud, improved her placing every year, very consistent, and her performance every year is almost enough to compensate for not winning, although she probably doesn't feel that way. Honestly, she might've been the best speller there, and if you did a test of 10,000 words and just determined a winner based on the least number wrong, she probably would have won this year. However, the bee doesn't work like that. Get an obscure, difficult-to-figure word like opificer, get forced into choosing from 3 different choices that first "uh" sound, and anybody'd be likely to be out. I think it's telling that evans, thomas, and shivashankar all got out on relatively simple-looking words ( secernent, opificer, and ecrase). All future favorites should learn from this trend, seeing samir patel the overwhelming fave get out last year on "clevis" in 2007 too.
Anyway, i think it's a little unfortunate this year that the winner had already missed a word in a "round"--- not to take away from what sameer mishra did, i just think it takes away from the sanctity of the bee that a winner didn't need to be perfect to win.... i guess "round 2" is not really a round because it's part of an overall point system that adds a bonus, but still, what's to say that word wasn't in round 3 or round 4 where he coulda been eliminated really early. Another way that luck plays a role in the bee, too. For the record, watching from round 4-6 i didn't think sameer had any chance of winning cuz he took the longest time on words that weren't that hard, but he really picked it up towards the end and really nailed some tough words.
The guy who really impressed me the most was the runner-up, the 1st-timer, sidharth, who woulda proved me and my experience theory all wrong by winning, but settled for 2nd. This guy just came out of nowhere ( and seeing that he lives in michigan, it might as well be nowhere, lol). But no, seriously, he nailed some doozers, and i think if he would have just settled down on his last word, took about 10 more seconds to spell, scribbled a lil more on his number placard, he woulda gotten it, the end sounded just like the end of "onomatopoeia." Urg.
So my first time watching the whole of a spelling bee. Pretty exciting, u get attached to the kids, and are heartbroken when some of them leave. But some of them do get next year, and here's my early faves for the 82nd annual scripps national spelling bee:
1.) Kavya Shivanshenkar ( ESPN will be all over her and her little sister, and i hope she doesn't become another sameer, but she was really solid this year, scary to think what another year will allow her to do).
2.) Sidharth Chand ( Only way to improve next year is a win).
3.) Josephine Kao ( gonna be her 4th year back next year with T-16th and T-13th places in back to back years, impressive this year in handling of eremophyte on the roots).
4.) Kyle Mou ( The little asian that could, a T-7th finish this year was no joke).
Alright. Long post. Hope you enjoyed.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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