High School Spelling Bee Contest 2013 & 2014

I'd never thought the day where I would write in the middle of a try-out doing class would ever actually happen. But this is, now. While everybody's heads got twisted by the difficulty of the chemistry NE tryout, here I was, writing my heart out on you. 

So okay, first of all, sorry for not writing in such a long time. You wouldn’t wanna know how much it sucks to be a twelve grader. I cannot even watch TV in peace! I cannot even finish this book I'm currently reading (A Walk To Remember)  without being haunted by the "trigonometry" or the "integrals"! No rushing home at three to have some little naps.
Hell, I could barely even sleep at night. It's like having 24/7 is never enough. My Sundays which have usually been fulfilled by sleeping endlessly until the afternoon is now looong gone. The latest hour I could sleep on Sundays is on seven a.m, and on that same moment, my phone would blare that kind of tone I very much hate. Even now, I'm thinking that I shouldn’t be writing and do my tryout instead.

Today I'm making a little exception. It's a kind of reward, I think. Oh yes, I do like giving myself rewards. I have physics this morning, and after…no more. I rushed to the library on nine, doing a selection for the Spelling Bee delegates for ALSA UI 2014 which will be held in around April. The selection originally was held for two days; the first round has been done yesterday. A week ago I had been told that the selection was gonna be held on March 5th, my teacher even came to my class and personally said that she could really use a help. From that very moment I knew that I needed to prepare for the word list, and I did have some in mind. Me being me, the I'm-going-wherever-the-wind-blows, I took it for granted and ended up not making any list at all.

So when the dispensation letter later arrived in my class on Tuesday, I freaked out. No list, no words to spell, no nothing. I did remember some words from last year, but I did know that they weren't nearly enough. I rushed to my Spelling Bee partner's class which to my luck is just approximately stands next to mine, and relieved that she had had the word list. My partner, Bella, insisted to write down the mechanism of the selection; such as the rounds and the scores, as there would only be two delegates who could later go to Jakarta and participate in ALSA UI 2014. And again, me…being…me, taking everything for granted has definitely runs in my blood, it beats in my veins, I told her not to worry about it. We didn’t know yet how many students were interested in joining the competition, my expectation was there would be only like six, or seven of them.

However when we reached the library, it was already filled with the freshmen and sophomores who had sat in several small groups. I began to question some of them as to what division that they were interested in. Some answered "Story Telling" some answered "Debate" (which made me cringe a little because I do NOT like debating). Already satisfied with my last expectation, I told Bella that we didn’t need to worry because it seemed like nobody was really interested in Spelling Bee. But of course, I was wrong. I always am.

Because later on, the students were forced to sit in groups based on the division that they wanted to join. There were like three freshmen sat together who was interested in the spelling division, and I asked them if there were any more of them, and they nodded. They pointed to some students who sat  not in order, and the number of the students were couldn’t be counted by one hand. I ordered them all to sit together on the same table, and out of blue the long table was full. I was like…errr….okay…. There weren't just six, or seven of them. Okay, no big deal. There were like twelve of them, but when I recounted, the number was rising and rising on each count, and finally I couldn’t even count them with two hands. If you put the feet though, it'd fit. Because there were twenty of them.

Yes, twenty.

I was like… TWENTY? TWENTY STUDENTS AND I HAD NO WORD LIST, NO PREPARATION AS TO HOW THE SELECTION WOULD DO… I wanted to disappear into the thin air right there. Be the smallest particle of the molecule. And again, to my luck, just when I was about to freak out, Bella said that she had taken a very long list from the internet which definitely would cover the number of the questions for all the participants. She was a savior. I could finally breathe the breath I'd been holding, and while Bella was busy preparing for the words and explaining the rules to our foreign speaker, Shannon, I took a little time to have a nice chat with some of the participants. Most of them complained why Shannon was chosen to be the speaker (mostly because she's American and Americans do have a kind of weird accent), and I told them that we would make it the same as the real thing because the speaker of ALSA UI 2013 was also an American.

This was a little chat I had with one of the freshmen:

"Kenapa mau ikut spelling bee?"

Then she replied, "because it sounds easy."

EASY? Wait until you hear the words.

Bureaucracy. 

Hierarchy. 

Lieutenant. 

Pneumonia.

Prerogative. 

Do those sound EASY to you now?! Well okay, I don’t blame her though. My first impression last year was spelling words was the easiest matter on earth. Like, you listen very carefully to the words and you just have to re-say it. And then I was met and introduced to the mean words that actually exist, and suddenly it wasn’t that easy no more. 

Sharing a little experience from last year, when I joined the Spelling Bee Contest in University of Indonesia, there were words given that I'd never really heard or seen before. I had done a little preparation before I went to Jakarta, reading the peculiar and very mean words from the dictionary, and had a little self-training with Bella. Bella would give me words and I had to spell it, and it worked vice versa. We even had a short training with Alex, that guy from India which came to SMANDA for a month a year ago, and it's still crystal clear in my mind that he had asked us to spell the word "Colonel." it does sound easy when I write it down just like that, but you had no idea how sucks it is being pronounced.

He was like, "You guys, try to spell this: CARNAL." I was like, 'CARNAL?' and he shook his head and repeated the word. I wasn’t sure if Bella had been able to spell that one, but I sure wasn’t. In the end he was like, "It's C-O-L-O-N-E-L," and I tried my best not to drop my jaw in surprise because it didn’t sound like a 'colonel' at all. I might have a problem with my hearing, but to my defense, his Indian accent made the pronunciation was unclear. 

Skipping to the day of the competition in University of Indonesia. It was so nerve-wrecking to meet students from all around the country, and it made me even more nervous because most people talk using English there. The first thing that came to my mind was: I am gonna die. I really am. I could never beat this people! They sure are Indonesians, but it was no doubt that they had probably talked in English since birth. Maybe even from fetus. Okay, that wasn’t funny at all. But the point was, they were awesome. So Bella and I walked to the room where the Spelling Bee contest took place, and it was already crowded by the other students from other provinces, different uniforms with one another, but we all sure had the same nervousness written all over our faces. They all looked so scary, like…my, these people are great. 

The first round was writing. The speaker said the word, and we wrote down how it was spelled. Man, that should be easy, but my mind was a total blank throughout that round. I didn’t really remember the words, but here are some of them: "Band" (which until now I don’t know how it was spelled, whether it was "Band" or "Ban" or "Bend"), "Merchandise" (which I misspelled because I was a total idiot), and "Bureaucracy" (which I answered correctly because I had repeated that word over and over in my mind before the competition). I was sure I wasn’t gonna make it because there were infinite words that I couldn’t spell correctly, but I thought wrong. I made it to the second preliminary, and now there was no writing no more. I had to stand in front of the room, the foreigner would give me the word and I had to spell it out within ten seconds. It should be nerve-wrecking to stand in front of these people, but to my own surprise, my heart kept beating steadily. I was clear, I was happy, which actually led me to the semifinal round. In the semifinal round though, I wasn’t that lucky no more. There were words that I misspelled, and words that I was able to spell but not within ten seconds. 

This was what I remember: the foreigner said, "CLUTCH." Already happy with the easy word, I confidently said, "Clutch. C-L-U-T-C-H. Clutch." It wasn’t even five seconds yet. Then…he shook his head. I wasn’t sure how much my eyes had widened when he informed that my spelling was incorrect, and suddenly I wasn’t in the mood anymore. Though, there was still time for me so I went to ask for the definition, and he went like, "Clutch. A slang word for a clumsy person. Clutch."

I was like… fuck.

It wasn’t clutch. It was KLUTZ! How could I be so stupid at times?! And so I answered it, but it was almost too late in the end that I only got a very low score on that one. It felt like a punch on the face for not having answered the easiest word correctly, and sure enough, I didn’t make it to the final round. 

Not winning has definitely never felt good before, but for the first time, it did. I wasn't a bit disappointed to have lost the game, instead, I felt glad. I met abundance of new people there and was happy that I could make some friends. The feeling of having your enemies turning into friends is just a second to none. Participating in ALSA UI 2013 was a hell of an experience, and in the end it didn't matter  whether you won the game or not. 

I'm glad that I could tell all these to the two freshmen who're been chosen as the delegates for the competition this year.  They both do own the potency and truth to be told I solemnly believe that they would obviously make it to the final round this year.  

Uh, I'm sorry this post is such a rush, the bell has rung I'll have to do a Bio tryout which starts in 10. 

See ya.