{"id":4367,"date":"2017-03-18T08:45:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T15:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=4367"},"modified":"2017-03-18T08:45:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T15:45:06","slug":"i-won-the-national-adult-spelling-bee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=4367","title":{"rendered":"I won the National Adult Spelling Bee!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2009, I signed up for the National Adult Spelling Bee<\/a> (in Long Beach), and I managed to come in second place<\/a>. It was great fun! I went back in 2011<\/a>, 2012<\/a>, 2013<\/a>, and 2014<\/a>. Each time I did reasonably well, but I never quite managed to vault into the #1 position.<\/p>\n

Until this year.<\/p>\n

This year I didn’t plan to go to the spelling bee at all. I had plans to take some friends flying. But the weather turned bad for flying, so our sightseeing trip was deferred, and I found myself with just enough free time to head down to Long Beach for the Bee. I hadn’t prepared! I hadn’t studied! But I went anyway!<\/p>\n

I then spelled many words, in round after round:<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. budget\n
  2. waiver\n
  3. genealogy\n
  4. xenophobia\n
  5. centime\n
  6. didactic\n
  7. reconnaissance\n
  8. glucosamine\n
  9. foppery\n
  10. funambulist – a wire-walker (tightrope-walker)\n
  11. specious\n
  12. chilblains\n
  13. dermatophyte\n
  14. glissade\n
  15. cathect – to invest energy in\n
  16. accrete\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    and at the end, it was down to two of us, and then Anne misspelled “splith”, and my next word was “accrete”, and it was a home run! What a thrill!<\/p>\n

    <\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

    And the best part? The Bee gives you $500 for yourself plus $500 for the charity of your choice. So the very next day, I walked into the Monrovia Public Library and presented them with the check – and oh, the look on the librarian’s face! It was like winning a second time all over again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In 2009, I signed up for the National Adult Spelling Bee (in Long Beach), and I managed to come in second place. It was great fun! I went back in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014. Each time I did reasonably well, but I never quite managed to vault into the #1 position. Until this year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4367"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4378,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367\/revisions\/4378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}