it's nsb time, which means national spelling bee time. oh my goodness. they're part way through round 4 and everything from this point on will be broadcast. this is exciting for 200 reasons. here's 3:
- because it is a quest for perfection that will inevitably fail for all but one (unless there's a tie) and would eventually fail for that one kid too if he or she or it were forced to continue spelling words even after winning and this is an excellent life lesson.
- because smart kids get center stage without having to throw footballs which would be a strange thing to do on a stage but you get what i'm saying.
- because the national spelling bee is all i have.
and now my favorite words from each round so far along with my guesses as to the definitions:
round 1 (the written round): sprachgefuhl - adjective, looking like a fool after a plate of spaghetti has been thrown at one's face
round 2: conchologize - verb, to eulogize a beloved snail while holding up its empty conch shell
round 3: tangemon - noun, a tangerine demon hybrid, or an evil fruit, or elton john while dueting with eminem
round 4: lipogrammatism - noun, the practice of psychokinetically removing all incidences of the word "like" from a person's vocabulary unless like is used to compare two things, such as in the phrase "star jones looks like a garbage bag" or if like is used as a verb, such as in the phrase "do you like him or do you like him like him?"
here's the tv schedule. it's on primetime network tv for the first time ever. so watch away. tivo away. vhs away. glue yourself to the imagery and sounds of the thrill of d-e-f-e-a-t and the agony of d-u-h-f-e-i-t. personally i'm rooting for samir patel because i saw him on the bee when he was in 3rd grade and he came in 4th place which was crazy and he said things to the judges such as "is it just my imagination or am i getting all the french words?" perfection.
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