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"If you&amp;#x27;re ever in a &amp;quot;fun fact&amp;quot; situation with me--you know, one where you&amp;#x27;ve got to come up with some sort of trivia about yourself--you will hear me say that I was in the National Spelling Bee when I was in eighth grade, in 1998.You won&amp;#x27;t hear me say it too often otherwise. But I&amp;#x27;m telling you now because I was watching the Bee last night--congratulations, Snigdha Nandipati!--and man, has a lot changed since my day. First of all, let&amp;#x27;s get one thing straight: I can&amp;#x27;t imagine that any kid gets to the Bee the way I did. Which is to say, by accident. I happened to win a spelling bee at my tiny Catholic school, then I went on to win the regional bee in my area. (If you doubt my nonchalance here, you&amp;#x27;d only have to see the floor-length calico jumper my mom made me wear--&amp;quot;You&amp;#x27;re going to be sitting facing a crowd on a stage, so forget that short skirt!&amp;quot;--to believe that no, really, I did not expect my entire class to see me in the newspaper the next day.) What can I say? I was a big reader. But I can&amp;#x27;t imagine that anybody--unless their leisure reading happens to be a combination of medical manuals and just the most advanced-level textbooks on various languages--just happens into the Bee these days. Because when they get there, the words are crazy. Harengiform? Maieutic? Yttriferous? (I maintain, though, that the craziest word ever given in the Bee went to one of my &amp;#x27;98 compatriots, Amy Goldstein, who ended up coming in fourth. It was: H. As in, H. Yep. The letter H. I&amp;#x27;m not kidding. Nope, you don&amp;#x27;t spell it H. You spell it &amp;quot;aitch.&amp;quot; True story.) I went down on the word &amp;quot;chauvinism.&amp;quot; The kids in the Bee these days eat words like chauvinism for breakfast. When they are babies and don&amp;#x27;t have any teeth. Speaking of eating, it&amp;#x27;s a shame they no longer have &amp;quot;the crying room.&amp;quot; It used to be that when you were axed from the competition with that horrible ding, you&amp;#x27;d be led by a handler into a space called &amp;quot;the crying room.&amp;quot; Post-&amp;quot;chauvinism,&amp;quot; you could find me stuffing cookies of endless variety into the pockets of my superflare khakis, wondering, Why do they call this the crying room? They should call it the awesome cookie emporium! before realizing that the other kids in the room were weeping in frustration, not hoarding sweets, because they had not just fallen ugly-calico-first into this whole ordeal. They had read the dictionary. Anyway, now the kids just meet their parents on-camera. So yeah, a lot has changed--not least of all the real-world need for spelling as a skill. But I&amp;#x27;m so happy the Bee, with all its peculiarities, marches on. It&amp;#x27;s its own brand of drama, unlike anything else--how often do you see moments like this on ESPN, or anywhere? And what you don&amp;#x27;t see is that these kiddies--whose preteen awkwardness is broadcast to the world in high definition--get a few days of fun and socializing leading up to the Bee. They have historical trips and ice cream mixers. They get to hang out with a lot of other people their age who like exactly what they like. No matter what you&amp;#x27;re into when you&amp;#x27;re twelve, experiences like that are a huge relief. For the speller, that is. If you think my two younger brothers looked anything like this angel after sitting silently through hours of wordplay--by the way, the time limit&amp;#x27;s new, too--you&amp;#x27;re sorely m-i-s-t-a-k-e-n. (Still got it!) Do you guys watch the Spelling Bee? Or is there another odd TV event you never miss? More silly stuff... 5 Hot Guys That Look Like Puppies (And Still Manage to Look Sexy!) Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Are Reportedly Moving in Together, And We&amp;#x27;ve Got the Blueprint For Their Dream House I Can&amp;#x27;t Stop Laughing at These Pics of Celebs Looking Ridiculous in Russell Crowe&amp;#x27;s Hat from Les Miserables! Photo: ESPN"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2012/06/why-i-love-the-national-spelli>