I just set up a Twitter account to accompany this blog. Please feel free to tweet at me--I'd love to know what you're thinking! You can find it at

http://twitter.com/AlternatePronun

I've gotten lucky: my morning has been fairly un-busy, so I've got the Bee streaming in the background as I type this. 

Dear Spellers,

You kids are so weird. You reference your favorite books instead of your favorite American Idol contestants, you belong to chess and Scrabble leagues, you win all the competitions with the word "math" in their title. You write novels and poetry and music. Three of you referenced pi in your biographies. The sports you play aren't necessarily "get out of weird free" cards--you're still bizarre.

Never, never, never stop being weird. It's a big part of why you're wonderful. Take this from a former weird kid--it keeps being awesome. There will probably be pockets non-awesome in the next few years--every high school has its kids (and sometimes teachers) who will be threatened by how awesome you are, and they might try to stand in your way--they may tell you to tone it down, to stop showing off, to at least try to be normal for a while. Do not listen to them for one single minute. You'll get through it, you'll go to college and meet more weird, awesome people, you'll graduate and get a job at a place that is chock-full of brilliant, awesome nerds and weirdos. In the meantime, keep surrounding yourself with friends who are like you--to this day, my oldest friends (and my husband) are people I met when I was eleven years old and attending an academic summer camp for gifted students. We kept in touch online through middle school and high school, and convened in Atlanta for college (Georgia Tech for them, Agnes Scott College for me). Now we all work at software companies, surrounded by other former math-team captains and youth-symphony presidents, and we hang out and have fun and love each other to pieces. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

(And yes, a few of you are actually pretty cool by non-nerd standards--you're friends with pretty much everybody, because everybody wants to be your friend. Cool! I can't offer advice on how to be a popular teenager, but I will say this: if you keep challenging yourself and working towards smart-people goals, then in twenty years, you can be The Person In Charge of pretty much whatever you want.)

I've said it before on this blog, but I can't say it enough: I love that you spellers have embraced your love of language and words in particular and of learning in general, and I admire the hard work you've put into preparing for the Bee. Regardless of how this year's Bee goes, know this: you haven't peaked. For every one of you spelling today, and for every one of you who prepared for this Bee and spelled earlier this week, or in regional spelling bees, and even for tonight's winner? The best days are still coming.

And now, it's very, very late. I made it halfway through, but I've got to sleep, so I've got to make a few semi-blind calls.

(And by the way: I'll definitely be watching the finals tomorrow night! A dear friend is having me and a few other people over for a Bee party. Hooray!)

Here are my top ten picks for likely winners:

24. Laura Newcombe 
28. David Phan
38. Grace Remmer
93. Emily Keaton
127. Anja Beth Swoap
141. Dakota Jones
157. Arvind Mahankali

Scene: Round 3. Speller 39, Glenn Medina, approaches the podium. The following exchange is faithfully transcribed below.

Dr. Bailly: Threnody.
Glenn: Threnody? Can I have the definition?
Bailly: A song, poem, composition, or speech of lamentation especially for someone dead or something regarded as dead: a dirge.
Glenn: Can I have the language?
Bailly: Ah, it's from Greek.
[As Glenn pauses, Dr. Bailly dives for the example sentence.]
Bailly: As in, a threnody is usually easily recognizable as melancholy, but not in the case of "Who Let the Dogs Out," the Baha Men's lament over their pet chihuahuas that escaped and got eaten by a boa, and the ensuing fight over who was responsible that almost broke up the band until Baha Steve came up with a riff.
Glenn: ...Threnody?
Bailly: Threnody.

If I was trying to spell a word, and Dr. Bailly was rattling off an unsolicited run-on history of the Baha Man, and now instead of spelling "threnody" I had "Who Let the Dogs Out" stuck in my head, I'd be in trouble. 

Woke up, showered, petted the dogs. Went to work. Worked for eleven hours straight, save a ten-minute "lunch" break around 4:30. Came home. Had some dinner and petted the dogs again. Went to bed. Spent a sleepless hour there. Got back up. Turned on the ESPN3 video of Round 3.

Spellers: go to bed, right now! I know you can’t sleep--me neither--but seriously, try to get some rest.

Everybody else: I’ll be following up with you in a couple hours, with theories, spellers to watch, and my winning picks. I've picked the Scripps National Spelling Bee champion for my team three years in a row now, and I'm going to spend a little time right now picking this year's champ!

Hi spellers!

So, this is a not-totally-fun post to write, and I put off writing it because I hoped I wouldn’t have to, but as spellers get ready to invade Washington, I’ve got to write the post that says, “I can’t do full Spelling Bee coverage this year.”

And believe me, I want to cover the Bee! I’ve actually created a full Bee website, and my intention was to migrate all my content away from LiveJournal and to my new website, set up a forum where everybody can post, and generally have the sweetest Bee site on the block. The domain name is awesome, too. Believe me, you’re looking forward to the grand unveiling, which I’d hoped to have done two months ago, and then one month ago, and then two weeks ago…

But, as they say, life got in the way. I started a new job last fall, and it’s been keeping me very, very busy. My husband and I adopted a new dog a few months ago, a little yellow Lab mix named Tallie. Our house was broken into a couple weeks ago, which shattered my plan to make a final push on the new site and the 2011 analysis—we’re still picking up the pieces, figuratively and literally, and I spent the weekend cleaning up my bedroom instead of my website. In past years, I’ve been able to take the morning off of work to watch the semi-final rounds, and because of work commitments, I won’t be able to do that this year.

(The other thing is: this year, the finals are on ESPN instead of ABC, and I don’t have cable. Thus, the big Bee viewing party I throw every year isn’t happening. If this change represents a corrective measure after last year’s Round 6 semi-semi-finalists debacle, I’m all for it—I imagine ESPN is, by the nature of their programming, more flexible about event timing than ABC can afford to be. Then again, ABC is showing an NBA game during the Spelling Bee finals this year. There’s a feeling of irony in the possibility that the Spelling Bee was bumped to ESPN because of an NBA game. But any reason I give is pure speculation, and at any rate, I digress.)

I just looked at the list of this year’s spellers (just now!), and I love seeing so many familiar names. I scrolled through the list, going “Laura and Veronica are both here, and Canada has three spellers! Oh, Rahul looks so grown-up now, and so does Grace! Yay, Julia and Rachael are both back!” And on, and on—I really do care about the spellers in the Bee, and I love cheering for you guys year-to-year. I’m going to do my level best to write a pre-game report, either tonight or tomorrow night, to look at this year’s field, but I probably won’t be able to file any reports or analyses after the Bee has begun.

Keep an eye on this space, though—as I said, I do have a Spelling Bee website in the works, and will launch it when I can. I’ll definitely be watching the Finals. This year, my coverage is limited, but my enthusiasm isn’t—I’m really excited that the Bee is finally here again!

For the last two years, some friends and I have been attending the showcase performance for this amazing summer camp called Girls' Rock Camp ATL. It's a weeklong music camp for middle and high school girls where they learn rock music instruments (guitar, bass, drums, keys), and it's run by this amazing group of very progressive people who are advocates for fostering the confidence and inner strength of young women of all stripes.

Getting to the showcase this year was a bit of an adventure--there was a major traffic snag en route--and I missed the first several bands as a result. However, partway through the set, they made an announcement that one of the campers was "a local spelling bee champion." I checked my program, and sure enough: the band Verge featured Georgia's own National Spelling Bee semi-finalist, Julia Denniss! Unfortunately, because her band performed first, I missed it, but my friends told me that they'd done an excellent job. I grabbed a patch for her band.



I spoke briefly with Miss Denniss afterwards; she was gracious, and said that she'll definitely be studying for the 2011 Bee, where she'll be an eighth-grader in her third year at the Bee--historically very well-positioned for an excellent finish, especially as a returning semi-finalist!

(I resisted asking her about the Round 6 Psuedo-Finalist debacle, to which she'd missed the first Finalist round by virtue of having an early-in-the-round speller number; it wasn't an appropriate setting for an impromptu interview. I'm very cognizant of the fact that I'm an adult woman blogging about a competition for minors, and I never want to make any spellers or parents uncomfortable!)

Congratulations to the Girls' Rock Camp musicians, mentors, and organizers, and in particular to Julia Denniss, for an excellent show tonight!

Last night, Ross and I were listening to the NPR program "Thistle and Shamrock," and Fiona Ritchie's guest was an amazing Appalachian woman named Sheila Kay Adams. One of the songs she sang was reminiscent of (and probably a precursor to) the "Miss Susie" song that we all sang as kids. I was surprised when I discovered that these lyrics weren't already online when I searched, so I'm transcribing them here for anybody else who was as tickled by her song as me!

It is likely that this is much funnier when you imagine it in the voice of an elderly Appalachian woman, as broadcast on NPR on a Friday night. Seriously.

( Behind a cut, because although the language is 100% clean (it was on NPR!), the rhymes are more than a little suggestive. )

Congratulations, Anamika!

We had eight people at the viewing party tonight, and the whole room cheered for you when you won. Way to rock it!

Here's an AP article explaining the Round 6 debacle. Essentially: even though they initially billed all ten on-stage at the time of the Round 6 interruption as "Finalists," they will complete Round 6 at the beginning of the broadcast. The first Finals round will begin with Round 7, and only spellers who make it to Round 7 will go down on the record as Finalists.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h1Xf46AnIc2f8e0SFn0d63QZJ5EwD9G4NUN00

(Thanks to Hank for the link!)

Also, if any of you guys use Twitter, I'll probably be tweeting during the Bee. My Twitter name is "Scottique." My feed there is friends-only, but if you add me tonight, I'll assume you're a Spelling-Bee-person and be sure to approve you lickety-split.