SAT, Ambassadors, and Spelling Bees

Lots of things have been going on lately. And I've achieved a lot in the past few weeks...yet somehow, I've focused on talking about other things on this blog, just things I've been thinking about. Just things I've been feeling. It feels good, I love it, but now the time has come to tell you what's up.

News item number one: The Friday before last, I won the school spelling bee!!! It's the third time I've won a school bee, and the second time I've gone tons of rounds with one other person.

The funny thing is, I was dreading going to this bee. I didn't want to, at all. Part of the reason, I think, was that the last two years at this school I haven't done very well, and I was getting to the point where I just didn't care about spelling bees anymore. It's true that once you go out in the world, spelling doesn't really make a whole lot of difference. At least knowing how to spell words like "logorrhea" (which the spell check on this blog doesn't even identify as a word). I didn't have to spell that, but it was the winning word for the national spelling bee one year.

However, this year, as the two of us (a seventh grade boy and myself) were going back and forth, throwing combinations of letters out there, hoping they were put together rightly, mentally crossing our fingers, arguing inside of ourselves...I realized why I love spelling bees.

They're all about words.

To tell you the truth, I realized this a long time ago. But now I realized why I should keep liking spelling bees. Because they're just part of me.

Being in a spelling bee is like running track. The only time you feel the elation is possibly during, and after the event. But before? Before, you're a nervous mess, fidgeting and heart jumping and falling all out of yourself. And during, you become like a machine - a task is set out for you, and you must do it, or you fail miserably. Nothing else is on your mind. Nothing at all. Only the letters. Only the lines of the track.

And spelling is something so inexorably wonderful that I would never give it up despite the hours of mind-tearing and stitching-up together again that occur prior to it.

The district bee is a couple of weeks from now. The same day as our middle school play. Apparently there are only six people in it.

Oh. Boy.

News item number two: I took the SAT yesterday. My second time, for practice. This year, I was there with people in my grade, so it was fun, while last year people in the grade above me were taking it at the same time. It seemed so much easier this year, and I was monumentally less apprehensive beforehand. I feel that I did extraordinarily better than I did last year, which hopefully means that I did extraordinarily well. I just spent way too long brainstorming for my essay.

And honestly, I purely enjoyed it. I thought that 4 hour test was fun. FUN. There's something extremely satisfying about taking a test, whether you're entirely sure of an answer to begin with, or you figure it out after some thinking, or even if you have absolutely no idea and you know you have absolutely no idea, and you skip it. Something about even that last one is extremely satisfying.

My mom said that my grade was a lot more energetic after the test than the kids (in the grade above me) had been last year. And that's very true. We're a pretty cool grade :D.

Afterwards, some of us went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch (which was entirely caused by my organizing) and then a few people came back with me to watch the boys' basketball game. It was our team against the team of my old school, which is still where I live. And our team was smothered. But the game was fun.

News item number three: I am now a student ambassador for my school! That means I get to tell visitors about our school and participate in some school events. I'm very excited.

Today I got to help show people around at the Open House. My friend and I got to give a boy and his mom a tour, which middle schoolers usually don't get to do. It was all very flattering, actually, when the teachers would say something like, "Oh, they can tell you all about it."

Bottom line, though, it helps me understand my experience there even better. And as I talked about things we've done, and things we've enjoyed, and opportunities I've had, I find that every single word leaving my mouth is entirely true. I'm not just saying this. I mean it with all of my heart. So it was very beneficial to me, and I certainly hope it was for the visiting families.

So there you have it - the news. Of course, there are many other things going on...but those are the ones worth sharing, for the moment. I'm tired now, very tired, and extremely relieved that all of my homework is finished! Now to go to sleep tonight...and not to wake up back up again before it's time...