MOVING ON TO ROUND FIVE: I love Samir. I adore the kid. I do. But if he doesn't get a seriously competitive word in Round 5, I'm gonna have to turn off my TV and declare the Bee OVER.
Also, what happened to the people who called the Bee for the previous five years? Did they get fired?! Shunted to one side for the Hollywood types who have overrun our Bee?
Horton Hears a Who Boy is BACK!!! Jonathan Horton, age 13. If you're checking online, you're missing the vibrant auditory and visual portrait that is Horton. He speaks slowly and incredibly loudly. He whispers into his right clenched fist as if there may be a person in there who needs to hear the spelling of a word before anyone else. He's MAD, MAD, MAD SKILLED and I love him.
Evan O'Dorney is older, taller, bigger this year. Not so much a cuddly toddler anymore. More of a tiny spelling badass with something to prove. And he wears glasses. Which in my book means he rocks.
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Five-peater John Tamplin is DOWN! Felled by the word "trabeated"!!
The other Five-peater Katharine Close sailed by on the very easy "bildungsroman".
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Is it just me or is anyone else loving the name Serenity Fung?
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And, yet...less than serene was Serenity when "alcazar" kicked her butt, right?
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Okay...spellers are challenged with the words: erythematous...concinnity...ichneumon...
Samir is challenged with the word: saponin?
Saponin? SAPONIN?
Is it just me or is Samir bathed in a glow of good luck? Even I can spell saponin...
And then poor Anjay Ajodha gets "ophthalmoplegia"?
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I've said it before and I'll say it again -- there is too much attention.
Too much attention being paid to the Bee and to the spellers. They stand to spell and the sound of cameras clicking is overwhelming. The TV guys shove the cameras almost up their tiny noses. They've profiled them and researched them and done highlight reels on them. The kids look extra-freaked out and nervous. Which is saying a lot because freaked out and nervous is what these kids do best. And let's face it -- this is not a group of children used to popularity. In the Lord of the Flies that is generally childhood, these are the kids whose heads end up on sticks. Not the leaders of the tribe. So it must be terrifying and odd to suddenly be the celebrated, feted, adored group -- the Heathers of the middle school set, the Mean Girls of spelling. Will they rise to the occasion or will one of them have a breakdown? I'm betting on a media-induced seizure. I don't WANT a seizure, I don't want anything to happen to one of my little spelling baby gods but...I am telling you, if those cameras keep flashing, a seizure is gonna come...
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