TIME FLIES: Has it really been
five years since we first met speller Catherine Cojocaru? She hit primetime in 2008, and since then has been a regular member of our community during Bee season. She'll be back for the live coverage tonight, and in the meantime files this update on how she's doing:
Hey everyone, this is Catherine (or Cat, if you’d prefer) Cojocaru – I finished 8th place in the bee in 2008, and have loved liveblogging the bee with everyone at Throwing Things in the years since. I’ll be liveblogging again with everyone tomorrow night, and I’ll be online partway through the championship rounds.
I’m 19 now and just finished my first year at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo. I’m studying journalism and political science. I’m not completely certain of what I want to do as a career yet – I’ve been writing all my life and I love it, but I am not ruling out broadcast news reporting either. We’ll see what I decide when I apply to my emphasis area come September. Visions of law school have been dancing in my head recently as well, so any insight on civil rights law or media law would be greatly appreciated. In addition to school, I work at our university’s main library, have written for The Maneater, the campus newspaper; and I am a member of the Eta Chi chapter of Sigma Sigma Sigma Sorority.
In regards to the bee, I’m really excited to see how the semifinal and championship rounds progress. The words so far have been relatively easy for spellers who have studied their Spell-It and words that have been used in national bees past. But I know that the words are going to get crazy very soon, and it seems each year they increase in difficulty. With the new vocabulary test and more selective requirements for semifinal contestants, spellers have to work ridiculously hard (and have good luck) to advance to the later rounds.
Also, my former spelling coach, Jeff Kirsch, a professor of languages at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has another student in the bee this year. Her name is Grace Remmer, and she is speller number 39. She’s a four-timer, and her chances look promising. I’m rooting for her and all the other amazing kids at the bee this year.
Hi Cat! Welcome back. I didn't realize you ended up at Mizzou. Columbia's such a fun town. Eat some Shakespeare's for me.
ReplyDeleteGrace Remmer was definitely one of my early favs. I'll be pulling for her.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back, Cat! Very excited to have you and all the other Bee vets with us again.
ReplyDeleteIt's BEE DAY!!!!
Do we really have nothing today until 2pm Eastern?
ReplyDeleteThere was a semifinals test last night, and boy was it hard. I think the judges won't make the oral rounds this afternoon too difficult, the points threshold alone could be more than enough to separate out the top 10 or so finalists.
ReplyDeleteThankfully, there were no crazy Russian words on that test. Just a lot of Greek. The four hardest words were probably apophyge, pohutukawa (first kahikatea last year, now another New Zealand tree??), Tequistlatecan, and kaffeeklatsch.
Hi Anna, Marsha, and everyone else! I'm excited to be back. Thanks for posting this, Adam. And I don't know if I cleared this up, but I am of no relation to "Uncle Steven," haha.
ReplyDeleteI do think we figured that out at some point.
ReplyDeleteThank God, because I can't and won't listen to him on the skinny jeansness.
ReplyDelete