be[e] cool.

katie came in to the contest on a total fluke. she won third at her middle school and had accepted the fact that she would not advance to the county level. the week before the county meet, first place girl got the flu and second place girl had made some other commitment for that weekend. i don't remember what word was the one that won her that goofy-looking diamond-shaped glass statue embossed with a bumble bee, but i do remember that the whole time she was up there, she was cool as a cucumber.

i do remember a lot of the words that knocked the other kids off. number four lost because of the word colloquial. he bit his bottom lip a lot. eleven broke my heart. clearly anxious, she would shake her foot nonstop when she was sitting down. her skinny ankles and big loafers reminded me of my little sister. when she lost because of rhythm -- a word i CONSTANTLY mispell -- she would not stop crying. number ten tried consoling her to no avail. eleven [her name is halee] was downright downtrodden even up until the moment when they gave everyone their participant trophies, complementary ohio state squirt bottles and made them pose like this for parents to get a group photo. on the other end of the spectrum was isaac, number two, who won my heart because of his braces, would not stop flashing his grill with pride even though he was knocked out way before i even got there.

when i was learning english, i struggled with spelling. my inclination was always phonetic. words like wednesday fucking perplexed me. my dad would make me copy vocabulary words from his english class in my notebook over and over again. i made maybe one or two semi-final rounds in elementary school and was always a drama queen when i lost. i couldn't help but relate to halee, but wished i could be more like isaac -- just happy to be there.

i was disappointed when i got to this assignment and found such a lame venue [fluorescent lights and folding chairs], but looking at this photo makes me appreciate having been at the event.