Sufferin' Succotash

We were up very early for a Saturday morning and out the door by 8am. We headed to Syracuse to CBA for the Post Standard written spelling test portion of the Spelling Bee. Registration began at 8:45, where we were then led into a cafeteria. The room was full of 200 greasy-haired, pimply-faced 12 and 13 year olds... along with their family members. We sat for 45 minutes until the children were called down to take the hour-long test. They returned and we waited another hour for the tests to be corrected. Alex told me a few of the words that were on the test and we looked them up in the book. ('cause I sure didn't know how to spell them right!) He realized he had spelled "succotash" incorrectly... and then he also figured out he spelled "homogeneous" wrong as well. So his hopes were fading as he was going over the words in his head...

During the long wait, I had wished I had brought my laptop. I could have accomplished many things during that long 3 hour wait in that chilly cafeteria! But I was thankful I did at least bring a book. And the Post Standard had free newspapers for the taking as well.

At 11:30am, the top 35 were announced, and unfortunately, Alex was not among them. But that's ok, he'll get 'em next year. This was his first year, so it was a very good learning experience.