Hey I was part of the national bee when I was in middle school (I just had a natural affinity to spelling). I was a competitive diver at the time too, and I was far from being a dork that spent all day reading the dictionary (maybe that's why I didn't win- haha). It was great fun doing it thought, and making a perfect verbal score on SATs and never wondering what a word means now (for the most part) doesn't hurt either.

Anyway, I too watched it last night- I love trying to spell the word before they show it. :p

Me too.

We should make this thread into a last-letter game (where the last letter in a word is the first letter in the next word). It would be a great chance for everyone to finally break out all those SAT words they studied but never got a chance to actually use in real life.

My favorite SAT word:

Ubiquitous
u·biq·ui·tous (y-bkw-ts) adj.
Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent

SOPI, start it up!

That was awesome. They were talking about that on some radio show this morning. E!

That girl actually went to high school with me, she was a year or two younger than me. She is really that socially awkward in person -- it wasn't just her being excited about the spelling bee. I know she was homeschooled until hs so maybe her parents didn't focus on the socializing aspect of her education. But she's really smart though, I think she graduated 2nd or 3rd in her class at our super competitive hs and ended up going to Princeton.