My Experience with the Spelling Bee

On the 26th February 2020, my two little sisters, my mom and I were invited to Ballinabranagh National School to participate in the Spelling Bee Carlow County Final. Two days before the Spelling Bee, I got really sick. I had a 104 degrees of fever and was taking medications. However, I knew I couldn’t skip this event.

On the day of the Spelling Bee, I was still not well, so we woke up really early to have some breakfast and then took medications. After breakfast, I started to have lots of mixed feelings. I then got dressed and ready. I felt nervous yet excited. It was about 9:45 am when we left our house for the venue. We had to be there at around 10:20am. 

After a good drive, we reached Ballinabranagh National School at 10:25am. My heart was beating like crazy. I was quite overwhelmed by the School. So we went inside this enormous building and to my surprise, it was very quiet. The staff at the reception guided us to reach the School hall, where the Spelling Bee team was awaiting for contestants to Register. At the hall entrance, a very nice Spelling Bee representative registered my name and gave a yellow T -shirt with my name sticker on it, which I still have. He then led us to our seats. There were still three minutes for the Contestants to gather, so, I decided to ask my sister Ayra, for some Spellings. We practiced for a few minutes and then it was finally time to go up.

My heart beat like it was about to explode. I knew none of these people. They started off by introducing the judges and explaining the Rules. I was still very nervous and shy. Although, I wanted to try and cool it off. Since I was still sick and couldn’t function my brain, it was hard for me to understand what they were saying. After they explained the rules, the Judges came out of their seats and gave us words of encouragement. After that, it was finally time to start the Spelling round.Basically, we were all sitting down and only the contestant asked to spell would stand up with a mic. The judges would then say the word and the contestant would repeat that word, spell it, say that word again and then sit down.

They started as a practice round and I got the word “Grandfather”. My heart pounded as I said the word. Everyone could hear me heavily breathing through the mic. I tried to hold it in, then the round kept going until the end. Then the judges organised their stuff and while they did that, the representative explained to us that if we didn’t understand or hear the word properly, we could ask judges to repeat the word and could also ask them to make its sentence.

My nervousness went through the roof. I tried to keep it together, so I kept going. This time, if any of us got the word wrong, we would be knocked out. In that round three or four people got out. I got the word “Fascinating” and I got it right, so I was a bit relieved yet still scared.The next Round was where I got it wrong. My heart was pounding as usual, when I was asked to spell the word “Poison”, but instead I spelled P-O-I-S-O-I-N, which was wrong. Once the judges said it was wrong, a huge wave of regret came over me. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. I sat down in despair and defeat. The round kept going until the end.

I was happy because We got an Eason’s Voucher Promo code, Dictionary, a nice Pen and the Certificate of Participation. We then went home.

The End

Eshaal