National Spelling Bee 2013: The Un-official Write Up

A Day (or two) in the Life of the National Spelling Bee Committee

- Friday -

9:00am: Plan to arrive at University American College-Skopje (UACS) to meet the Tinex truck that is delivering donations.

9:15am: Actually arrive at UACS after spending 5 minutes arguing with the taxi driver in Macedonian about the price. I may speak with a Minnesotan accent, but I know the price didn't change overnight! Finally throw the 200 denari at him, call him a thief, and hop out of the car.

9:30am: Stand around with Alastair waiting for our contact at UACS to show up and help us figure out what to do with the 50+ 2-liter bottles of water and boxes of snacks. Eavesdrop on a conversation (in Macedonian) being held by some nicely dressed people outside the college who keep staring at us.

Tinex (a local grocery chain) donated lots of water and snacks for the event

9:45am: Finally one of the ladies asks us in English what we plan to do with all of this stuff. We start to explain about the event happening the following day, to which we learn, she is well aware.

9:50am: Our contact shows up and there is some debate as to where we can store these things since the college has classes going on. The nicely dressed women make a few phone calls and it is all taken care of.

10:15am: The last bottles of water have been carted off by the maintenance guys and we head upstairs to begin our preparations. Lori and Michelle arrive to get working.

10:35am: We are in the swing of preparations- making signs, finalizing registration lists and volunteer schedules.

11:20am: We discover there is a problem. The college has overbooked itself due to some communication issues. We are told the rooms we had planned on using aren't available.

11:25am: Head want to bang against the walls as we thought we were ahead of the game.

11:45am: We meet with one of the nicely dressed ladies. We find out she is the Vice President of the college. Our rooms change around for the fourth time this week.

11:55am: We finalize our schedule and start getting back to work on preparations.

12:05pm: The VP comes in again and says we need to make more changes. Preparations halt at this point because another change means redoing everything.

12:25pm: I meet with the VP and we figure out a schedule. She tells us which rooms we can use and we agree upon a schedule.

1:00pm: A new lady comes and says we need to talk about the room schedule. We though we had it all cleared as the VP agreed. Turns out there need to be more changes to the rooms. I clarify that this new lady is the one who will give the final say, not the VP. Correct.

1:10pm: We have a new room schedule to work off of and are ready to get started making signs, finalizing volunteer schedules and registration lists.

1:15pm: Our Peace Corps liaison shows up after a busy week of training. I have been in contact with her all morning about the rooms changing and she is happy to hear that we have finally worked out a schedule with the college.

Evelina is the queen of multi-tasking. I couldn't have survived the Bee without her.

1:50pm: The lady appears again and says we need to change around a few rooms again, this time losing rooms, so we wont have enough. I politely argue with her almost making her cry, but we eventually get things figured out and we only have to give up one room. It isn't ideal, but we will make it work.

2:00pm: Claire arrives with the t-shirts. They look fantastic! Thanks for the design Ari.

2:20pm: The lady appears yet again with more changes. I rip another clump of hair out of my head in frustration at the ever changing schedule. We do a walk-through of the building with the lady painstakingly going over which rooms we can use and which rooms we can't. I clarify and re-clarify, making sure there aren't any language miscommunications. We are told we are good to go.

2:40pm: She comes back yet again to change around more rooms on us. This time, spreading us out all over the confusing building- only one or two rooms on each floor on each wing. This is not a good solution for us, but its the day before the event, what can we do.

3:15pm: The rooms change once more, but this time the change is in our favor. We now agree on a schedule that is almost identical to what we originally had- nice big rooms, one side of the building, only a few floors. Hooray! Fingers crossed that it won't change again.

3:25pm: We decide that this late in the day we need to keep working on preparations and just cross our fingers nothing changes again.

3:40pm: Our new "friend" appears once more with another change, but again, its for the good. One of the groups that was going to also be using the college on Saturday cancelled, so that has freed up one more room for us. It is a small room, but will work great as our Volunteer HQ.

4:20pm: The rest of the committee appears with the goal of having one last meeting. However, because of how far behind we are from all the room changes, the meeting is scraped and another committee member takes them on a tour of the building giving me a few minutes to finish up the registration lists and the volunteer schedules.

5:00pm: YES! The college offices are closed for the day so they can't change our rooms on us anymore! In appears an amazing maintenance man who is here to do anything we want from him. He tells me he is happy we are there because it makes his night and day tomorrow far more interesting.

5:15pm: The registration room starts getting set up. Signs are hung and well as the paper Bees my students helped me make. Teacher certificates are having names added and the large whiteboard is being decorated welcoming everyone.

One of the Bees I designed with the help of 5th graders. We made about 50 or 60 of these.

You have to throw a few "Bee" puns in there!

6:00pm: The registration lists are almost done. The bulk of the committee is sent home, leaving only a few of us to finish up.

7:00pm: Lori and I start to print registration lists and volunteer schedules. The printer is a little slow.

7:45pm: We are still printing our lists.

8:15pm: We finally finish up and grab our stuff to head out for the night.

8:45pm: Lori and I arrive at our apartment where our boys and a few other PCVs are starting to make dinner for us (and themselves- we aren't that special!)

10:30pm: An early night for all as tomorrow is the big day!

- Saturday -

6:25am: Early to bed, early to rise! Good morning!

6:55am: Phil makes Lori and I some oatmeal- this could be our only meal of the day, so we better make it count.

7:35am: Time to call the taxi and hope it can find our apartment. We can't be late today.

8:00am: We arrive at the college to double check everything is ready to go. Organize one last meeting before we open the doors of the Registration room to a hallway that is already packed with teachers and students.

Quick run-through of the day

8:15am: My registration volunteers arrive- many of them Peace Corps staff members. I know we will be off to a fantastic start as PC staff members are excellent problem solvers, work efficiently and quickly, and are so positive.

Phil and Evelina were partners in crime for the day. They worked registration together and judged together.

8:30am: Registration is open! My mini-me (next year's registration guru) Kaitlin has jumped right in directing people. It is clear she is the perfect person for the job.

Go Kaitlin!

8:45am: My earlier thoughts about Peace Corps staff at registration are proven correct. They are all so positive telling every kid good luck. While only one of them speaks Albanian, the others write themselves a cheat sheet so they can speak to the students in both Macedonian and Albanian.

9:00am: Someone has thrown up in the bathroom. Good thing our trusty maintenance man from last night is on duty again and left me with his phone number.

9:45am: Grade 5 registration is almost complete. The time flew by. We are ready to start grade 6.

10:15am: A late bus has arrived. The grade 5 Mini-Bees have already started- time to improv. I grab a few PCVs and an Albanian speaker and we hold a Mini-Bee for the four 5^th graders on that bus in the volunteer room.

11:10am: Grade 5 Mini-Bees are underway and Grade 6 Mini-Bees are about to start. We have a slight break at registration. I didn't even realize what time it was as the registration room was so busy. Despite having almost 600 kids and their teachers come through our doors to register, it seemed so calm compared to last year. Clearly good organization!

6th graders from my school waiting to compete

11:12am: I discover what Phil had been hiding from me for the last few minutes.

Thank you for all your help inmate 182.

11:45am: Ahh! We have opened registration up for grades 7 and 8, which means almost 600 kids to get through in an hour and a half. Can we do it?

1:00pm: We all survived and just in time. My entire staff will now change over as only the high schoolers have yet to register.

1:10pm: The 5^th grade Bee is still going on and using rooms that we need for the 7^th and 8^th graders. Time to make some more last minute adjustments. A quick hallway meeting will help solve this issue.

This is a posed photo. But we really did have a meeting at that point.

1:40pm: The 7^th grade Bees were supposed to have already started, but those 5^th graders are still spelling! We are out of materials and rooms and have 100 7^th graders and their teachers standing around the halls waiting to be told what to do and where to go.

1:50pm: The 5^th grad Bee finally finishes! They ended up spelling words off of the 8^th grade word list!

Lori and our 2nd place winner

2:00pm: Finally the 7^th grade Mini-Bees are all started. I can breathe now and go back and check on registration.

2:15pm: My counterpart found me and we had time to take a quick photo.

Apparently the cool thing to do here is take photos at an angle.

2:45pm: My phone rings for the billionth time today. It's the Peace Corps Macedonia Country Director. He will be arriving shortly and wants to know where I will meet him to show him around.

2:50pm: Our photographers are everywhere.

Thanks for all the photos Aaron!

Part of the Kamenica group hanging out

Demir Hisar/Zhvan is in representing!

Everyone has time to pose for a photo.

One school arrived in matching shirts they had made for the Bee.

Certificates are a big deal in Macedonia. This year we introduced Grade-Level Finalist ones in addition to the Participant ones. Thanks Friends of Macedonia for helping us fund these.

3:00pm: I meet the Country Director and escort him into the 8^th grade Final Bee. I point out to him where the Ministry of Education officials are sitting. We stand and observe the 8^th grade Final Bee.

3:20pm: The judges are debating on whether a student spelled “survey” correct or not. They ask the student for clarification, but he is unsure of what is being asked. I step in and confirm that the word was written correctly.

3:25pm: I run down to registration to check in one more time. Kaitlin has everything under control.

3:35pm: I head back up to the 8^th grade Final Bee.

3:37pm: A student spells a word incorrectly. His teacher starts throwing a fit about how the word her student received wasn't fair, that it was much harder than the rest of the words. I step in and explain that these are hard words (the 8^th graders are now spelling words from the high school lists) but they have been published two months in advance so the students could all have studied them and that the words each student is given are completely randomized. The teacher yells back throwing a fit. The Country Director steps in and politely asks her to leave. She leaves in a huff. No one is sure what to do. I tell the judges to just continue.

3:45pm: Thank goodness Stephen was there. I am not a huge fan of confrontation like that.

3:50pm: The 8^th grade Bee finishes. The awards are presented by our Country Director and Ministry of Education officials. Congratulations to the winners.

3:58pm: The room is emptied and Erin and I start cleaning, getting the room all ready for when the Ambassador arrives for the Year 3 and 4 Bee.

4:15pm: The room is ready to go and we start to let in the contestants.

4:25pm: Erin gets everyone lined up and ready to go while I go meet the Ambassador and his wife.

4:30pm: I am waiting at the entrance to the building with our UACS contact and a photographer for the Ambassador, but he is no where in site.

4:31pm: Phil calls saying he is with the Ambassador. Where are we? (They went in a different door).

4:33pm: We fly up the stairs and run down the hall and I catch up with the Ambassador. I thank him for coming and make some small talk.

4:35pm: We all sit down and the Bee starts.

Just hanging out with the Ambassador

5:30pm: The competition is still fierce.

5:45pm: The students switch over to the secret bonus list that no one outside of the committee has seen. This will now test their spelling abilities, rather than their memorizing abilities.

6:10pm: The competition is even harder. Words like “smithereens” and “liaison” are being read.

6:24pm: And we have a winner! The winning word was “celestial”.

6:26pm: The Ambassador makes a speech thanking everyone and reading off some pretty outstanding numbers:

- We had about 6000 total students participate at the local level.

- Of those 6000, almost 1400 qualified for the National Bee.

- There were over 90 Local Qualifying Bees held in 60 different towns and villages, and approximately 130 different schools.

Presenting the award to the Year 3 and 4 winner

6:35pm: The Ambassador chats with some PCVs and locals while the committee does the final clean up.

6:50pm: The clean up is all done. We head outside to take a team photo (or what is left of the team).

What a FANTASTIC group!

7:00pm: A little celebration!

7:10pm: Someone suggested we do a jumping photo. Ugh oh....

Finally!

7:35pm: We arrive back at the apartment where Stephen has cooked us another fantastic meal- homemade burgers. Best burger I have had in Macedonia.

7:40pm: Phil and Aaron treat Lori and I to some rum and cokes to celebrate the completion of a very successful event.

8:45pm: Lori and I lock ourselves in one of the bedrooms and sort through all of the paper we brought home from the Bee, hoping to leave a bunch of it in Skopje. We are almost ready to call it a night.

9:30pm: Lori and I finish our work for the night.

A complete set of photos from the event can be viewed on Facebook by clicking here.