I competed at my school spelling bee in El Paso and won for my first spelling bee. I'm 11 and made it to the regional spelling bee. I was stumped on the 1st round with the word isobar and was eliminated. But I still have 3 years to compete so watch out D.C. I'm gonna make it to you one way or ANOTHER!

Coming from a country half a world away doesn’t mean this Bee doesn’t affect my life. In fact, I intended to participate a long time ago, but due to my country’s non-existent sponsor or something similar, I couldn’t make it here. I always wish I could go there, but thanks to this new technology called internet, everything has become possible, more possible than before.

"The patient has had a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy." I ponder the various Greek roots in my head. "Salpinx" means Fallopian tubes, “oophor” means ovary, and "ectomy" means removal. Without even googling this word, I know that this person has had both sets of Fallopian tubes and ovaries removed. As an emergency department scribe, I encounter many words derived from Greek and Latin roots, and I expect to see more as I enter a career in medicine.

In 1982, I was the spelling champion of Saginaw County, Michigan. Participating in the National Spelling Bee provided me with an invaluable early lesson in how to study a large amount of complex material in a short amount of time and, just as importantly, it taught me that hard work and focused attention can indeed pay off. I was always the type of kid who did much better at contests and standardized tests than I did in school, and being able to participate in the National Spelling Bee gave me a boost of confidence at a time in my life when I really needed that.

Every minute of the spelling bee taught me something new: how to stay calm under pressure, how to make friends instead of rivals, how to accept success and defeat, how much the support of my friends and family means, how people can be talented and gracious and dedicated all at once. It left me with one question, though - how do I deal with the loss of my spelling bee world?