It was another warm day today.
I spent all evening at Hilary's with Harriet, doing our pile of homework and grilling her on the words to help her prepare for tomorrow's district spelling bee -- which means she'll probably miss most of the school day. The spelling bee will have sixth graders from all over the area, including those from Riverside Academy across town. Harriet tells me their spellers win every year.
Hilary came to Adams in January, after the Christmas holidays, transferring from Riverside, I've learned. She's told us that most of the girls there are exactly like Meredith, Madisyn, and Marisa, and she left because her mom lost her job and they could no longer afford the tuition (it's $8000 a year to go!). She had a best friend but she and that friend have grown apart. But Hilary's also mentioned something else. Her parents are getting a divorce and she might have to move. One place that's been mentioned is California. The strange thing about this is, I don't want her to leave.
Now, this coming Saturday is Hilary's birthday, and she'll turn twelve. I have no idea what to do, if anything. She is a friend but I can't say I know her that well, even though we work together on student council, as she's the rep who replaced me when I became class president.
When we got to Hilary's house, I noticed she had Kat's Kirsten doll and 'meet' book with her. Apparently she's borrowing them.
So, we're going over all the words on the master list, and I asked her how come she knew how to spell so many of them.
"I used to take dictionaries with me to bed at night," she said. "I love words."
Then I asked her if she wanted to write or something, and she had a strange answer. She wanted to become someone who studies the origins of words. "An etymologist," she smiled. "My mom thinks I'm pretty weird."
I guess my group, we're all pretty 'weird' in our own way.
4 comments:
Weirdness is cool, don't you think? We definitely have our quirks here.
I hope Hilary does well at the spelling bee! Laura says she won her 5th grade spelling bee, but then misspelled a word at the county spelling bee--a word that, for me, as a French girl, is so easy to spell: ennui. However, Laura was just 11 and didn't really know French, so I can't really blame her for not knowing how to spell it.
Actually, I'm full of ennui--that is, boredom--right now. I should go to bed.
I don't do very well in spelling bees. I get nervous, and it's easier for me to spell words that I'm writing out on paper than trying to visualize in my head. I'm a visual learner; I have to see what I'm learning in order to learn and memorize it easily.
I'm glad it's getting warm there! It's still cold here, and it's raining, which I hate!
I'm a good speller but I'm not great. I go by sound. I'm more of a better writer to be honest. Anyway it looks like time to write myself a new blog entry.
Good luck to Hilary in the spelling bee!! I would be horrible at something like that. I freeze up. And I also hope she doesn't have to move. That's never fun. I live in California too, so trust me, there's really nothing all that great about being here.
And weird is a good thing. =)
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