Vismaya Kharkar - Salt Lake Valley Champion (2011 and 2012)

Speller #254 - Vismaya Kharkar has participated in the Salt Lake Valley Spelling Bee since 2009 and has done amazing all those years, including 2011 and 2012. I do not remember what word she misspelled in 2009, but in 2010 I do not remember what happened with sarsaparilla, but there was some confusion with the word.

During the 2010 Salt Lake Valley Spelling Bee I remember when she received the word Qatari, she turned to the pronouncer and asked something like, "If the word has a capital letter, do you have to say that it is capital?" She knew it, and I remember another of her words was cheka.

After that Bee my mom said that Vismaya would make it to nationals one day, do outstanding, and possibly win.  She has made it to nationals, done outstanding, and all she needs to do now is win. Now that she is out of the Bee for this year, she can start studying for next year. Utah has never had a champion, but it is possible that she may be first. Her fellow Utah spellers: #252 - Jared Ward and and #253 - Sophie Choate may be back next year.

Salt Lake Valley Champions and Winning Words:
2009: Henry Korous (precocious)
2010: Miranda Hulsey (plutonium)
2011: Vismaya Kharkar (infarction)
2012: Vismaya Kharkar (aberrant)

2011 National Spelling Bee

• Round 2: maillot
• Round 3: affianced

2012 National Spelling Bee

• Round 1: kielbasa
• Round 2: Requiem
• Round 4: dysthymia
• Round 5: allothogenic
• Round 6: pissaladiere (pisaladierre)

No speller from Utah has done this well. Last year, Anna-Marie Sprenger made it to Round 5 before misspelling privatim as privatum, but there is an actual word in Latin spelled privatum, which has a similar meaning ("not openly or in public")

Good luck to the Nine Championship Finalists tonight!

Update on June 1, 2012: http://m.sltrib.com/sltrib/mobile2/54218048-218/kharkar-national-bee-spelling.html.csp

Semifinals Updates/Championship Finalists

I am at school right now in a class where we seem to be doing nothing, so I have been following the results of the Bee, because I do not have access to ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN3 here.

cephalalgia - "headache" or "pain in the head" (It has the Greek to Latin combining form cephal- meaning head. I remember this word, because it was used in the 2002 Documentary Spellbound.
hinoki
phalarope (phallorope)
stochastically
projicient
berserker
oxyacetylene
drosophilia
cicatrize
proselytizer
intravitam
coulisse
endergonic
nefast
cassideous
nephropathy
freddo (fredo)
cancrivorous
ditokous
polyptych
mumpsimus
carpophore
attermine
ergastulum
sylloge (syllogy)
pidan
tendenz (tendentz)
sciophyte (sciaphyte)
toxophilite
frore
caryatid
exergue
douceur
mephitis
stannum
pratincolous (pretincolous)
bacitracin
monocotyledon (This word was used in my Biology class)
victorine
cataphract
enthymeme 
survigrous (servigrous)
catallatics
phlogistic
tondino
cochineal
pleurodynia (pleuradynia)
podilegous (podilogous)
dysthymia (Go, Vismaya!)
habendum


I will stop at those words for now, because I have to go to my next class.

Update: Vismaya is headed to Round 6. This is Utah's best!
Her words:
Round 4: dysthymia
Round 5: allothogenic


Unfortunately, Vismaya misspelled pissaladiere as pisaladierre. Congratulations, Vismaya! I hope you make it back to nationals next year! This is the best Utah has done at the Scripps National Spelling Bee, ever! Rahul Malayappan, Vanya Shivashankar, Grace Remmer, and Nabeel Rahman were also eliminated in earlier rounds, and they were also high contenders to win.


Apparently Rounds 5 and 6 were the killer rounds this year.

Here are the Championship Finalists (9) - that is the least there has been, but these spellers are really strong!:

Speller #19 - Snigdha Nandipati (San Diego, California) - She always seems to be confident under pressure.
Speller #30 - Frank Cahill (Parker, Colorado) - This may be his first year, but he has been impressive.
Speller #44 - Stuti Mishra (West Melbourne, Florida) - She is a semifinalist from last year, and she may win or have a very high ranking.
Speller #89 - Gifton Wright (Spanish Town, Jamaica) - His manners are impressive, and he seems to be very confident. If he wins, he will be the second Jamaican and the second speller from a different country to win the National Spelling Bee (1998 - Jody-Anne Maxwell from Jamaica)
Speller #136 - Jordan Hoffman (Lee's Summit, Missouri)
Speller #162 - Arvind Mahankali (Bayside Hills, New York) - Keep in Mind: Only 2011 Championship Finalists Remaining!!!!
Speller #193 - Nicholas Rushlow (Pickerington, Ohio) - He finally made it to Championship Finals after all this time! He is the only five-peat remaining in the Bee.
Speller #213 - Lena Greenberg - The constant motion seems to calm her down.

Good luck and congratulations, everyone! I will be posting tonight!

Round 1 Words Out/Semifinals

Spellers had to get at least 23 points to advance to semifinals, and fifty spellers will be heading to semifinals.    http://cdn.spellingbee.com/bee/round_one.pdf. I read in a news article that Vanya Shivashankar was the only speller to get a perfect score.

Semifinals will commence at 10:00 A.M. Eastern Time, and it will be nerve-wracking. Although I am not competing, I feel as if I am going to faint. As I was working on advanced assignments, I was sweating, and I got very dizzy. 

There may be many favorites this year, but I have no idea who will win. 

Possibilities of the Champion

Five-Peats and Four Peats: #31 - Rahul Malayappan and #193 - Nicholas Rushlow; #49 - Rachael Cundey, #79 - Gina Solomito, and #94 - Emily Keaton

2011 National Spelling Bee Finalists: #155 - Nabeel Rahman and #162 - Arvind Mahankali (highest returning finisher from last year)

Canadians: #25 - Jennifer Mong and #27 - Mignon Tsai

Spellers Who Were One Round Off of Making it to Championship Finals: #40 Grace Remmer, #42 Vaidya Govindarajan

Others - #19 - Snigdha Nandipati, #44 - Stuti Mishra, #66 - Pranav Sivakumar, #89 - Gifton Wright, #92 - Vanya Shivashankar, #185 - Sunny Levine, #237 - Chetan Reddy, #213 - Lena Greenberg #254 - Vismaya Kharkar, and #264 - Jae Canetti

I am almost sure that one of these spellers will win! Perhaps there may be co-champions! Good luck to the remaining fifty spellers!

Semifinalists Announced/Recap on Preliminaries

After two grueling rounds today, semifinalists have been determined!

There are fifty semifinalists, and that is a first in such as very long time!
http://internal.spellingbee.com/files/spellingbee.com/semifinalists.pdf

This is Utah's second year advancing to semifinals, and the first time a speller from the Salt Lake Valley has gone this far! Go Vismaya Kharkar! She has competed in the Salt Lake Valley Spelling Bee since it first began in 2009. I think she placed ninth her first year, sixth the second year, and she finally made it in 2011 and 2012). Last year she did not advance to semifinals, but one of her fellow Utah spellers did.

Both five-peats, Nicholas Rushlow and Rahul Malayappan advanced to semifinals.

Two of three Canadians: Jennifer Mong and Mignon Tsai will be on stage tomorrow.

Two of three 2011 Championship Finalists: Nabeel Rahman and Arvind Mahankali will be vying for that trophy.

Vanya Shivashankar will be heading to semifinals! She is the sister of 2009 Champion, Kavya Shivashankar!

There is one speller who is at the national bee for his first time: Jae Canetti. He did very well in 2010 (fourth) and 2011 (second) at his local bee, and he finally came to nationals this year! He started competing as a second grader, and he was also in the same local bee as Tim Ruiter back in 2010. Tim tied for second at the 2009 National Spelling Bee which made him a favorite to win in 2010, even if he did not.

I also have to congratulate Speller #238, as well, because she commented on my blog on one of my posts. Congratulations, Abigail Spitzer, and good luck tomorrow!

Preliminaries Recap

I was only able to watch the first half of Round 2 before heading to school. During my first period today, we did not do anything, so I followed the results on the Bee website. There were many known words, but there were some I had never heard of before. A lot of the words came from Spell It! apparently, then the rest came from the Sponsor Bee Guide. I am about to watch the replays of the Bee, but I will post on what I had while I was watching.

Before one of the spellers received her word, there was a long pause. That must have been very nerve-wracking for her, but she got through her word flawlessly, and she will be going to semifinals!

The sentences were pretty hilarious this year. One of them was with the word irrepressible. "...irrepressible urge to shout "Hi, Mom and Dad!"

I have been impressed with the Jamaicans at the National Spelling Bee. Every single speller from there has had amazing manners, such as "Please" and "Thank You, Sir". Great job on keeping that up, Gifton Wright, and good luck tomorrow!

Great job, Vanya on using your knowledge of roots on debellation!

Since I'm from Utah, I should post the words the the spellers from my state spelled in Rounds 2 and 3.

Round 2:
Jared Ward: etesian
Sophie Choate: mellifluous
Vismaya Kharkar: kielbasa


Round 3:
Jared Ward: rayonnant
Sophie Choate: amniocentesis 
Vismaya Kharkar: Requiem 


I was just watching speller #126 in Round 3 when he received the word idiosyncratically. When he realized that he misspelled the word, he just started to mix in a bunch of random letters and numbers. That is the best mess-up I have ever seen so far in all the years of the Bee! This was what he spelled: i-o- (he knew he messed up) q-r-s-z-3-4 (he said cuatro) - f-l-v-r-q. I think this is funnier than sardoodledom!
Good luck to the fifty spellers heading to semifinals tomorrow!

Round 1 Test/Rounds 2 and 3

Many of you, spellers, have completed the Round 1 Test, but some of you have not even taken the test yet. It is very nerve-wracking to wait, but remain calm and relax. Remember that once you are finished with the test, you must not tell other spellers the words, because you may be eliminated. The same goes for school: Do not tell other students who have not taken the test what is going to be on it, or else it will result in a zero (at least at my school). One 25 of the 50 words will be chosen as score words.

Rounds 2 and 3
You will be facing the lights, cameras, and audience tomorrow, but do not worry. All you need to do is block out all the distractions around you, and focus on the word. Make sure you look presentable and clean, because you will be in front of the cameras. Do not bite your nails, run your fingers through your hair, etc.

When you get your word, make sure you ask the questions you can ask. These words will come from the Sponsor Bee Guide List you were given and Spell It! If you misspell a word, the bell will not ring, but Dr. Bailly will provide the correct spelling for you. Each word spelled correctly in these rounds are three points.

After Rounds 2 and 3, semifinalists will be announced. Rounds 1, 2, and 3 can total up to 31 points. No more than fifty spellers will be named semifinalists. Last year only forty-one spellers advanced to semifinals.

I do not want to put a lot of pressure on any of you, but remember to be confident while you are spelling. Good luck!

Round 1 Test, Tomorrow!

I know today is the barbecue, but tomorrow is the notorious Round 1 Test! From what I've heard, it is computerized this year.

1. Make sure you read a lot tonight, because those words may appear on the test.
2. There are fifty words on the test, but only twenty-five will go to your full score (combined with Rounds 2 and 3). This score will determine if you advance to semifinals or not.
3. Relax and listen to the word. Pay attention to the pronunciation, and read all the information.
4. If you do not know how to spell a word, make your best guess using your knowledge of patterns.
5.You can go back to a word and change it.
6. After the test, do not talk about the words to the other spellers, because this may cause elimination.

Here is the test from last year to help you practice: http://spellingbee.com/sample-test

Good luck!

Five-Peats, and Possibly Six-Peats and Seven-Peats!/Do Not Underestimate What a Young Child Can Do

What does it take to be a five-peat? A lot of diligence, dedication, and time and effort. Not very many spellers become five-peats. This year, Nicholas Rushlow and Rahul Malayappan are the first five-peats since 2008, and both of them said that it is a lot of hard work! For example, Nicholas said that he spent hours studying, and ever since his first year in 2008, he never took a break from studying.

In a few years, we will probably see six-peats and seven-peats. Lori Madison (Age 6) is the youngest speller in the history of the Bee. This proves that you should not underestimate what a young child can do.

It is not just Lori, but others, as well. Sriram Hathwar was the other record holder before Lori, and he did very well his first year, even if he did not advance to semifinals. His second year, he was able to advance to semifinals, then he missed 2010, but he improved his ranking in 2011 tying for sixth. Unfortunately, he will not be heading to nationals this year, but we hope to see him in the upcoming years.

Other than the spellers, you may have seen Andrew Johnston on Britain's Got Talent and Jackie Evancho on America's Got Talent. They are amazing and beautiful singers, and they both placed very high. Someone younger than you can do better than you, but age does not matter.

Good luck!