The Spelling Bee

When you are just months away from being senior in school you start remembering everything you did when you entered school, your first friends, your favorite teacher, etc. In this case I remember the first contest that I entered to win a medal.

I think I was in third grade and our English teacher told us that there was going to be a spelling bee and that all classes were going to participate and they would do elimination rounds until there were left only the best 3 students of each class. The winners from each section would compete in a final round during the cultural week in front of the whole school and our parents.  In my section I remember we were 28 kids and I got really nervous because in my class were the 3 smartest kids of all third grade. The elimination day finally arrived and everybody in the classroom was really excited about winning and classifying to the final and 3 so they could compete in cultural week. The teacher entered the classroom and she told everyone to stand up, after that she said a word and she told a girl to spell it correctly, I think it was an easy word but to a third grader I suppose it should’ve been really hard to spell correctly words that you don’t remember how are written, that girl misspelled the word so the teacher told her to sit down.

Everyone was nervous because we didn’t know what other words the teacher had prepared for that round. After spending a whole, 40 minutes, period in that we finally were only 10, the 3 kids that were really good, me and some other kids. Mrs. Montserrat, I remember that was her name, told someone to spell the word BUZZ , so that boy started spelling B-O-S-S  “that’s it” he said. The teacher told him that it was incorrect so he sat down and the pressure was increasing for the ones that were still stood up. Later that day we completed elimination round and me and two of the other kids passed to the final that was next week.  The teacher gave us a list with a lot of words that jury could possibly ask us in the contest, in that list was the word JUICE. I spent the rest of the week and the weekend studying that list because I wanted to win and I wanted to show everyone that I was even smarter than those 3 kids in my class. I studied that list as if my life depended on it. Finally it was Monday and the competition was at 10am in the school auditorium. A teacher came and told the finalists from my class that we have to go to the auditorium and wait for the competition to start. The moment finally arrived when I finally was in that place I realized that I was going to be a tough competition not only because we were the best kids but also because we were a lot, 24. 

The moment of the truth was here and we were guided to the auditorium and we entered in the main door so everyone was able to see us. I remember it was a really big crowd between parents and my classmates and kids from other grades. Went up on stage and there was a chair for each of us. The first kid was called “Maria Fernanda Samayoa please stand up” our teacher said. She spelled correctly her word so the teacher told her “sit down.” 

I was among the last kids waiting their turn to spell. A kid that was before me misspelled his word so it was my turn. I saw my dad, my mom and all my friends in front of me when I step up and went to the front of the stage. “Spell the word juice please” the teacher said, so I started “J-W-, no, no. what’s the definition” I asked and my teacher told me the definition, then I started again. I was really nervous because everyone was watching me and I had forgotten how to say the letter “u”. “J-E-W-S” I said, “no that’s incorrect” the teacher said. When I heard those three words I was devastated I could not believe that I failed in my first attempt. I was eliminated from the contest and with it my pride. After that I completely forgot about the contest a started talking with the other kids. Teachers told us to find our class and stay with them if he had already been eliminated. 

Later that day I went with my dad and I started to cry because I lost my chance to win the spelling bee and I really wanted to win it. When I got home from school I was very sad because I had lost the spelling bee.  My dad gave me a consolation prize so I could move on and forget that contest, but I can’t forget it because it was the first contest I entered.

My House

My grandmother’s house is a very big house. When you are in the street and you are approaching it you can notice it, because it’s different that the other houses. I lived there the first seven years of my life so is a place that I know very well. Now I am 17 years old and her house is still being in the same place, in the same street, but it does not feel the same house it was when I was 6 years old. I remember that the house has a very big garage where I used to play soccer there with my cousins until we could not play anymore. She has a relatively big patio with such an extensive variety of flowers (my grandmother has always liked flowers) like Bougainvillea s and other names that I cannot remember because it’s too complicated. In that patio there are also two trees one is a banana tree and the other one is a fig tree those trees have been there since I remember and they still there. The living room is very big with very comfortable furniture. My grandmother has always painted this living room with a white color that that is not pure white, I think   the color is ivory, but is a nice room to be in because it’s very quiet, also in the first floor there are three bedrooms. This are the rooms where I used to live in. the biggest one of the three is actually two rooms, because it has a little room next to it and it was always used as a small room where the T.V was and were I used to spend hours and hours playing videogames with my cousins too, this was my parents room. The room that is next to it was my room and it was kind of spooky because it’s very dark and you cannot see a thing when lights are turned off and it has a window that shows only a small room that we use to storage things so I have never liked that room. The room across the hall is pretty much the same as mine, but it has not the spooky window that mine has. The dining room is the first floor also and it has a wooden table with a glass top (that I have always been afraid of breaking) and a T.V where I used to watch my favorite shows when I returned from school. The kitchen is next to the dining room and next to it there is a corridor and there is where the washing machine is. The second floor has three more bedrooms and the biggest one with the bathroom next to it, was my grandparents room. The room that is next to that room was an empty room but it had a bed, it was very comfortable, and a closet. The last room is where my youngest uncle sleeps. It has a patio in the second floor too, but this one had a swing in the middle and I don’t remember if I ever used it because it was very small. My grandmother liked canaries and I remember that she had like 20 of them in a very big structure which had divisions for every of them to have their own individual place. Those canaries where part of my life because I grew up helping my grandmother to take care of them. Today I live in my own house with my parents and my sister and I go to my grandmother’s house once a month or with a little more frequency. The house is still the same structure, but everything has changed since i left. Now she rents one of the three bedrooms in the first floor to an old lady who is barely there to sleep. Almost a year ago a fire consumed the living room leaving it completely destroyed and the rest of the house was damaged because of the smoke so they had to make a lot of changes like changing the doors in the first floor so everything there changed a lot. I remember when I entered the living room after the fire that everything was burned in there and a I thought that a lot of things that I used to have there now were gone. In that living room there is a safe that belonged to my grandfather and it contains every single diploma and medal that I have won through my life. I remember that the safe was in the garage and it was like it nothing had happened there. So it made me think that everything would be okay. Now when I enter that living room is not the same as when I was 7 years old not only because of the fire but also because now it’s not the same place that I remember I feel something awful in the pit of my stomach because now I realize how things have changed.

A Soccer Game to Remeber

The first time you went to a party, your first day in school, and the first sports team you were in. These are events that you remember very well or at least you remember them over other memories you might have from your childhood. As a kid you will always remember the first time you played soccer, baseball or any other sport in a team. So this is the story of the first time I played with the school soccer team.  When I was 6 years old I entered the school soccer team and we entered Copa Colegio El Roble. It was a Monday that I remember I was playing soccer during recess with my friends when our trainer gathered the whole team and he told us that we were  going to enter Copa El Roble, which was next Saturday, and that he would give us our uniforms Friday before the game so we would not lose them.   When I returned home from school I told my mom that we were going to compete in a soccer cup next Saturday and I needed shoes to play and that our uniform would be given to us the Friday before the game. That night when my dad returned home I while we were having dinner I told him the news about the soccer game; he was so excited about it that he promised me to buy any pair of soccer shoes that I wanted. After that I went to bed and waited patiently for the week passed as quick as possible. Finally was Friday and the coach called the team to give the uniforms. I got the one with number 6 it was a red shirt  with the number in yellow in the back, shorts were dark blue and socks too, I still have this uniform in my wardrobe. After he gave us the uniforms he told us to keep them in our backpacks so we would not lose them, then he told us that the cup started at 10am and that we needed to be there at 9am to be in the opening ceremony. After that I returned home and I showed my mom the uniform she told me it was a nice uniform and she put it my closet and I started to play Pokémon Stadium in my Nintendo 64 to spare time. When I started to feel tired I went to bed and I fell asleep. It was Saturday morning and my dad woke me up early so we could go to the shop to get my shoes. It was a sunny day, perfect to play soccer, I ate breakfast and put on my uniform after that I get in the car with my mom, my dad and my little sister then we leave to the shop to buy my new shoes. We went to a mall named Peri-Roosevelt my dad told me and my mom to start walking to the sports shops while he tried to find a parking space, so we could avoid losing time. We entered several shops, but none of them had the shoes that I wanted and not even I knew what shoes I wanted, when my dad entered the shop that I was in with my mom he instantly found a nice pair of shoes that were the new brand of Adidas that was called Predator I liked those shoes as soon as my dad showed them to me. I tried them, but they were big, and the sales lady told us that we could use additional shoe templates to adjust the shoe size and it worked. When we left the mall to get to the cup we only had 1 hour to arrive on time for the opening ceremony and my dad had no idea of how to get to Colegio El Roble, after we spent 30minutes in the car asking for directions on how to get to that school we finally arrived. When we arrived I was amazed with that school because it was so big, but the most impressive thing was the soccer field. It had 5 soccer fields, four were small fields were for kids my age and the main field was huge the used with small goals they were able to divide it into 3 smaller fields. I found the coach and the team and he told us to make a line the opening ceremony was about to start. The ceremony finally started when a person with a mic pronounced a school name that school marched to the center of the field and it was amazing because everyone was looking you. It was a nice ceremony and after that it was our turn to play. We were going to play against Colegio Mcdermont. We won that game and then we won the championship.