Quick Fact Sunday, Volume 3

Fact: I'm unhealthily obsessed with the Scripps National Spelling Bee. 

I vividly remember watching a documentary, "Spellbound," in Mrs. Delebo's Honors English class in 9th grade, and completely falling in love with the world of the spelling bee. In elementary school, I was that weird child that never once got a word wrong in spelling...on Monday pre-tests...let alone on the final post-tests. I read around 10,000 pages a quarter in sixth grade. And I never got less than an A on any written assignment. In short, the spelling bee seemed right up my alley. 

These kids in the documentary, though? Totally different level. They trained hard, reading the dictionary, studying Greek and Latin, and even going so far as to learn other languages to better understand cognates and roots. I fell in love with their weird quirks and oddities...the kid who tried to eat the microphone, the way they tapped or spelled the words in the air...and competed to spell words right along with them. 

Last Thursday, Kelsie and I went to Rojo post-manicures for margaritas, and the spelling bee finals were on in the bar. Despite the fact that we were having a great conversation, I kept getting distracted, watching the TV over her shoulder and thinking with every word, "I could've spelled that!"

There were two winners this year, for the second year in a row...these 13 and 14 year olds actually spelled through the entire list of words. Gokul Venkatachalam and Vanya Shivashankar won, respectively, on the words "scherenschnitte" and "nunatak," and will each be taking home giant trophies and $35,000 toward college. How cute are they?!

I went home, started packing for Kansas, and streamed the preliminaries on my laptop...all four hours of them. While this may prove beyond a shadow of a hint of a facsimile of a doubt that I'm someday going to die alone with cats, let it be known: I didn't spell a single word wrong. 

Quick Fact Sunday, Volume 2

Fact: This trip is not the first time I've been to Paris. 

My first trip was actually pretty epic in that the scope, duration and ridiculousness of the trip was completely accidental. For our semester abroad's spring break, four friends and I decided to split our ten days between Tuscany, Barcelona, and Paris. After flight delays, a reroute to the South of France, and a train ride north, we missed Barcelona entirely and ended up with nearly a week to enjoy Paris! 

We dubbed ourselves "Team Hot Route" after a series of travel catastrophes and starting to wing it. Charlie, Coleen, Kate and Peter were great travel companions, and we had an absolute blast. Claire, Peter's girlfriend at the time, was kind enough to let us stay in her Paris flat in the 11th, so we experimented with cooking (and adventured through French grocery stores!) and bonded with the corner boulangerie's proprietor. 

We did the typical tourist destinations...the Louvre, Versailles, the Musee Rodin, and of course the Eiffel Tower...

...and also branched off the beaten path for nights of absinthe in the Latin Quarter and wandering Montmartre. 

This trip couldn't differ more from that trip to Paris...we were on tight student budgets, we had no tours or planned excursions, and flew by the seat of our pants...but that was half the fun and magic of the trip. I count myself extremely lucky to have memories of experiencing Paris as a 21-year old student...it's truly unlike any other way to travel. 

Quick Fact Sunday: Volume 1

Fact: My favorite color is yellow, and my favorite flowers are accordingly daffodils.

I get inordinately excited every spring when “daffodil season” arrives (usually right around my birthday, which is utterly serendipitous in every way, because who doesn’t love when timing works out perfectly like that?). It doesn’t matter where I am…college dorm room, flat in London, windowless busy season audit room, or any of my apartments thus far…I buy several dozen daffodils and fill every container I can find with them. They’re so cheerful! And they smell so fresh and green and springlike.

I’m a big fan of the “grow your own daffodils,” too. They’re tiny and adorable and basically foolproof. Whether I can keep them alive or not, however, is totally a different story.

One of the best days I’ve ever had was when I studied abroad in London in the spring of 2010 and our program offered a day trip to Oxford. My friends and I stumbled into the Oxford Botanic Gardens and discovered field upon open field of daffodils in bloom, right along the riverbank. We parked ourselves there for lunch al fresco and spent several blissful hours watching the punters on the river, listening to the Beatles (because, duh, let’s do every clichéd British thing ever), and admiring (or in my case, freaking out over) the flowers.

Sometimes I wish I loved the kind of flowers that are more readily available year-round—daisies, roses, I don’t know…but then daffodil season rolls around again and I fall in love, every year, without fail. I have to beg to disagree with Kathleen Kelly of “You’ve Got Mail” fame…daisies aren’t the friendliest flower. In my opinion, it’s daffodils, all the way.