Monthly Mash-Up for January, 2015: Spelling Bees and How Movie and TV Watching Has Changed

Me - My topic for this month is spelling bees. In fourth grade, I won the class spelling bee. I remember  I won with the word kindergarten. My sister was in kindergarten at the time. That's how I knew how to spell it. I got into the school spelling bee. Only fourth and fifth graders were in the spelling bee. I lost on the word thermos. The speech teacher who was not a very good speaker was giving the words. Everyone misunderstood what she was saying which was pretty much how a lot of people including me got eliminated from the spelling bee. I thought she said thermal. After that, I did not make it into the school spelling bee until this year. Although one year, I was absent on the day of the class spelling bee because I had poison ivy. This year they gave us a written test and then chose the four best spellers from each community in my middle school. I was one of the four from my community. We had a spelling bee right after winter break. I was really nervous and literally almost threw up. After I got my first word right, I started thinking about things that are important to me or that I love. I calmed down a little bit and didn't feel like I was going to throw up anymore, but I was still nervous and my heart was beating so hard that it was actually hurting my chest. Every time, I got a word right I was shocked because all the words were super hard. I got the word "exonerate" right, and my jaw dropped. In the final round when there were seven people left, I got out on a word that I don't even remember.  My friend was the only one who got her word right. Then when she got to the final round where it was just her, she got her word wrong. They brought the six of us back. The same exact thing happened that round. The second time they brought the six of us back me and my friend got our words right so one of us would win and one of us would be the runner up. We kept going back and forth and back and forth. I made it to the one word round twice. Finally, my friend won. I was really glad because she is a much better speller than me. Also, I knew that if she hadn't won, I would have. If I almost got sick just competing in front of a few classes and parents, I would never be able to compete in the Regionals.

Mom - My topic for this month is how movie and TV watching has changed since I was a kid. When I was a young you either saw a movie when it was in the movie theater or maybe you saw it if it played on TV. However, if you didn't see it one of those places. You didn't see it at all. You certainly couldn't own a movie and/or watch it over and over again. I used to think it would be great to own a movie and watch it when ever you want. Sometimes, it is still hard for me to believe that now we can do just that even though it has been that way for a lot of years already. My grandfather bought us our first VCR when I was in high school. He got it for me to tape soap operas on because at the time I was into watching soaps, and my favorite was on when I was still in school. It was very primitive.  You could only set it to record one thing at a time. I don't even think it had a fast forward only a rewind. Nowadays, DVR's are incredibly advanced. You not only can  fast forward recorded TV, you can rewind live TV. You can not only set things at least a week in advance or more,  you can even record numerous things at once and/or watch recordings in more than one room regardless of where they are actually recorded. I rarely ever watch anything when it is on anymore. I record it and watch when I want to. A lot of people don't even watch on  a TV at all anymore. They watch on-line on their computer, laptop, tablet or whatever. Personally, I  think watching on a computer, laptop or maybe even a tablet is okay, but I would not want to watch on a screen as small as an mp3 or a watch.  Anyway, if TV technology has come that far already I can't even imagine what they'll come up with in the future.

And that's our view. What's on your mind?

Tune in tomorrow for Tips for Tuesday.