It was mid-way through fourth grade when my homeroom teacher announced to the class the date of the annual school spelling bee. I remember sitting at my desk today feeling burdened with yet another academic responsibility, something else to eat up my free time. Little did I know that years later I would look back on that competition that I would win as one of the biggest achievements of my life.

I was always an avid reader, even back in elementary school. I would devour books, sometimes going through hundreds of pages in one sitting. As a result, I became familiar with the mechanics and tendencies of the English language. Since I was reading above my level, I expanded my vocabulary greatly to one that was more than capable of matching some of the older students. Even with this advantage, however, I knew that I still had much work to do if I was going to be able to compete. I pored over the comprehensive study sheet provided by the school for an entire month. I studied which words had origins in which languages, similarities and trends, outliers and exceptions. Once my parents and siblings saw that I was serious about the bee they helped me in my revision, quizzing me regularly. When I sought to share pointers with my peers, however, I found that most considered the spelling bee an unimportant extracurricular and were not preparing for it. This led me to question myself and wonder whether I was overpreparing, but I had put in too much effort for my motivation to be killed off when the competition was so near.

The morning of the spelling bee was brisk and damp, perfect for masquerading the chills that were running down my spine. After attendance was called, the entire class was ushered into the spacious gymnasium where the bee would be held. We joined hundreds of students from grades four to eight, all lined up along the perimeter of the gym. After the three judges concluded the announcements and formalities, the contest was underway. A surprising amount of students were being knocked out in the first round, as the bulk of the uninterested student body was eliminated by fairly simple words. Progress was simultaneously excruciatingly slow but exceedingly fast. Eventually, my turn came and I was tasked with spelling the word jealousy. Easily enough, I progressed to the next round. The second round was much of the same, albeit much quicker as the contestants had been reduced by half. The difficulty of the words increased as a steady stream of defeated figures slumped off the makeshift stage. By the seventh round, the entire student body had been whittled down to three final contenders.

We made an odd trio standing there, with two greenhorn fourth graders and the outspoken and popular eighth grader. I watched in trepidation as he too was eliminated, leaving me and my classmate to duke it out for the gold.

“Wow,” began the main judge, smiling at the two of us. “This is the first time a fourth-grader will ever win the spelling bee here at our school.”

I eyed up my opposition. The one who had survived to this junction was none other than Jennifer, my academic rival and nemesis. A better script could not have been written. The judge threw me curveballs with each difficult word, but my practice paid off and I stayed in the fight. Jennifer and I were locked in a stalemate before our nerves got the better of us, slipping up on words like hippopotamus and photosynthesis. After what must have been the twelfth or thirteenth round, I was given the word orthodox. I couldn’t believe my luck.

I cleared my throat and nearly shouted, “Orthodox. O-R-T-H-O-D-O-X. Orthodox.”

The judge smiled and said slowly and dramatically, “That is correct”.

My own screams of joy were drowned out by the roar of all the boys in school, who had apparently made me the figurehead of our team in the petty rivalry between genders. I was swept up by the crowd and was treated like a king for the rest of the day, and I commanded a certain respect around the school for a week.

In the grand scheme of things, this was not my most impressive achievement by a long shot. In the years since then, I’ve accomplished more meaningful and impactful things than winning a school spelling bee. That being said, this win helped pave the way for future success. It taught me to stay focused on whatever I was working on and see it through to the end. I also learned that what most other people are doing is not always right. This independence of thought and action was a critical milestone in my life, and I’m glad that I reached it early.