High Maintenance Mom

The following is taken from an email from my brother.

As I'm sure you all know, today is the 78th Annual National Spelling
Bee (10am and 1pm EDT on ESPN). I want to make public my picks, mainly so I can brag about being right afterwards.

If you haven't watched the spelling bee before, it's really, really fun.

So, here they are, name, number, reason...
Katie Brown - 54 - third time participant, went from 48th in 2003 to 16th in 2004. Her star just keeps on rising and I think this is the year she brings it home.

Stacey-Ann Yanque Pearson - 94 - each year Jamaica picks one student to train with a professional coach for the entire year in anticipation of this event. The Jamaican representative usually places well, and Jamaican accents sound awesome when spelling out long words.

Vahibhav S. Vavilala - 81 - No other student in this or any other spelling bee I've watched has ever had a name that's so much fun to say outloud.

Maithreyi Gopalakrishnan - 36 - First, 3 million yogis can't be wrong. Secondly, her last name is the combination of Gopala and Krishna. Krishna is one of the most celebrated heroes in Hindu mythology and
the eighth incarnation of Visnu - the diety entrusted with the preservation of the world. I don't know what Gopala means, but it's part of a title to a song I like (in Sanskrit) so it probably means something like truth or justice. Either way, I think she's a good bet
to kick ass today.

Sharon Catigbac Mores Daughtery - 53 - This girl has performed on a professional hula dancing team for the past five years, so she's no stranger to the stage and the pressures that accompany it. She's adorable, and I like the second of her four names.

Those are my top five. The following two kids I've chosen solely on account of how much fun it would be to cheer for them by screaming their last names repeatedly - in contrast to Vavilala, whose last name
has a soothing effect.

Jessica Swignonski - 206
Calie Marie Gakstatter - 125

So there it is.

-Elie