Yep, this is just what it looks like. I am participating in an adult spelling bee!

Unlike the familiar school bees, for adults they have made several concessions: we have three person teams, we have 60 seconds to discuss the word and its spelling, and we have paper and pencils to write down what we agree to be correct.

Then the captain (me, in this case) goes to the microphone and reads the version we have agreed upon.

They did not, however, make any concessions in the difficulty level of the words!

Out of 20 teams, we came in sixth. Not too shabby, but next year we will do better!

The word we missed was "inoculate." We all agreed to spell it with two n's. Our friends in the audience, and John, and even the team which followed us, all agreed that they would've spelled it that way, too. (The next team was able to learn from our mistake, and they spelled it correctly.)

We lasted through about a dozen rounds, and it was all great fun. I really took it seriously and spent untold hours studying. We all agreed that we learned a lot during our studies.

The best part was the fact that the production netted about $6000 for the local Literacy Council, and will provide a number of college scholarships for adults who dropped out of high school but later achieved their GEDs. A good cause, I'm sure you will agree.