At this time, I would like to tell you about my journey in ALSA UI E-Comp. Honestly, this is my first time to join in the national competition. I personally like to join an English competition, so when I saw there was an announcement from ALSA UI E-Comp (English Competition), I eager to join it. ALSA UI E-comp is an English competition which held annually by Law Faculty at the University of Indonesia at Depok, West Java. This is one of the prestigious competition in Indonesia, and it’s a big event. The one who can join in this competition is an undergraduate student or senior high school student. There are 8 branches competition in this ALSA UI E-Comp. They are story telling, speech, debate, spelling bee, newscasting, paper presentation, the battle of brain, and *Model United Nation (MUN) *for senior high school only.
The reason why I choose spelling bee branch, it because I want to know it further, since the last time I joined is when I was in senior high school. Spelling bee is a competition which to test your skill in terms of spell the words which given by the speaker (usually native speaker). The purposes of this competition are to train the attentiveness in listening to the words and our accuracy in spelling the words, enrich our vocabularies, and enhance our ability in writing and pronouncing English words. It can base on oxford dictionary (use British accent) or longman or Merriam-webster dictionary (or another dictionary which use American accent). In this time, I should use based on the oxford dictionary one. I make my own preparation since D-30 or approximately 1 month before the competition begin. It was tough enough, cause you can imagine how many words that put in the dictionary. Then I should memorize it! No, we as a human being can not remember that million or even billion words, right. Moreover, I don’t familiar enough with the British accent, cause I mostly use the American one. But I tried my best to do it.
The preparation began. I tried to open the oxford dictionary from the first page. I’m not only tried to spell the word by myself, but I also learned the phonetics of each word. Sometimes I repeated it more than 1 more time. I made my target that everyday I have to memorize and spell 10 words (minimum) until 20 words. I also asked my friend to become the speaker of the word, then I would try to spell it. On the ext day, I tried to download the spelling bee videos, then I watched it. I also installed the spelling bee game. Ya, that's what I did everyday. Memorize the words, spell the words, watched the spelling bee videos, and also played the spelling bee game. So when I did nothing in the campus, I use my earphone, then I listened to the words which spell by the speaker in the game, then I must type what the speaker said. That was the spelling bee game, which has approximately 20 rounds. Maybe you will think that it was bored. Me too, hahaha. But sometimes when I felt it, I remembered that I have to struggle, and I remembered that the rivals must be “crazy” since it was a national level. The one who makes me feel the spirit is my family, since UI is located at Depok, so I can go home! Exactly it’s located in Jakarta, and it takes 1 hour or 2 hours (if there is traffic jam) to Depok.
Day by day, until 1 week left (D-7), I’m getting frustrated, since there are so many “weird” and “crazy” words. Let me give you the example, “hydrophyte”, “exaggerate”, “symmetry”, “repertoire” etc. Maybe you will think that “symmetry” is simple enough, but it’s tricky when we saw that there is double “m”. It also happens to “repertoire”, the way you read it must be “repetwa”, or “exhausted”, the way you read it must be “igzost”. So the one who makes I confuse enough is the comparison from the way I read, to the letters of each word. For example like “ph” become “f”, like “catastrophe”, “g” become “j”, like “general”, “u” become “e”, like “urge”, “x” become “gz”, like “exhausted” which I already mentioned before. But sometimes some of them only happened in some words maybe. Sometimes some words can be “silent ‘t’,silent ‘p’, silent ‘k’” etc, which there is a letter or more that we don't have to read it, but if we write it, it is there. Dictionary is my friend which I always bring everyday, the one who always made my day!
D-day has come. On 20th April 2016, I have to go to Jakarta, and the next day, I must do the re-registration at UI Depok. I follow the opening ceremony, and it was great! I also can expand my friend networking, I knew the participants from UGM, UNDIP, BINUS, UNHAS, etc. The first day was just the opening ceremony and the technical meeting. For the spelling bee branch, it was held on April 25th, 2016. I already tried as possible as I can, so it’s time for me to give my best performance. There are 4 rounds in this branch competition. At the first round, we were given 100 words by the native speaker. Each word will be repeated only 2 times, and after that, we had to write it down on the paper that provided by the committee. It was over, and the announcement had come. I got a chance to continue to the 2nd round. At this time, we had to spell it directly. Each participant will be given 5 words from the native speaker, and we had to spell it out afterward. Each participant will be given 30 seconds to think and spell each word. Less time we spend, more score we got. So, if we can spell it with 0-5 seconds, we got 20 points. If we can spell it with 6-10 seconds, we got 15 points, and so on, until if we spend more than 30 seconds, it means that we got no points or zero.
This is the embarrassing moment I ever had, because there are no words which I can spell correctly. Actually, I can spell 3 words correctly, but I almost do it! So I only make a mistake in 1 letter, but even if just 1 fault in 1 letter, a mistake still a mistake. It has the same case when you were given a question like ‘2x3’, the correct answer is 6, but you answer it 5,9. Ya, don't care how close it is, but it still a mistake. Ah, maybe I got nervous at that time, and also I was in a rush. So I want to answer it quickly in order I can get the big point, but I didn’t spell it carefully hehe. I thought it was okay. Maybe this is not my chance yet. Right, almost is never enough. I also said it to my older sisters and brothers, and they said it was fine, because I already struggle enough, and I tried my best. Keep calm, I didn’t give up just like that, because I think there are so many competitions which I can try in.
So far, I felt happy and excited for joined in this ALSA UI E-Comp 2016. I got some friends, unforgettable experiences, and many more. I also learned that, do something fast is okay, or even good, but please still pay attention to it, otherwise I will mess everything up. I should say to you that, do not ever give up, cause you are still young, and there are so much experiences which you have to try.
