[emilywll]

The greatest part of the national competition is hearing all the different accents and slang words from around the country, or rather the world.

I have never really thought of myself as having an accent, being from upstate New York. Turns out I had quite a few people tell me that I spoke funny! Kids from the South, Midwest, Canada, even Long Island and the Northeast all told me how nasal my voice was. Upon consideration, I really can tell how different we all sound even though we all speak the same language. None of us talk funny, or weird or strange, just different.

But I do have to say that the Canadian accent had to have been the most entertaining (aboot and aye being my personal favorites).

FIRST is all about acceptence and I am glad that I learned to accept and enjoy people's differences.