Post date: May 29, 2010 10:32:19 PM
So it is the spring our Junior year and a lot of us are taking the qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarships. As I recall our class had a number of finalists. In any event given the makeup of Bowen at the time a lot of the kids taking the test are Jewish. As we work through the vocabulary part, one of the words is “kibitzer,” a Yiddish word that has worked its way into English. This is a word that all of the Jewish kids, and I guess many of the non-Jewish ones as well, though I cannot be sure, have heard their parents use. In any event, every so often a chuckle breaks out in the room and I am sure it is another kid running a word that certainly no-one could have expected to find on the NMSQT. At least it let you judge how quickly you were going through the list relative to others, and provided a healthy release of tension.
Mark Weinstein