A WEEK after she took the best speller crown in the secondary category of the RHB-New Straits Times Spell-It-Right (SIR) National Challenge, Bessima Jamal is still on cloud nine.

Since returning to her school SMK Lok Yuk Likas, Sabah, on Monday, the fifth-former has been inundated with congratulatory messages from friends, teachers and relatives, including her primary school teacher who first introduced her to public speaking.

“It’s been great but exhausting,” she says, adding that her win had yet to sink in — she has yet to open the box containing the new laptop she won, aside from cash and the individual trophy.

She has not thought much about what she would do with her RM6,000 prize money but intends to keep it until she gets to university where she hopes to study ophthalmology or gynaecology.

Inspired by the people she had met during the competition, Bessima is also considering a career in media or journalism.

Bessima, who maintains a top three position in her form, adds that the competition had helped her in terms of improving her English language skills.

It has also honed other traits such as confidence, the ability to handle pressure and to remain calm in stressful situations.

“Many people fail to score well during exams because of the pressure,” says the veteran debater and public speaker. “I think taking part in all the competitions has helped me deal with stress and not let it affect me.” The competition also made her realise one thing — success came to her thanks to consistent reading rather than extra mugging.

“I was slightly awed to hear that most of the other contestants had read the dictionary, some cover to cover, to prepare for the national challenge,” says Bessima, who thought she would not make it past the preliminary rounds. Unlike them, she just did what she always does — read a lot — which worked for her.

A self-professed bookworm, Bessima can finish 10 or more books in a month — her achievement was recognised when she was awarded the National Nilam Award, given in recognition of champion readers at state level. Books like those in the Harry Potter series would take her just a few days to complete while novels such as those written by Haruki Murakami would take her a little longer.

With school and extra-curricular activities — Nilam, parliamentary English debate, public speaking, drama and head prefect duties — keeping her busy, she barely has time to do anything else.

Since winning the state challenge, apart from being teased about giving her friends treats with her prize money, schoolmates have also sought her advice on how they can expand their vocabulary.

“I told them the only way to do so is through reading — it’s really conventional but I think for me, it’s really the most effective method to gain knowledge,” she says.

Even if you are surfing the Internet, you are still reading text.

Bessima’s English teacher Roseline David has also been supportive from the start in terms of telling her students about SIR and all its details. She has been encouraging them to read and learn the words used during the competition.

A reading corner — stocking titles from the students’ own collections — in class is a favourite haunt for many during free time.

Bessima still has a national debate to prepare but the upcoming SPM examinations will dominate her attention after that.

She cites her teacher and mother as the main influences in her life.

“Madam Roseline is a nice teacher who helps us academically and personally. She’s akin to a surrogate mother,” she says.

Despite her busy schedule, Bessima’s mother Ummai Salmah Abdul Karim makes sure she is there when her daughter needs her.

Ummai Salmah is Sabah State Education Department Assistant Director of Education.

Other members of her family are equally encouraging.

Elder sister Nadine, 19, an Upper Six student, does Bessima’s share of the household chores when she’s not around.

Her father, Jamal Dargham, an Engineering lecturer at Universiti Malaysia Sabah, never complains when he has to send her to David’s house for practice or if she stays back late for co-curricular activities.

“I knew most of the words given to me — the one I really didn’t know was “obstreperous”, which I got wrong in the semi-finals,” says Bessima.

Words spelled correctly: “sedentary”, “debilitate”, “compunction”, “rudimentary” “peripheral”, “susceptible”, “propitiate”, “contiguous”, “scrupulous”, “ignominious”, “effervescent”, “idiosyncrasy”, “querulous” and “phenomenology” Misspelled word: “obstreperous”