My Blog!

So, after encouragment from a few reliable people, I decided to go ahead and make a blog! This is more or less a place for me to chronicle my year as Miss Finger Lakes and all that it entails. I've dont quite a few things since being crowned, so I think I'm going to have to post a reeeeally big blog one of these days and just sort of summarize all that I've been up to so far. But right now, I'm going to share what it felt like to win.

I've been doing pageants for 7 years now, since I was 14 years old. My very first pageant was the Miss Barbizon pageant (I KNOW some of you out there remember Barbizon!). I remember each time I did a new pageant, I came closer and closer to winning, but I'd never won a title. Miss Finger Lakes was my VERY first title! I'd received the Miracle Maker award, for raising the most money, and I'd received the Best Evening Wear award, which absolutely stunned me. I would have completely proud of myself had I walked off that stage with those two awards. However, when they began to call our the runners-up, my mind started to reel a little bit; could I really possibly win?? When they called my name, I totally did that whole crying, fanning my face, "ohmygodthankyousomuch" thing! I was crying because I was in shock; I couldn't believe that after seven years of trying and failing, I'd actually won! I was also crying because I didn't have anybody there to see me win :( My dad lives in a nursing home and I don't really know my mother, and my boyfriend had no ride down to Corning to watch me. There was one person, though, a student from Syracuse who was doing a multimedia project on me for one of her classes. Her name is Mahala, and she compiled this phenomenal story about me. The link is below, I hope you'll watch it and give thanks to all that you may have in your life because I certainly do!!

I couldn't believe that I was ACTUALLY being allowed into the Miss America family! I'd never really been interested in competing in a MAO preliminary, because I didn't consider myself extraoridnarily talent like most MAO contestants are. I actually had to change my talent two nights before Miss Finger Lakes! My talent was originally going to be a dance, cheerleading-slash-hip hop, because I'd been a cheerleader since I was 9 and could totally pull off a fun, entertaining dance for my talent. Two things stood in my way: 1. I got incredibly ill, swine flu-sick, for the entire month of February. I wasn't able to drag myself to the gym to work on my dance; 2. My dance was to the song "Freeze" by T-Pain and Chris Brown... now, for those that don't know (and why would you, this is my first blog...), my platform is "Fighting Back Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault." These are issues that are incredibly personal to me, as I've been a victim of both in my life. There was just NO way I could perform to a Chris Brown song! So, I switched it up at the last minute to a Shakespeare monologue, and I guess it paid off for me! I'm so glad I'm not dancing at the state pageant, either, because there are so many talented dancers competing who are actually trained in their chosen form of dance, and there's no way I could hold a candle to any of them! Singing is, of course, out of the question, unless you're looking for American Idol like Kenny said, in which case I would just be like one of those people on the first few episodes that are so horrible they get humiliated on national T.V. and sent home. My humiliation would be smaller scale, of course, but entertaining nonetheless. At any rate, monologue it is.

Well, that's about all I have for now. Expect more entires, expect me to get emotional and pour my heart out on here, expect a lot of wilf and crazy stuff from me.

Video project by Mahala Gaylord (who is AWESOME, by the way!): http://studentvoice.syr.edu/team.cfm?id=39&storyid=267