Over this past summer my mom secretly sent in a picture of
me to the pageant headquarters of Miss New York USA pageant to see if I would
qualify for this years competition. While I was at our Skidmore tournament this
year I received a phone call for an over the phone interview for a Miss New York competition. I was so confused and
assumed that the people who called had the wrong number. Then I told my mom about the phone call and
she was super excited, and had told me what she had done over the summer. I called back and had the interview, to find
out later that I would be competing in the 2014 pageant. Months before the
pageant I was not exactly sure about what to expect, but after going to the
whole experience I was happy to say that I had a lot of fun and learned a lot
about life.
For the competition I had to do an interview, learn a dance
routine, and learn how to walk in a gown and bathing suit in front of hundreds
of people. I knew going into this that I
was going to have to train and teach myself something that most of the girls in
this competition had been doing for years.
When I Then I thought about me. I am a college student who plays volleyball,
and barely ever walks in heels, and most of all loves ice cream. I was the third youngest out of 172 girls and
this just gave me an even more reason to be myself. I knew then that I was just going to act like
myself, not be someone different. If I
was going to win a competition like this I would want to win it representing
the real me.
Now I was in New York City and it was time to start this
whole experience. I started talking to
girls from all different places in New York.
There were two girls that I became really close with over the three days
I was in the pageant. Both of these
girls were four years older than me.
Their home lifestyles and personalities were extremely different from
mine, but that did not matter, because these girls thought about he pageant
like I did. This pageant was an
experience not a competition. It was
something to enjoy and learn from. All
three of us realized how confident we had become over the three days we were
there. This confidence I gained from
this experience was huge. I was able to
walk on stage in a bathing suit feeling confident, and I chose to change my
hairstyle each day unlike all the other girls, because I was being confident
and being myself.
Confidence. I could
not have gained this confidence from only myself; I gained it from other girls
as well. Everyone was so kind and always
looking to help each other out. Girls
who had been in these competitions before were all super sweet, and were always
encouraging. This just showed me that
the stereotype people have towards pageant girls is completely false. Girls were constantly giving compliments to
one another, which showed me how kind hearted everyone was.
Moreover, the most important thing I learned from this
experience was witnessing the love from my mom and dad. Whenever I got the chance to see my mom at
the college where the event took place, my eyes lit up. I could tell how proud she was of me for
doing what I was doing. She sent me one
of the best text messages I had ever gotten telling me how much she loved me
and how she could not have expected anything better from me. Reading something so meaningful from my mom
just made me realize how blessed I am.
My parents give me so much strength to be better every day, knowing that
they believe I can do anything just makes me believe I can as well.