American Graduate Day in NYC!

Although the Miss International title wasn’t part of my story, a title equally as significant was; I am elated to have been asked to become a Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) celebrity ambassador. I was thrilled when the Director of Media Relations and Community Engagement for BBBSA asked me to represent the program in a national public media initiative titled American Graduate put on by WNET/PBS in New York City (for more info on American Graduate visit: http://americangraduate.org/). The telecast leverages the power and reach of public television to help communities across America address the high school dropout crisis by preparing students for success, beginning with a high school diploma. Big Brothers Big Sisters was one of approximately 20 community action programs featured in the program and I had the honor of representing the BBBSA segment along with NFL writer Anwar Richardson. 

To view the Big Brothers Big Sisters segment of the telecast please visit: http://www.bbbs.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=9iILI3NGKhK6F&b=6470175&ct=13344935&notoc=1

To view the full 7 hour telecast visit: http://americangraduate.org/grad-day.html

Big Brothers Big Sister’s write up on me prior to American Graduate Day: http://www.bbbs.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=9iILI3NGKhK6F&b=6470175&ct=13333605

This was by far the greatest and most profound appearance that I’ve made yet as Miss California International. I am so incredibly grateful to American Graduate for giving me the opportunity to share with America the challenging parts of my past and how those events coupled with my fifth grade teacher, my first and most significant mentor, changed my life and set me on a path to success. Statistics prove that youth facing adversity are likely to continue in the vicious cycle if intervention is not given; BBBSA provides children with hope and most importantly the life-altering positive influence that they urgently need. If you are interested in making a significant impact in a child’s life please visit www.BBBSA.org to find a Big Brothers Big Sisters office near you.

Since this was my first trip ever to New York City I decided to take advantage of the trip by extending it for two extra days and explored the city! I took the redeye over on Thursday night and arrived at 8:00 AM on Friday morning. Upon exiting the plane my driver was waiting with a sign that displayed my name (I’m such a nerd, I found this detail to be very exciting! Haha!) I checked into my room and then immediately headed out to track down a NYC slice of pizza (yes, it was only 9:00AM) and then after I skipped on down to Central Park; I’ve seen a lot of beautiful places in my life, but never have I experienced a place so dreamlike. I found a grassy area in the sun near a small bridge and took a seat. It’s rather astonishing that you can hear the birds chirp and leaves rustle in the center of the park; It was the only place that I found in NYC where I could escape the yellow taxi non-stop honking! Under the bridge by which I made my temporary escape from the noisy city was an elderly man who had the most beautiful acapella singing voice I’ve ever heard! Mixed with the acoustics of being under a bridge he sounded magical! I sat in that same sunny, heavenly place for over an hour listening to him sing! After a small nap in my hotel I researched restaurants nearby and enjoyed the evening at a little Irish pub. I met a couple girls who were seated next to me and we spent the evening swapping stories and enjoying the Irish accents of the wait staff that I suspect were fake. What a wonderful first day in NYC!

Saturday was the big event and then after I joined Deanna, Director of Media Relations and Community Engagement for BBBSA, Anwar, and HIS Big Brother Derek and family for a dinner at a fabulous restaurant (Derek and Anwar have been matched for 30 years through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program!)

Sunday was tremendous! I kicked it off with a meal at Ellen’s Stardust Diner where there were back-to-back live performances by the wait staff; they were amazing! If I didn’t have plans for the afternoon I could have spent hours listening to them sing. After brunch I was off to see my first ever Broadway show, Once. After all of the wonderful reviews that I read I had very high hopes, and let me tell you…the show exceeded them BY FAR! I was truly blown away by the performance and fell in love with the lovely cast! I wouldn’t mind seeing Once, more than once!! After the show I wandered around Times Square for a bit and was swept away by a cowboy, literally! (Pictures to follow) After a football game and dinner at a local pub I rushed off to see my second Broadway show, Mamma Mia! The show was lots of fun and was the perfect ending to a perfect day.

Monday I woke up bright and early and found myself standing in the standby line at the Live! with Kelly and Michael show with hopes of making into the studio audience to watch them film the live show. I met a wonderful mother/daughter in line who adopted me as their own for the morning and we anxiously waited across the way at Starbucks swapping stories until 8:45AM when we were finally given the good news that we made the cut….woo hoo!! Kelly and Michael were such a hoot and it was so neat getting to see Daniel Radcliff, Julianne Hough, and Jerry O’Connell!

After the show I jumped into a taxi and was off to the location where the twin towers once stood. When the taxi pulled up to an area that appeared to be a construction site with a winding line of at least 200 people to get inside I asked the driver if he knew what the people in that long line were waiting to see and his reply brought a tear to my eye. He said, “Miss, that is the line to get into the 9-11 memorial and it’s the longest I’ve ever seen it!” I’ve never been more proud to be an American. The fact that the terrorist attack took place 12 years ago, and the memorial has now been open for a full two years and people are still standing in lines among hundreds to get inside, was so heartwarming. We truly do live in the greatest county in the world! When I finally made it inside the walls of the memorial I was speechless; not only were there hundreds of people waiting outside to get in, there were also hundreds of people wandering within the memorial. I spent hours walking around the twin reflecting pools, each nearly an acre in size that now sit within the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood.  The names of every person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed into bronze panels edging the Memorial pools, a powerful reminder of the largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil and the greatest single loss of rescue personnel in American history. I was grateful to get the opportunity to listen to several people within the memorial share the stories of how their lives were impacted by the attack and what the memorial now means to them.

After visiting the memorial I walked across the street to a restaurant and made friends with a nearby customer. After chatting for a bit he learned that I had never taken a subway and insisted that I try it out before I leave NYC and offered to show me the ropes. What a thrill! I had such a great time on the subway that I almost wanted to go back and try it again!

Huge thank you to PBS, American Graduate, and Big Brothers Big Sisters for this remarkable experience!

I’m pretty certain that I am the luckiest girl alive!

Miss International, Day #4/ Interviews and Teen Prelims

This was by far one of the most nerve-racking days yet. The pageant interview tends to be equally as terrifying as it is exhilarating for me. I love being able to share the ‘real me’ in a face-to-face conversation with the five people who hold a portion of my destiny in their hands, but with that being said no matter how much you prepare there is always a smidge of unknown and the reality that you just might not be the person that they are looking for this year. All you can do is prepare to be the best possible version of yourself and hope that the title is part of God’s plan for your life.

I felt as ready as I possibly could have been walking into those interviews (well aside from the hair crisis that I found myself in that morning!) and was thrilled with the way that the interviews unfolded. Looking back on the experience I am confident that the job of Miss International just wasn’t supposed to be part of my story; I couldn’t have been more prepared. The truth is that all of us were there that weekend following the same dream of becoming Miss International 2013; obviously only one of would walk away from the experience with the large, oversize crown though. What I found to be most important thing that I took away from this experience was the knowledge that dreams change lives. The world is a much more beautiful place when you are motivated and striving to better yourself. I literally woke each morning, and went to sleep each night of the months leading up to the pageant with a smile plastered on my face! How lucky was I to get the opportunity to represent the beautiful state of California for an international title? I walked in believing that I was a winner, and today the same belief holds true; I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, a wise person of my past stressed to me that a crown and sash doesn’t bring worth to a person, it’s the person who wears them that bring value to the title, not the other way around. We all hopefully walked away better people from this tremendous experience! 

After interviews we rehearsed the show again, and that evening us Miss contestants got the opportunity to sit in the audience and cheer on our teen-queens as the took the stage for their preliminary competition. I might be a little biased, but my teen-queen, Jayne Giest, rocked the stage! 

Wednesday, Miss International Day #3 PRINCESS BALL!

We rehearsed all morning and afternoon of day #3, but that evening there would be no work, all play! We were invited to attend a very special princess ball at the Skokie Library! We each were assigned a little girl and through the process of completing very important tasks we would help them to become a princess. We decorated jewelry boxes with sparkling jewels, answered princess trivia, and went on a hunt to locate a pea; those who were able to locate a tiny pea in the big auditorium were SURELY a princess, as told in the fairytale “The Princess and the Pea”.

The story:

The story tells of a prince who wants to marry a princess but is having difficulty finding a suitable wife. The prince finds that something is always wrong with those he meets, and he cannot be certain they are real princesses. One stormy night a young woman drenched with rain seeks shelter in the prince's castle, and she claims to be a princess, so the prince's mother decides to test their unexpected guest by placing a pea in the bed she is offered for the night, covered by 20 mattresses and 20 featherbeds. In the morning the guest tells her hosts that she endured a sleepless night, kept awake by something hard in the bed; which she is certain has bruised her. The prince rejoices; only a real princess would have the sensitivity to feel a pea through such a quantity of bedding.

Why this is relevant? The story was told to all of the little girls in the room and then we were released to see if our partners were real-life princesses; surely if they were REAL princesses they too could locate a tiny pea in this large auditorium. As the host yelled, “ready, set, go find your peas, princesses!” my adorable partner who was 4 years old and was wearing a princess dress tugged on my arm with a very sad face and said, “Wait, I can’t do this…. I won’t be able to find the pea.” I told her, “Of course you can! What makes you think that you won’t be able to?” and she replied, “Because, I am not a princess.” My mind was set; I made it my mission to prove to this little beauty that she was in-fact a princess! I grabbed her hand and promised her that I would prove that she was a princess! Not only did we locate a pea, we were one of the VERY FIRST to locate one! The look on her face was priceless when I picked her up, swung her around, and cheerfully squealed, “I knew that you that you were a real life princess!” She spent the rest of the evening sashaying around as we completed the rest of our tasks and prior to leaving she hugged me and then thanked me for helping her to find her princess pea and said that before this day she had no idea that she was a real-life princess!

Sometimes it only takes ONE person believing in you to give you the confidence needed to believe in yourself. Mentors of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program provide children facing adversity with the boost that they need to believe in themselves….will you be that life-changing person for a child in your area? For more information please visit: www.BBBSA.org.