My National American Miss Journey :)



Red is my fav color. So why not be the color of my formal gown too? I love this pic! <3

I never thought I would be a girl to do pageants. I always thought of myself as a tom boy who didn't like to dress up fancy and who loved to get down and dirty riding go-carts, quads, and dirt bikes. Who knew a had a really girly side? I didn't even know! Walt Disney once said, “All our dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them,” that’s my goal to always pursue my dreams. “You have been selected as a state finalist for the National American Miss Jr. Teen New Jersey Pageant,” that was the first sentence I saw when I received my acceptance letter from the NAM pageant. It's what made me start to purse my dreams ♥ It's what made me realize I want to do this, that I had dreams. I've always loved singing since I was a little kid and thought NAM could help me with that. It also mentioned modeling, when I was a younger, I always pretend to be a runway model and walk around the house trying on new clothes pretending to model the latest fashions, who knew I would actually want to do that when I grew up. I'm not grown up yet, but I'm at the age where I'm statring to figure out what to do with my life. Nam was the best thing that could've happend to me. It made me love pageanty for one thing, and I'm starting to do more pageants because of it. Before I did nam I had some confidence but I was always to shy to perform in front of anybody, infact before nam I never performed on a stage completely alone before, it was my time to shine. My favorite part of competition had to be formal wear, it gave me the most confidence, especially about walking in heels, I never walked in heels before I started pageants, that was a big step for me. For my first year in nam I did almost every optional. I did Talent (1), Actress (2), Photogenic (4), Top Model (1), and Casual Wear (1). I always loved singing, like I said before so I had to do talent. For it I sang "Beautiful" by Christina Aguilera, It wasn't the greatest perfomance, but it gave me a loooot of confidence, and since then I have sung in front of people several times. I never got into acting until this year, when I was in the pageant last summer, it was the summer before I would be going to techanical school for perorming arts (singing, acting, dancing), well I never really acted before, so I thought this would be the perfect opturnity to practice that, it was so fun, and it helped me gain confidence as an actor. Photography has been one of my hobbies forever, I've always loved taking and being in pictures, so I had to enter photogenic, same for Top Model since I liked to model and be in pictures I had to do it. For Casual Wear I thought I could practice my runway type skills. Pageantry has change my life. It has givin me so much more confidence in myself and it also gave me lots of friends :) Even though I didn't win anything, I walked away a different person. I got participationawards though, I got the Portfolio Award for doing Photogenic 4 times, I got the Outstanding Participation award for selling ads, and the Spirit of America award for doing 5 or more optionals. I plan on continuing Pageanty and hope to get far with it. I hope it continues to help me with my career. I am participating in NAM again this summer and cannot wait to see what this time brings me.