Leavin' on a Jet Plane (9/20/08)

Twenty-four hours from now you can find me in an undisclosed Los Angeles location, along with 51 other Miss America contestants, shoes, clothing, & accessories to last 19 days, (52 women X 3 bags a piece = 156 suitcases…enough to clothe and shoe a small country…) and a camera crew poised and ready to capture the whole thing. Miss America’s Countdown to the Crown starts tomorrow and I couldn’t be more excited to begin on this journey.

Earlier this month I signed a contract detailing the specifics about what I will be able to disclose about my experience and what must remained sealed in my mental vaults until the show airs. Unfortunately, any slippage of the smallest degree could result in me owing $2,000,000 to TLC – that’s right…2 million dollars. So, as you can probably guess, my lips are sealed. I do want to share as much as I’m able and hope that I’ll be able to blog from L.A – we’ll see.

A few quick recaps from the week and I’m off to finish packing!

Thank you to Franzen Intermediate School in Itasca for having me speak at your school this week! The students were amazingly well behaved and well-versed in Character Counts!

I spent two days in Dale Carnegie training this week at the seminar “How to Win Friends and Influence People in Business”. The course was amazing and I walked away with so many tips and tricks to apply to my Miss Illinois appearances. We studied with one of the top Dale Carnegie trainers and my peers were from Fortune 500 companies across the nation. I’m so thankful to have gone and can’t wait to apply what I’ve learned!

As I ran my final errands today, I found myself flipping through Michigan Avenue magazine – a Chicago society magazine with Cindy Crawford on the cover and an article by Michelle Obama inside – on one of the store’s coffee tables. As I scanned the pages, I was excited to see some of the men and women I’d met at a fashion show hosted by Chicago’s Service Club in August. Feeling special for having “known” someone on these pages I continued perusing and was shocked to find my own face staring back at me on page 146. I let out a tiny squeal, scaring the people around me, and realized that the photo was from that same fashion show I’d met my fellow glossy-paged friends. That moment was such a thrill for me and, thinking on it now, I hope Barack Obama, while reading his wife’s article, happens to glance on page 146 – I think we could work well together. ;)

L.A. Here I come!