never been so tired in my life! i can't wait to go to sleep. tonight we signed autographs at the mall for 2 and half hours straight, after rehearsing from 9 to 5 and getting home from prom last night at like 1145. prom was so much fun! my date is going to berkeley (30 minutes from stanford) on gymnastics and he came tonight with alabama's date to the autographs (which had like a 45 minute line) so that was nice! he was such a gentleman. all the guys got us water while the girls chatted, pulled out our chairs, etc etc.
at rehearsal, since the beginning i'm like, "8 more hours. 5 more hours...." then "4 and half hours, four hours and twenty-five minutes..." finally it was over and i was too tired to even be excited. we finished all our numbers! it is the most intense exhuastion i've ever felt in my life. no crankiness, no sadness, no soreness, no pain, just pure tiredness where you honestly can't even move your limbs but you just have to do it. for 8 hours. and then sign autographs and look cute and be social. i love every second of it though.
the connection that you feel to the girls here is indescribable. with all the exhaustion, you really have to feed off each other. every hug, every smile you exchange with a bud, every compliment, is what gives you the energy to dance for 5 more minutes. and then 8 hours. in the deliriousness of everything i had this vision of there being a big pot of gold in the middle of the room that was like, an eighth of the way full that you're sharing with the room, and you're just using it to get through. i don't think there's any way to succeed in this competition without loving all the girls, because in all the group numbers and everything, you're like one. this probably wont make any sense when i read it tomorrow, or will sound really lame/cheesy, but i'm sooo tired and am just writing.
so it's been a while since i last wrote! thursday was day of caring. we split in 3 groups: habitat for humanity, camp smiles (kids with disabilities), and exploratorium with underprivileged kids. i went to camp smiles. one girl i talked to, i was sooo embarrased, because i asked her her name, talked to her for a while and told her a funny story about a girl i knew with the same name (gabrielle), asked her how old she was, and then i said, "what's your name?" she gave me the weirdest look ever and i realized we'd already talked all about it! not a proud CJM moment. lol. but anyway, gabrielle is 8 years old and it's her second year at the camp. best story i've had here: i asked her if she'd made a lot of friends at camp, and she said, "well, i met this one friend last summer." and i thought she meant a friend her age. and then she said, "she was actually in the paper the other day"
so i was curious and said, "oh really, what for?"
and she says: "what's that thing ya'll do after you come here?"
"america's junior miss?"
"yeah, she won that last year. :)"
her parents saw nora ali, AJM 2007, in the paper and cut out the article and framed it for her. later, back at junior league with all the girls, those of us who wanted to stood up and told the whole group stories taht touched our hearts from the day, and i told that story. nora had no idea that that was where it was going, and she was so excited. she told me that last year, gabrielle latched on to her arm when nora left and didn't want her to leave. it's amazing that she touched her life in those minutes that the spent with her, and that this child still remembered nora a year later as the friend she met last summer. it made me so proud to be a part of an organization of young women who are such great role models and who have the power to touch lives every single day with every person they meet. \
we forget that we can make a difference like that. on the first day we were here, becky jo (AJM exec director) was talking about how her daughter always wanted to save the world and didn't really care about a big money-making job, and how becky jo had to constantly remind her that saving the world starts with your every day actions and the people you touch in your regular life. it really reminded me of myself because i forget that, and was an important reminder that has only been compounded further over the past few days.
another time when i saw that was at the MARDI GRAS parade yesterday! mardi gras is totally different from anything we have in california - these people FREAK OUT over these plastic beads that they throw away and you can buy anywhere. THEY LOVE IT! we had a big parade just for america's junior miss and the 50 girls and nora and the rehearsal moms stood on 3 floats and tossed everyone beads. there were also tons of other floats there. these people get soooo much joy from you throwing them one. it's this whole process of who catches your eye (are they too quiet? are they too loud and being rude? are they just super cute? do you feel bad for them?) and then you make eye contact with them and they know you're going to throw it, and then they catch it and their eyes light up in the same way that a kid's eyes light up when they perform after a year of dance classes or you go to guatemala to volunteer at a school or something like that... all from catching some beads or candy! the adults get just as excited as the kids too! mardi gras in normally like 6 weeks in feb/march but they made this fake parade just for us!
but the lesson of just realizing how these SMALL things make a difference are apparent every single day. like me forgetting my bra for the luau and my host mom dropping it off in a cute bag with tissue paper and a book with quotes about catching your dreams, and a sweet note letting me know they were thinking about me. or someone saying a really sweet compliment in rehearsal or blowing you a kiss or asking you how you're doing. or courtney getting us starbucks at 6:30 in the morning. or this year's 4 santa barbara's junior miss class of 2009 winners sending me a CARE PACKAGE with gifts for every day, and cards from each of them!!! and cards from committee members from local and state, and friends, that are on your bed when you get home after a long day. or gifts every night from your host parents and packages that come in the mail. or a blog comment from audrey, audrey's mom, mom, dad, sarah, karina, or hannah, or marianna's friends. these things keep your spirits high, and i'll never forget what a difference these types of small things make.
anyway, rewinding back to thursday. then also thursday we went to tour a mardi gras museum and then had dinner with our state club sponsors and host family at a picnic. my host family is the best - tammy brought a fur decoration with fake candles and flowers for teh middle of our plastic picnic space, and it was soooo cute. camille and courtney and billy were there too. camille is adorable. then the different groups each got 1 bag with some props, and we had 30 minutes to prepare for a talent show. MY GROUP WON!!! we made marianna's state sponsor's daughter the mardi gras queen, her sisters the pages (it was all marianna's ideas, she's so creative and great with kids), and then what really won it for us was we all danced at the end and billy did "crazy legs" which is why tammy said she married him! i really can't explain it, but it sounds like the name! the audience loved it! it was funny bcuz before we went, we were like "ours is gonna be sadd" but then thanks to billy and marianna and the girls it was a hit.
ok i haven't even begun to talk about prom or our host mom lunch today or any of these amazing things, but i'm going to wrap this up for now. i will say one thing about prom: after the mardi gras parade we waited for another float that broke down, then we got stuck behind a bunch of floats. so rather than having 30 minutes to get ready (and you should have seen marianna gasp when she heard that!) we had TEN MINUTES to change from our sweaty rehearsal & mardi gras clothes to our gowns, hair, makeup, etc. it was insane. but we did it! we drive around in vans and have police escorts, and so we had those siren things on top of our cars and they keep the sirens going so that we could pass everyone and go through red lights and go 70 on a 45 mph lane. it was so exciting! in the dark, with teh sirens gonig and the music blasting, it was a mini rave in our van wtih 14 girls!!! we pass everyone and put on the sirens even when we're not in a rushand we're just going to events. it's really funny/cool!
the girls r amazing and i could go on for pages about every one of them!
ok, off to sleeeep. we don't leave tomorrow til 9!!!!!!!!!!
this is soooo long
