6.25.2011

What's Next?

And I'm baaaack.
So what about my experience? I'll try to sum it up as best I can. First, wow, I must say how truly honored and humbled I was to have been selected as "America's Favorite" (if you will) and find a place in the Top 16 based off of the people's votes. I can't even wrap my brain around how many people spent time voting every day and spreading the word for lil' ole me. Not to mention how many people truly supported me and believed in my ambition to hold the role of Miss USA in the utmost honorable and purposeful way (yes babies, I wanted world peace!). For the first time ever the country was able to choose whom they wanted to be Miss USA and now there is a little piece of history with MY name on it thanks to you all. And to make it even sweeter, receiving the highest fan score in the swimsuit competition was just the cherry on top. I'll gladly be America's Sweetheart over Lil' Jon's sweetheart any ole day.... Oh yeah, Lil' Jon was one of the telecast judges, along with Tyson Chandler & Caroline Manzo to name a few.... mmmhmm, didn't you know?! These peeps are skilled titleholder selectors in their downtime. But seriously ya'll, thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart. I've always said that I am supported by the most incredible people and I would not be who I am without you. This honor was the most tangible evidence of such. What can I do with that? Well, I can say that there is so much to learn about the value of the relationships you make, maintain and enrich along with the life you lead. Thank you thank you thank you.



If you were following along you would have some pretty true insight about my experiences at Miss USA but one thing I never really got to magnify were the incredible women that I shared this adventure with. I know I mentioned a few of these women but in a future blog I will take the opportunity to really expand on them.

Boy, what a unique time to compete for the title of Miss USA. I'm confident that this year's Miss USA competition has got to be one of the most unique events in history.

Before the competition even started the organization's co owner Donald Trump began to express interest in becoming the President of the United States in 2012. As soon as that began two things happened... 1.) The media started to illuminate the Miss USA/Miss Universe Org (coincidence??! *scratches head*) & 2.) I knew that if this kept up surely this would be a HOT TOPIC during any interview round of the competition & I began studying Trump like a textbook. Not too long after that he ended up announcing that he would not be in the running after all. As you can probably imagine I'm really upset about this because my life was so much more enriched after the intense study of his inspirational life (**rolls eyes**). Oh, but in all seriousness the man knows his business so he gets some major props for that.

Also, the pageant itself was full of surprises. First there was the opportunity to let the public select a semi-finalist for the first time in history. Then there was the fact that this was the 60th anniversary of Miss USA. Along with all of that the telecast underwent quite a few changes ranging from the amount of finalists selected for each round to the new elimination procedures. With all of this at play it was really necessary for all of the contestants to be incredibly flexible and accept the fact that ultimately anything could happen.

"It's like you're Al Gore... you won the popular vote!" -Julia Risk
Ok, so now what the heck am I doing? Well the day right after Miss USA I packed up all of my junk and took the 2:15pm flight out to Philly to begin a new adventure. I'll be spending a total of 6 weeks here working as a corps member advisor (CMA). What's that?! As a CMA I will be working relentlessly to support the newest generation of Teach For America corps members in their first classroom experiences. I'll observe them weekly, review all of their lesson plans, provide tools and knowledge to help them lead transformational change and academic success and basically serve as a backbone for their development before entering their classrooms in the fall. I am so excited to continue my work with Teach For America in an effort to close the achievement gap. I will meet incredible leaders and also get to experience a new place of the world outside of New Mexico. This summer has great things in store, I can just feel it.

Additionally the telecast managed to generate some great "buzz" around my desire to write and illustrate my own collection of children's books (thanks to Kelly Osbourne & Susie Castillo) along with bringing attention to my blog. Given this amazing opportunity I'm going to strike while the iron is hot! I've already started receiving some great emails, and brainstorming some next steps so stay tuned.

I'm taking everything one day at a time. I have no idea where I'm off to next and while that's slightly terrifying it's also incredibly exciting. I can say that I'm glad to be back to Happy Brittany and this blog will be back to rockin' & rollin' with the good stuff in no time.

World Peace,






P.S- I'm sad to report that I can no longer accept friends on my personal Facebook page.... buuut... I've set up an additional page and will soon have it movin' just like my personal page so if you like what you see then like me.

5 comments:

  1. Judges be crazy, but I am SO happy for you and how hard you rocked the whole thing! I'm excited to see you on all your upcoming adventures! I really can't say anything else without it just being something cheesy about magic and or sparkles, but I just want you to know that your positivity & drive are really contagious! :D

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  2. so happy for you!

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  3. You did an amazing job in the pageant, and keeping up with your journey before hand was so inspiring! I'm glad you'll be at the Philly institute. I just joined TFA staff and have some cms who will be teaching early childhood ed--I hope they get you as a cma!!! I'll look for ya in Philly!

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  4. That's awesome, I'll be a CMA for ECE so I'm sure if they are not my CMs I will at least cross paths with them! I'm working on my power points right now.... they totally have a Happy Brittany theme to them!

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  5. Way to go girl! Proudly watched you during the pageant (and I may have turned it off after the swimsuit portion...). Anyways, well done! You're a true inspiration and I can't wait to see what you're up to next.

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