Death of the Beauty Queen (wannabe)
Hi, Shine!
You are almost there. Just keep on reading, Reading, READING. And let no experience, no matter how exquisitely aching and awry, intimidate you. In other words, live, Live, and LIVE. All it takes to be a good writer, and you're on your way towards becoming one, is to have the courage to "suck the marrow out of life," as one poet puts it. Though that's easier said than done, I hope that you have what it takes and a lot of heart as well. Wishing you "furor scribendi," the rage to write.
I'll be using your Crossline piece in the forthcoming edition of Weekend Mag.
Keep it up!
Myke (Editor/Columnist, Sun.Star Cebu)
--- Jareliese Mauro wrote:
HELLO, SIR MYKO. I HOPE YOU'D LIKE THIS. I HOPE YOU'D LET ME BE YOUR
STUDENT. JUST A FEW POINTERS FROM YOU WOULD DO GOOD IN MY ASPIRATION
IN BECOMING A BETTER WRITER. IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS (ESP. THE STYLE
AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS) SIR, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO TYPE AWAY. THANK YOU
SO MUCH.
REGARDS,
SUNSHINE
Death of the Beauty Queen (wannabe)
My drab summer existence last year had led to a
whirlwind love story that I should tell.
It all started when a man with a towering height and well-sculpted
arms stared at me from across a beauty salon. He was scrutinizing me
from my head, stopped at my buns then continued to stare at my legs.
"Ate, why don't you join a beauty pageant?" He asked with such abandon
and such accent that there's no mistaking he's a she.
Thus began my romance with the stage where aspiring beauty
contestants would abound on "coronation night."
This idea should not have merit ed to any real thought but after
having rejected proposals for so long, I've resolved that I wouldn't
graduate from the calendar, end up a crone, without giving it a shot.
After a post-dinner anouncement to that life-altering decision, my
brother couldn't resist giving me a quizzical look, "Inday, you've
finally blown your last gasket."
"The die is cast," was all I could retort.
My newly-found "manager" insisted that he be called "yaya" since he's
subjected himself to my services. Even up to now,
I still wonder if he was just being accommodating or if all
beauty contest tiros are given privileges like that.
I shook my hands (and spat on it, too) with yaya on
one condition:
I...
assume...
another...
identity.
Showing off my thunder thighs in public is
humiliating enough let alone letting the whole world know that I'm
taking a leap into another world where I didn't belong.
"On the contrary, you're my secret weapon. So if somebody asks you
something, talk dumb," yaya whispered so softly.
Apparently, yaya was more impressed when he found out about my
aptitude in impromptu speaking.
He and, err, other yayas formed one secret meeting a week before the
pageant. "Kani, Manash. You listen to her answer questions, pang
award-wining."
I beg to disagree. The lines between eloquently speaking in English
and in coming up with smart answers are blurred. The former is my cup
of tea.
Before the built-in censor can lick in, the mouth has blathered on
quotations from bestsellers. The mouth has got another mind of its
own. Paulo Coelho's "when you really want something, all the universe
conspires in helping you to achieve it" is an all-purpose line for Q and
A portion.
"Murag ketchup nga gipisik sa imong nawng," one of the yayas
commented. The next day, news came out from the grapevine and I was
interrogated by other contestants on the double.
Two seemingly bulimic girls who were dodging at my heels were EJ
and A. Both had the overweening desire to take center stage. How was
I to know that at that time, I was like a morsel that they were
waiting to pounce on . I knew I should have gotten worried when they
started asking solicitous
inquiries.
"Asa diay ka nag-study?"
"How old are you?"
"Is it true that you have babies?"
"I asked people whom you're suppose to go to school with and...how
come noboby knows you?"
That's when the conspiracy started.
Things got serious when anonymous calls were made:
"Hi. I'm the head organizer of the pageant and so-and-so was taken off
the list bec. sources told us that she's 24." That plus threatening
calls. I swear I'm not making this up.
On talent's night, the test of toughness over the tormenting, huge
platform was sedated by an ad-lib, soaring rendition of my all-time
pang-audition piece, "So Slow". I would've sung acapella but coincidentally and
fortunately beau brought his guitar. That performance was backed up
with a jazz presentation of "Objection" (by Shakira). The judges
were, unbelievably, regaled by the off-the-cuff
performance that I--can you believe it--made the
cut: top three Best in Talent! Pirouetting (360
degrees!!!) in four-inch killer shoes finally paid off.
Along came coronation night and it was beyond any appalling thought
... that specific episode of my life .
If yaya's comment was true, I was almost certain that nagkayamukat na
ang nawng sa mga judges og ketchup when I answered the Q and A, but I
never made it as top 5.
"Please lemme evaporate from the face of the planet," I pleaded.
As I took the last steps off the stage, the shock of my life was
revealed: since the eve of the coronation night, I ,with a strong
support from most of the contestants and their mothers, was
disqualified because of my fraudulent identity. Nine out of thirteen
voted me off.
Through gritted teeth, I managed to say, "Why wasn't I told? I
would've gladly bowed out from the stage had I known that this issue
was at its simmering point." At the back of my head, it yelped,
"Et tu, Brute?"
It's hard to flash a smile when you'd know that some of the
contestants faked their identies as well, most especially their age.
As I imbibed every single detail of last summer's catastrophe, I won't
slink away in shame nor flog a dead horse. I'll trade in this
experince with a nugget of wisdom:
Forget the bad experience but not the lesson.
The injustice lived on but only in my memory trash bin and what had
lingered were, surprisingly, moments of my first: my first (and last)
beauty contest, first wear of false eyelashes, first experience of
how-many-seconds-before-i'd-black-out-on-stage,
first understanding of how wigs work. Most importantly, it's the
growth on a personal and emotional level that counts the most.
A memorable and hilarious experience beats the embarassment of it.
I had loads of fun and wouldn't mind brewing dynamite schemes that
would risk a part of me, like that part which yearned to be a beauty
queen.
Writer's note: Here I am with my makeshift beauty queen crown,
nearly a decade after the fiasco!
You are almost there. Just keep on reading, Reading, READING. And let no experience, no matter how exquisitely aching and awry, intimidate you. In other words, live, Live, and LIVE. All it takes to be a good writer, and you're on your way towards becoming one, is to have the courage to "suck the marrow out of life," as one poet puts it. Though that's easier said than done, I hope that you have what it takes and a lot of heart as well. Wishing you "furor scribendi," the rage to write.
I'll be using your Crossline piece in the forthcoming edition of Weekend Mag.
Keep it up!
Myke (Editor/Columnist, Sun.Star Cebu)
--- Jareliese Mauro
HELLO, SIR MYKO. I HOPE YOU'D LIKE THIS. I HOPE YOU'D LET ME BE YOUR
STUDENT. JUST A FEW POINTERS FROM YOU WOULD DO GOOD IN MY ASPIRATION
IN BECOMING A BETTER WRITER. IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS (ESP. THE STYLE
AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS) SIR, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO TYPE AWAY. THANK YOU
SO MUCH.
REGARDS,
SUNSHINE
Death of the Beauty Queen (wannabe)
My drab summer existence last year had led to a
whirlwind love story that I should tell.
It all started when a man with a towering height and well-sculpted
arms stared at me from across a beauty salon. He was scrutinizing me
from my head, stopped at my buns then continued to stare at my legs.
"Ate, why don't you join a beauty pageant?" He asked with such abandon
and such accent that there's no mistaking he's a she.
Thus began my romance with the stage where aspiring beauty
contestants would abound on "coronation night."
This idea should not have merit ed to any real thought but after
having rejected proposals for so long, I've resolved that I wouldn't
graduate from the calendar, end up a crone, without giving it a shot.
After a post-dinner anouncement to that life-altering decision, my
brother couldn't resist giving me a quizzical look, "Inday, you've
finally blown your last gasket."
"The die is cast," was all I could retort.
My newly-found "manager" insisted that he be called "yaya" since he's
subjected himself to my services. Even up to now,
beauty contest tiros are given privileges like that.
I shook my hands (and spat on it, too) with yaya on
assume...
humiliating enough let alone letting the whole world know that I'm
taking a leap into another world where I didn't belong.
"On the contrary, you're my secret weapon. So if somebody asks you
something, talk dumb," yaya whispered so softly.
Apparently, yaya was more impressed when he found out about my
aptitude in impromptu speaking.
He and, err, other yayas formed one secret meeting a week before the
pageant. "Kani, Manash. You listen to her answer questions, pang
award-wining."
I beg to disagree. The lines between eloquently speaking in English
and in coming up with smart answers are blurred. The former is my cup
of tea.
Before the built-in censor can lick in, the mouth has blathered on
quotations from bestsellers. The mouth has got another mind of its
own. Paulo Coelho's "when you really want something, all the universe
conspires in helping you to achieve it" is an all-purpose line for Q and
A portion.
"Murag ketchup nga gipisik sa imong nawng," one of the yayas
commented. The next day, news came out from the grapevine and I was
interrogated by other contestants on the double.
Two seemingly bulimic girls who were dodging at my heels were EJ
and A. Both had the overweening desire to take center stage. How was
I to know that at that time, I was like a morsel that they were
waiting to pounce on . I knew I should have gotten worried when they
started asking solicitous
inquiries.
"Asa diay ka nag-study?"
"How old are you?"
"Is it true that you have babies?"
"I asked people whom you're suppose to go to school with and...how
come noboby knows you?"
That's when the conspiracy started.
Things got serious when anonymous calls were made:
"Hi. I'm the head organizer of the pageant and so-and-so was taken off
the list bec. sources told us that she's 24." That plus threatening
calls. I swear I'm not making this up.
On talent's night, the test of toughness over the tormenting, huge
platform was sedated by an ad-lib, soaring rendition of my all-time
pang-audition piece, "So Slow". I would've sung acapella but coincidentally and
fortunately beau brought his guitar. That performance was backed up
with a jazz presentation of "Objection" (by Shakira). The judges
were, unbelievably, regaled by the off-the-cuff
performance that I--can you believe it--made the
cut: top three Best in Talent! Pirouetting (360
degrees!!!) in four-inch killer shoes finally paid off.
Along came coronation night and it was beyond any appalling thought
... that specific episode of my life .
If yaya's comment was true, I was almost certain that nagkayamukat na
ang nawng sa mga judges og ketchup when I answered the Q and A, but I
never made it as top 5.
"Please lemme evaporate from the face of the planet," I pleaded.
As I took the last steps off the stage, the shock of my life was
revealed: since the eve of the coronation night, I ,with a strong
support from most of the contestants and their mothers, was
disqualified because of my fraudulent identity. Nine out of thirteen
voted me off.
Through gritted teeth, I managed to say, "Why wasn't I told? I
would've gladly bowed out from the stage had I known that this issue
was at its simmering point." At the back of my head, it yelped,
"Et tu, Brute?"
It's hard to flash a smile when you'd know that some of the
contestants faked their identies as well, most especially their age.
As I imbibed every single detail of last summer's catastrophe, I won't
slink away in shame nor flog a dead horse. I'll trade in this
experince with a nugget of wisdom:
Forget the bad experience but not the lesson.
The injustice lived on but only in my memory trash bin and what had
lingered were, surprisingly, moments of my first: my first (and last)
beauty contest, first wear of false eyelashes, first experience of
how-many-seconds-before-i'd-black-out-on-stage,
first understanding of how wigs work. Most importantly, it's the
growth on a personal and emotional level that counts the most.
A memorable and hilarious experience beats the embarassment of it.
I had loads of fun and wouldn't mind brewing dynamite schemes that
would risk a part of me, like that part which yearned to be a beauty
queen.
Writer's note: Here I am with my makeshift beauty queen crown,
nearly a decade after the fiasco!
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