Just Call Me Queen Anna...

Beauty Pageants...

I have never been one to watch or be apart of any type of beauty pageant. Beauty pageants were not popular where I grew up and no one really participated in them. I never watched the Miss America pageant and even to this day I still couldn't tell you when it comes on. I really thought beauty pageants were a thing of the past and didn't know anyone that participated in them... that is until I went to college. I went to college in a different state than I grew up in and I was in shock at how many pageants were held there. Everywhere I went people had the big pageant hair and there were dress shops everywhere you looked. Did you know you can rent dresses?? Yeah.. I didn't know either until I was looking for a formal dress my freshman year of college and the owner of the dress shop told me I couldn't buy a dress. Did you also know there is a difference between a pageant dress and a formal dress?? Yeah.. I didn't know that either until the owner took the dress out of my hand and told me, "That is a pageant dress and you can't wear that to a formal." In my opinion, I was paying money for the dress so I didn't really see a difference in what I was wearing it for. Needless to no money was spent from me in that store.

This brings me to today. I was at work and got a phone call from a gentleman that works for The Philippine Cultural  Foundation. He introduced himself and told me that they were a non profit organization and had a fundraiser coming up. I was assuming he was going to ask some of the youth from my program to appear at his event. (I am the youth services coordinator and plan all of our events) Well you know where assuming gets you... Anyways he continued his conversation and explained that they were having a beauty pageant coming up in the next couple of days. At this point, I was 100% sure that I was going to say "no" to whatever he asked me because there would be no reason why my youth would be involved in this. He continued to tell me this story how two of the judges knew some of the girls that were in the pageant ( I was having a hard time following the conversation because I couldn't figure out what he was going to ask me) and that they needed new judges. My response, "Oookaaayyy" He then proceeded to tell me that they would be honored to have me as a judge at the beauty pageant, to which I responded with "Wait... What?" I am not sure he heard me because he continued on with his conversation telling me that "you" will have to judge them on talent (I honestly don't remember what else  he said after talent because I was still concentrating on the fact that he said the word "you", implying me, a.k.a Anna would be "judging") I didn't remember saying yes to this... I am pretty sure the word "yes" would never come out of my mouth when put in the same sentence as the words "beauty pageant." Don't get me wrong.. there is nothing wrong with beauty pageants, I am just not interested in things like that. The next thing I know, I am giving him my email address while he is explaining how I need to send a picture of myself and a short bio.

How did I get to this point?

I received the email and the attire for the event is: Filipino/Business or Formal Hawaiian...
I have no idea what type of clothing that is.. I don't even know how I got to the point where I would have to worry about what type of clothing that is.

Do they know I don't know anything about pageants? They never asked me if I had experience..

Better question: Do they know I am not Filipino??

Oh goodness...