August 15^th, 2009

The final day at Miss America’s Outstanding Teen. Kelly and I thought nothing else could go bad but boy, were we wrong. We had two alarm clocks in our room. One just in case the hotel alarm clock didn’t work. Friday night, we had set them for 5:30 A.M. because Kelly was going to get up early and take a shower and then wake me up at 6:30 A.M. because I am a little less motivated in the morning. So she wakes me up, I lazily wash my face and then look at the alarm clock closest to my bed which reads as 5:35 A.M. I ask Kelly what time it is and she says it’s 6:30 and I tell her that this clock must be wrong then because it says 5:35. We are a little unsure (not to mention it’s too early to really think.) So, Kelly goes outside our room to ask the security guard what time it is and she replies that is 5:30 and she was wondering why we were up so early when no one else will be getting up for at least another hour. We laugh and set our alarms now for 7:00 A.M. Next thing I know, it is 8:46 A.M. and I can hear, “Alabama, Alaska, Arizona…” outside our door. Our alarm clock never went off and we were about to miss roll call too! Frantically, we pack up our Dolly Duffle (that is what we all called our duffle bags we brought to the convention center each night) to go to rehearsal. We had no make up on, no breakfast in our stomachs, and had just woken up. Five hours of rehearsal was tough on an empty stomach. Luckily, a few of the girls had some snacks they generously gave to me. Good thing I had spent that night packing everything up for my mom to take out of my room!!