Ms. Galien/ Ms. Blossomtime

Disclaimer: The following post is a harsh opinion. If you are a local resident of Berrien or the surrounding counties of Michigan, please do not read. This post and the associated pictures do not reflect the official view of the Ms. Galien or Ms. Blossomtime pageants by anyone mentioned in this post other than myself.

Most people in the world are familiar with beauty pageants. They are practically everywhere and unfortunately my hometown is not an exception. Every fall, without fail, the Ms. Galien pageant is held. A half dozen or so girls go out, buy dresses, tan, put on makeup, and sharpen their claws to win a crown.

When I was in high school, I actually liked the idea of the pageant. These things are supposed to showcase upstanding young ladies from our community. Beauty, intelligence, character, blah, blah all rolled up into these select ladies. Yeah right… this was a yearly fight between the girls to see who could be top bitch. The crowd that I hung out with would just sit back and watch the drama and rumors unfold. There were a few that went to the actual pageant, but most of us had better ideas of what to do with our night. We’d find out who won soon enough anyways. All hail the new stuck up queen!

This past fall, while I was at State for my last semester, my sister Kris went out for Ms. Galien. I rolled my eyes back when I heard her say that. I felt sorry for her and all the crap that she was going to have to go through. At the time, I meant the external crap that people, like myself were going to throw at her. Now that Ms. Galien is now over, I realized that it was the pageant itself that was crap. The insults and hassle that my friends and I would have given them was nothing in comparison to the crap that she has had to deal with from the organizers, fellow contestants and their families, and the duties and requirements of her position as 1st Runner-up. That’s right, she didn’t win Ms. Galien. As 1st Runner-Up she won a $300 scholarship plus some certificates for tanning. [sarcasm] As if we Filipinos want to be darker. [/sarcasm]

Kris now has to accompany Ms. Galien and her court for various functions. That means buying and borrowing more dresses, plus time away from her job and in the case of last night—skipping her college class. Tsk, tsk. The organizers seem to be a bunch of stuck up bitches that try to live vicariously through these girls. The court doesn’t get along. Yadda, yadda… it just seems that it’s sucking the life out of my sister. I think that even she realizes that getting into this was a complete mistake. Given the amount of money, time, and effort she has put into it for a measly $300, it wasn’t worth it. She would have been more productive if she just took those hours and continued to work at her job. It’s not like winning 1st Runner-up helped her to get into Western Michigan University. Still, she has to keep going in order to prepare Ms. Galien for the Ms. Blossomtime pageant.

Ms. Galien along with other Ms. [insert town name here] compete against each other for the Ms. Blossomtime crown. Basically, towns from our little corner of Michigan want this title. And again, the claws come out. Ms. Blossomtime was an even better event at my high school. Every year we actually got to get out of class for half the day as the various winners toured all the communities. When they would come to Galien, we would gather in the gymnasium. My friends and I would shoot the shit there until the contestants were brought in. As they came in, we would just rip them to shreds by picking on whatever imperfections that they might have. Yes, we were despicable and we’ll probably burn in hell for it.

http://www.blossomtimefestival.org/

The following pictures were taken by other people. The context in which they were taken are in no way connected to my opinion. Still, I wanted to post them.