i was talking with my brother who just spent a part of his afternoon diving through my old records looking for my physics notes and he uncovered one of documents i have meticulously put away from my time as a KASAMA under-secretary. the KASAMA, kataas-taasang samahan ng mga mag-aaral, is the highest governing student body of the university. in turn, the university presidents vote among themselves who would be the student representative in the university system's board of directors, with the same voting power as the president of the philippines. but my story is not about KASAMA. let's talk beauty pageants.
i belong to a family of conservatives when it comes to beauty pageants. not extremists, but my parents do frown at beauty pageants and modelling all the same. their rationale behind it is, of course, understandable: why on earth would you walk down the ramp in skimpy clothes or your underwear for everyone to see? a boost in confidence for the price of having boys ogle at you? i guess you could say we were taught early on that there's more to beauty than outward appearance. we were allowed to host any and all kinds of events, though, where we still get to wear pretty gowns and fix our hair. anyway, i do not discriminate against beauty queens and beauty queen wanna-be's but, yes, i agree with my parents when they say romping around in your underwear is pointless.
this got me thinking about the ultimate purpose of the mr. and ms. palakasan, the palakasan being our university-wide sports fest. as with most other pageants, the objective is in discovering a person who could best represent a community. beauty queens get to represent their community in formal functions, host events, or even get to talk with dignitaries. and i thought, iit is an academic institution. we're supposed to pride ourselves with our academic achievements, why should our representative be chosen only based on outward appearances?
and so we proposed major amendments to the university's beauty pageant, patterned after the aylc selection process:
(1) candidates must be recommended by their professors;
(2) candidates must not have failed a course during the immediately preceding semester;
(3) candidates must submit a short essay about why she would like to join the competition;
(4) an interview must be performed separate from the awards night q&a where the questions will test how well the candidate knows msu-iit. questions may be about the university hymn, a brief history of the university, a brief history of her college, an overview of the university's cultural or sports groups, perhaps the names of important personalities (at least, the chancellor);
(5) model a malong down the runway (this is a totally unoriginal idea, my mom said they have been doing this in marawi, hehe. but, hey, nice idea, riiiight? :D we did it once in high school, my sister and i were hosting some event in school and we went in malong gowns. needless to say, we won the best dressed side award :P i have a copy of the photo here somewhere, i'll attach it when i find it.)
and etc, among others. all these on top of walking the runway in fancy costumes and a talent show, although a talent show would not be necessary.
i believed, from the amendments we proposed, that we would be able to have much more meaningful beauty pageants in the university. by this screening process we would have been able to discover a beautiful, intelligent, and articulate student we can be proud to call a representative of our university.
we had prepared everything from the process details to the application forms. it has even gone as far as going through reviews by the college student bodies, but it never pushed through. our term ended but we did leave a complete compilation of that idea in the office but is probably long lost by now. i suppose the requirements were a bit too rigid. maybe it IS a lot easier to just pick out the prettiest girl on campus and have her strut her stuff down the runway.
i am truly amazed at what they can do, really i am, but i would be even more amazed if they are like ma'am bevs, who was a student at the time, studying physics, doing her thesis, deans-lister, ipag dancer, member of the university volleyball varsity, and eventually graduated magna cum laude. she won ms. palakasan 2004 (or 2005?). i'd let her represent me anytime!
::
and so we proposed major amendments to the university's beauty pageant, patterned after the aylc selection process:
(1) candidates must be recommended by their professors;
(2) candidates must not have failed a course during the immediately preceding semester;
(3) candidates must submit a short essay about why she would like to join the competition;
(4) an interview must be performed separate from the awards night q&a where the questions will test how well the candidate knows msu-iit. questions may be about the university hymn, a brief history of the university, a brief history of her college, an overview of the university's cultural or sports groups, perhaps the names of important personalities (at least, the chancellor);
(5) model a malong down the runway (this is a totally unoriginal idea, my mom said they have been doing this in marawi, hehe. but, hey, nice idea, riiiight? :D we did it once in high school, my sister and i were hosting some event in school and we went in malong gowns. needless to say, we won the best dressed side award :P i have a copy of the photo here somewhere, i'll attach it when i find it.)
and etc, among others. all these on top of walking the runway in fancy costumes and a talent show, although a talent show would not be necessary.
i believed, from the amendments we proposed, that we would be able to have much more meaningful beauty pageants in the university. by this screening process we would have been able to discover a beautiful, intelligent, and articulate student we can be proud to call a representative of our university.
we had prepared everything from the process details to the application forms. it has even gone as far as going through reviews by the college student bodies, but it never pushed through. our term ended but we did leave a complete compilation of that idea in the office but is probably long lost by now. i suppose the requirements were a bit too rigid. maybe it IS a lot easier to just pick out the prettiest girl on campus and have her strut her stuff down the runway.
i am truly amazed at what they can do, really i am, but i would be even more amazed if they are like ma'am bevs, who was a student at the time, studying physics, doing her thesis, deans-lister, ipag dancer, member of the university volleyball varsity, and eventually graduated magna cum laude. she won ms. palakasan 2004 (or 2005?). i'd let her represent me anytime!
::
No comments:
Post a Comment