Last October, my dear friend and fellow COM (College of Communication, the communication school within Boston University) student, Chris Wilcox approached me with a “quick biddie problem.” Adopting the long-adored COM concept of biddidom (being a typical, cliche, CHICK, chatting via Blackberry, rocking Uggs, and so on), Chris proposed that I be the Miss to his Mister COM and compete in BU Programming Council’s annual Mr. & Miss. BU Competition. Two students from each of the 9 schools and colleges at BU compete to wear the official Mr. and Miss BU crown, and they get tickets to some hockey game that seems to matter a lot to everyone, excluding sports-pass waiving me.
Favorite Decade Day: 60's Mad Men!
I was absolutely honored to become Miss. COM, and after a week of themed picture-taking and Facebook blasting preparation, at 7pm on Saturday, Chris and I donned our scarlet and white sashes to begin our rapid descent to rest among the other well-meaning COM hopefuls who were robbed of the chance to tweet about a University pageant victory.
Past COMtestants (Mr. and Miss BU contestants from COM) always seemed so naturally to fit the role of Mr. and Miss BU that most students make the assumption that victory is only follower-count deep. This is not the case. Let me say, Mr. and Miss CFA can rock the CFAsbah, and our questions were biased and unfair. #obvz.
Learning the opening dance sequence was the greatest challenge we faced, but fortunately my high school Drama Club Presidency (*rubs dirt off shoulders*) was spent learning many a box step, and I can work jazz hands better than Sharpay Evans.
Sharpay and Ryan, of High School Musical, dance and bop to the top
The Newlywed Game meant each contestant had to know enough about the other to guess whether they preferred Starbucks or Dunks (EASY. CHRIS IS SO DUNKS. I AM SO STARBS.) Chris and I have known each other since freshman year, so we assumed we had this in the bag. Alas, despite having found one another in a group ice breaker at the third Admissions Ambassador meeting in January of 09, Chris and I could not properly identify one another’s preferred newspaper publication. Sorry, panel of question-concocters, there’s about A BERJILLION to choose from. #RIGGED.
Then the contest moved on to “Name that Hashtag” which put far more pressure on us than I could ever have imagined, and Chris and I froze and bombed COMICALLY and miserably when given random pictures to assign witty hashtags to. #twaddictproblems
Lastly, it was time for “TALENTS.” This was the big make or break of the show, and naturally Chris and I rewrote the lyrics to the Spice Girls classic “Wannabe” at 1pm that day, because in COM we major in #procrastination. If I do say so myself, our performance was not the absolute worst, and nothing we could have done could have lived up to the mastery of some of the other schools. I mean, CFA CLEARLY has an advantage here. Then again, one would think we’d have a leg up in the hashtag round, so #nevermind.
When it came time for deliberation, counting @DeanElmore as a follower on Twitter did NOT help the votes, and we regretfully relinquished our hopes to Mr. and Miss. CFA who did genuinely perform astoundingly overall.
Despite a treacherous defeat, Chris and I had an absolute BLAST participating and making fools of ourselves in front of the entire student body. All’s not lost, I got to put that I was Miss COM on my Linked In page, and I kept my sash. To be buried in. From that time I peaked senior year of college.
A big thanks to everyone that came out to support us!!
ValenTEA Party 