My life as it Pertains to Me Part 2: Elite Contests, Graduation, and Los Angeles

Knowing where one comes from gives understanding of who they are
and what they are going to be.

My reasons for starting College at 29, and pursuing a degree in film stem from a much younger self just graduated from high school, so that's where I'll begin, but let me warn you, it's a 3 blog story.

When I was 16 years old, I was standing outside a mall on a sidewalk and had a

fashionably dressed woman walk up and hand me a business card telling me I had a lovely jaw-line, and should call her. I laughed about her comments the rest of the day with my friends, but rushed home that night to measure my height (you have to be 5'8" minimum as a fashion model) and called her within days. I had dreamed of modeling, and acting from the time I was a young child, but thought it an impossibility growing up in a tiny logging town in Oregon.



Soon I was testing, and being promoted by a "mother agent" to markets around the world, I took accelerated courses that fall as a Senior in High School, in case I was to get a placement with an agent elsewhere, and

entered "Elite Modeling Competition" a few months before graduation.




I won the local competition, and went on to win the regional competition, and took a 1 week trip to Los Angeles in the spring to meet with my new agent "Elite Models," and attend several go-sees and castings. I returned home, graduated from high school at 17 years of age in 1998 (yes I'm that old), and two days later I moved to L.A. with a fellow model.

The first gig I ever booked was the cover of Teen Magazine, and all I have to say about that is hindsight's a b****. Two days before the shoot, I questioned my agent about the double booking, for there were two more rounds (national and world) of the Elite Modeling competition, and the first was on the same day as the Teen Magazine shoot.

They, of course, advised me to continue with their competition (the winner getting a $50,000 modeling contract) and so I did, but was only runner up, so would have fared much better with a magazine cover in my book, but such is life.

I worked in LA for a few months, for clients like K-mart, and The Beauty Handbook, nothing extravagant really. My then boyfriend made a trip to LA, during which he proposed, so I returned home for several months to prepare for a wedding.


That fall I was placed with an agency in Tokyo, I lived there for two months, made almost $20,000 working for clients like Shisheido, and Japanese Amway (yes, there is Amway in Japan), and other small catalog work I don't remember the names of. I filled my contract and came home with.... well not much of anything, as my agency took a 50% fee and the other half of my earnings paid all of my travel and living expenses for that time. I never could get my agency to send me tear pages, but below are some of my photos from Tokyo.

























































Then I got married, which is blog #3 of this story.


Life is All Surreal. When you look back at the tangled paths that have led to where you are, it all begins to make sense.

MJB




Find the rest of this series here:
Next Chapter:  My life as it pertains to me Part 3
My life as it pertains to me Part 4 
My life as it pertains to me Part 5 
My life as it pertains to me Part 6 
My life as it pertains to me Part 7