Before anything, I’d like the readers to acknowledge the fact that everything you’re about to read happened to me during the summer of 2022. As much as I felt really low while these things were happening, I am now glad that I have a conversation starter and something to say when people ask for a “fun fact” on the first day of classes.
The summer holiday officially began when my sister and I dragged our luggage out to the bus stop in the pouring rain early in the morning. I had it all planned for the Hot Girl Summer we very much deserved after a whole semester of quarantines and health scares. We got an Instagrammable apartment for a month in Manhattan, New York where I got a callback from a modeling agency for a test shoot. Most of my friends would be in the Big Apple at certain points during the summer, which meant we’d be able to do a lot of activities together. I was also looking for an internship in the city, so I was sure I had it all figured out. This was going to be the best summer yet.
The surprise I left on the bus
Fast forward to the Peter Pan bus, and I realized I missed two meals: dinner from the night before and breakfast from that morning. Already feeling queasy from the lack of food in me for the past who-knows-how-many hours, I decided to get donuts and a mango iced tea from Dunkin’ once we reached Springfield. Not long before arriving at our final destination, that queasy feeling visited once again. This time, it came with a surprise package. I darted toward the toilet knowing what was coming, and sure enough, I left the surprise upchuck package right there on that bus. It was a great start to a Hot Girl Summer.
Biting into the Big Apple
We finally arrived after a two-hour delay and one of my friends came to pick me up to go to the apartment I rented.
To our surprise, there was no lift in the building, so we had to carry three full-sized overweight bags up to the third floor only to find that the bathroom was moldy. It was so bad that I thought the soap dish was a fur carpet. Cries were heard, complaints were filed, and the day passed.
The ‘modeling’ shoot
Over the next few days in NYC, my sister and I just focused on why we were here in the first place: for me to do the photoshoot and maybe hear good news back from it. We tried to clean the place up, but what I couldn’t understand was that I had 4 other roommates, all with their own bedrooms, who all failed to keep the bathroom clean. Some of them had been living there for almost a year!
The day of the photoshoot came, and I made my way to the studio with a bunch of my friends as bodyguards. While I checked in, someone came to talk to me about scheduling and planning while another person powdered my face. I knew I shouldn’t have told them what to do or what not to do with my face in terms of makeup, but it got to a point where they didn’t understand my skin tone or my brows’ natural arches. I started subtly hinting to them that this was not right just for them to reply with, “It looks better on camera, trust me.” Having been in photoshoots and commercials before, I know what works on camera. I also know how much I have experimented on my own face with my lights and cameras. I kept quiet for the rest of the shoot and just did what they asked. It wasn’t till the end of the shoot, I really felt like I had to say something.
What happened at the end of the shoot will shock you. Stay tuned for Part Two.
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