Hello, everyone! I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of support and congratulations that have come my way since my 'Millionaire' episode aired in September. I wanted to blog about my experience, but ended up taking far longer than I expected to coherently put a post together! It ended up being very long, so I've split it into
three parts. I hope that you enjoy reading...perhaps it will inspire you to take the plunge and try out for the show!
One of the most important lessons I have learned over the past few years is to live life with gratitude. Over and over again, I have been amazed by the opportunities that life has thrown my way. My personal thought is that each one has been a blessing, and I constantly thank God that I haven't received what I think I truly deserve (because let's face it, I'm far from perfect". But regardless of if you believe in God or not, I think that many people believe that everything happens for a reason. Looking back on my episode of 'Millionaire', it is obvious that the game I played was the game meant for me, and the outcome was more than what I deserved, but everything that I needed. Let me explain...
This picture pretty much says it all - I was shocked at the moment. I kept thinking to myself, "Is this real life?!"
The actual experience of
filming an episode of 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' did not feel like a total
whirlwind. I took the stage with Cedric, and we started the episode with a fun
pageant experience--I taught Cedric how to strut his stuff down the runway!
Mind you, I know that there is much more to pageantry than walking, turning,
and waving (you can see my post on the deeper sides of pageantry here), but for
TV purposes, this three-pronged approach was the way to go! Walking with Cedric
really helped me to calm down and just enjoy the moment--he was so sassy in his
walk that I couldn't help but unwind and laugh. Shout out to my wonderful
pageant coach, Chris Saltalamacchio, for helping me fine tune my walk so that I could show
Cedric. I hope I made you proud!
Then, it was time to
face my stack of questions. While they purposefully don't allow you into the
studio to watch the contestants prior to you film (they don't want to psych you
out in either direction), I couldn't help but overhear a question from earlier
in the day when I was getting my microphone put on backstage. Oh. My. Goodness.
It was a crazy question that had to do with modern art and I had absolutely NO
IDEA what the answer was. I thought to myself, "Well, if my stack of
questions has a question like this, I guess that's what lifelines are
for!" Thankfully, I wasn't given any art-related questions. For the first
ten questions, I knew eight of the answers right away. The other two stumped
me. I ended up jumping both questions (one was about the age of MTV, the other
about Creedence Clearwater Revival). Thankfully, due to the randomization of
the questions and their monetary value, I ended up jumping the two LEAST
valuable questions.
By the end of the first
round, I was floored. Each time we would take a commercial break, the wonderful
team at Millionaire would bring out a cup of water for me and touch-up my
makeup. Everyone was so excited for me, and encouraged me whenever they had the
chance. I had over $60,000 in my bank, and it was beginning to hit me that I
was SO close to the million dollar question.
Spotted: My parents looking pretty dang serious behind me.
Round two began, and it
was time to face my $100,000 question. Can you imagine my shock and surprise
when the question was unveiled and I actually knew the answer? I've never
studied Latin (nor Playboy magazine, for that matter), but looking at the
sentence structure, and having a basic familiarity with language roots, I was
able to deduct that"Si Non Oscillas, Noli Tintinnare" translates to "If you don't swing, don't ring." When Cedric announced that I had gotten
the answer correct, the audience exploded. I could hear my father yelling in
excitement, and I was really just hit with overwhelming emotion. So many
thoughts were running through my head—the foremost being “I can completely pay
off my student loan debt.” Call me boring, call me extremely practical—but for
me, that felt like a huge weight being lifted off of my chest at that moment. I
was excited to move forward and see if I could take home an even larger
winning, but I knew that no matter what, I could walk away with $100,000 that
would change my life forever.
When the $250,000 was
shown, I realized that my relatively easy game play period was coming to an
end. Even though I work in the medical field, I just wasn’t sure what the term
for the sensation of ants crawling over your skin is. Since I had a lifeline
left, I asked the audience. However, there was no runaway winner in the answer
that they chose. I took a deep breath, and decided to walk away from the game. I’m
not a huge risk taker, I don’t enjoy gambling. For me, a bird in hand was worth
more than two in the bush. While it turned out that the audience was right, I
have no regrets in walking away when I did. For me, a bird in hand was worth
more than two in the bush.
Looking back, you’re
always able to examine a situation and find things that you could have done
differently. I could have asked the audience the Creedence Clearwater Revival
question, and later been able to jump the $250,000 question. What if I’d known
the answer to the $500,000 question? But living in the moment is far more
enjoyable than thinking about any “What if?” in life. While winning more money
would have been nice, at the end of the day, I simply don’t need it. I have a
job that pays me, I have a roof over my head, and with my Millionaire winnings,
I am out of student loan debt. In the words of my mother, in the span of thirty
minutes I basically fast-forwarded my life plan by ten years.
Time moves quickly.
Often, in the rush, we forget to take time to be thankful for what we have. More
than anything else, my experience on Millionaire has left me feeling incredibly
humbled. I am just a regular girl from a simple city called Yonkers
Special thanks to the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire team for treating every contestant like we were already worth a million bucks!
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