And the winner is...
21 contestants from Fernandina Beach, Yulee and Callahan high schools were competing the the title of Miss Shrimp Festival 2010 and the $1,000 dollar check issued by Pageant Sponsor the Hampton Inn and Suites Harbor Front.
For anyone have witnessed this pageant for a couple of years in a row now, it is clear that the story board changes very little. The questions asked from the contestants are mostly if not all the same and so are many of the answers. An occasional exception to the rule just confirms that small town festivities are anchored in what works best for the long term.
I particularly enjoyed the answer from contestant number 16 Alex Mazur who answered the question as to what she considered the biggest challenges in today’s school system as the lack of arts and music programs in today’s class rooms. I particularly liked her answer as it is in line with global movements that promote slowing down.
In many other cultures, time is cyclical, it’s seen as moving in great, unhurried circles, it’s always renewing and refreshing itself, where as in the West, time is linear, it’s a finite resource. It’s always draining away, you either use it or lose it. The understanding of what this does to us psychologically is that it creates an equation: time is scarce, so what do we do? Well, we speed up, don’t we? We try and do more and more with less and less time, we turn every moment of every day into a race to the finish line, a finish line incidentally that we never reach.
The creation of arts and music in the class room will actually give a better perspective and relaxed implementation of the beta sciences.
We live on island time here on Amelia Island. It’s an art from we should protect relentlessly. Miss Mazur is right. The more we let arts and music into our life, the more we understand time, beauty, happiness and science and the more relaxed energy we can put in the factual world of mathematics.
The following video gives 21 questions and answers that determined who would become Miss Shrimp Festival 2010. Enjoy
