For Shenise Wong, the Miss Universe finals in Vietnam next month will be the last time she will need to revise the notes in what she jokingly calls her '10-year series'.
After that, she will retire from the pageant circuit.
Neatly written within a spiral-bound notebook are various nuggets of information she has garnered through her beauty pageant experiences.
The newly crowned Miss Singapore Universe 2008 even has carefully thought out 'model answers' to tricky pageant-type questions which she refers to before contests.
Wong, 26, says revising her notes has helped her stay mentally primed for the challenges she has had to face during these contests.
The most difficult question posed to her so far, she says, is: 'What do you think of premarital sex?'
Her answer, dutifully written down in the notebook, of course, and recited sincerely without a trace of irony is: 'Morality is an important factor in considering this issue. But I feel it is important for people to educate the young on safety, prevention and the consequences of doing so.'
One of the most important pages in that notebook has to be its inside front cover titled 'What if we (sic) don't win', surely a scenario any aspiring beauty queen would need to take heed of in any competition.
Not that she actually needs to remember to put on her graceful loser smile.
Besides her current Miss Singapore Universe crown, she has won the top prize at all the other three beauty contests she has taken part in - Miss Asia Pacific Singapore in 1999, International Miss Singapore in 2002 and Miss Singapore World in 2005.
It certainly seems as if she has found a winning formula with her wholesome good looks and trusty notebook.
But she is determined to bid the world of sashes and crowns goodbye once the Miss Universe finals are over.
'This is the last one. I want to be known as Miss Universe at the end of it all,' says Wong, who has a boyfriend of 11/2 years.
Hers is a childhood dream she is proud to have fulfilled and she is happy to leave it at that.
'I'll go back to my job after Miss Universe,' she says, noting that she is taking a month's no-pay leave to be in the pageant.
The 1.73m tall beauty queen with luscious raven locks is currently a foreign exchange broker at interdealer broker Icap, which negotiates deals between commercial banks and investment banks.
When she is finally ready to leave the financial world, Wong knows exactly what she wants to do next.
'I plan to start my own business, possibly something related to my experiences at these contests,' she says.
What exactly, she hasn't decided yet but knows it won't be image consulting, a field already dominated by former beauty queens.
'Hey, maybe I'll write a book on how to be a beauty queen with all these notes that I've taken.'
No. of pageants: 4
No. of crowns: 4
This article was first published in Urban, The Straits Times on Jun 5, 2008.
