I was terrified of graduating college and not knowing what I was going to do. I saw the auditions for Idol and thought, Why not? I always liked to sing. You know when they asked, "Are you the next American Idol?" I said yes, but I didn't mean it.
I'm about the only person in my family that's made it to 24 without being married. That's the way it works where I'm from. Most people, if you find someone to marry in high school, you do that, and if you don't find that, then you find someone in college.
The only other time I've been away from home was when I went to college. And that was just an hour away, so I could always go home if I needed to.
I know people are really interested in everything that the celebrities are doing, even if you don't consider yourself a "celebrity." What always would drive me crazy is - I took ethics classes in college - and it always amazes me how there would blatantly be something that I did not say in quotation marks. If you're putting quotation marks around it, it better be exactly what that person said.
I've grown up a lot. I've become more independent. I can talk to my parents more like friends. When I was going to college, I was still only an hour away from them.Now, after Idol and touring all over the place, I feel like I have become a lot more independent.
I took ethics classes in college, and it always amazes me how they [tabloids] will blatantly say something that I did not say, in quotation marks. The first thing that we learned in ethics is that you better have it right. If you're putting quotation marks around something, it better be exactly what that person said.
I did most of my volunteer work when I was in college because I knew of more ways to get involved. In high school, we'd do things like, there was a homeless shelter near our hometown and our church group decorated one of the rooms. In college, I was in a sorority, and we did a lot of things, like pick up trash on the highway.
