For the past seven weeks we have been bringing you the story of Ali Turner, courtesy of her mother Patty (tFS user modelmom). Ali's journal has chronicled the beginning of her modeling career in Paris at 15 years old (which was in 2002).

This segment of 'Becoming a Model' is from the perspective of Patty Turner, detailing Ali's experiences as a young model in New York City.

Read Part 1 here,  Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here, Part 5 here, Part 6 here, and Part 7 here.

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This time the journal is mine...my memory is not the best, so I wrote everything down daily.

Ford New York called in December and they wanted Ali to come to New York for show castings in January.

Ali's Dad hit the roof... my first thought was 'you have got to be kidding', and Ali was running around the house calling all her friends telling them she was going to New York.

The debate went on at our house for a week before Dennis caved in....he never had a fighting chance with Ali and her sisters all ganging up on him. I was running around trying to figure out how I was going to get a break from teaching without losing my job.

I sat Ali down and told her that I wanted to make sure her attitude was going to be different than it was when we were in Paris. She has everything going for her but without a postive outlook people would see right through her. She was so excited about going, I believed every word she said....
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Jan.5th 2003...

I am determined to save money this time so I booked a room at the Chelsea hostel...if you are gasping right now then you would magnify that reaction times ten upon seeing the place. Ali will be moving in the model apartment tomorrow but this is it for tonight. There was one bathroom to share for the floor and it wasn't long before we found out that we weren't the only live things in the room....so many bugs. It was late, when we arrived,we had no place else to go so we slept with our clothes on sitting up with the lights on. I read somewhere that bugs like the dark.

We were up as soon as it was daylight outside. I went downstairs to talk to a clerk that was locked up behind a glass window....not a good sign, I had paid for two weeks but I asked for my money back and after a few minutes of my talking rather loudly about the bugs, he handed it over. The highlight of the morning was the fact that they have Krispy Kreme doughnuts here!