I got to thinking about Oprah. I've watched Oprah off and on since I babysat two boys from the neighborhood every day after school in junior high. Sometimes she miffs me into madness, but usually I think she's good people. For whatever reason, I thought about being on The Oprah Winfrey Show. More specifically, I thought of all the reasons I would rather not appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show:
1. A decade makeover. Now, a makeover is grand, but if I'm on for a decade makeover it means I have given up. Oh, may I never be the equivalent of that sickening combination of bad mom jeans and feathered hair.
2. From prison, on Skype for being inappropriate with a student. Let me be honest here, I've never, not even once, been attracted to a student. That is the "no duh, you simply don't do that!" cardinal rule of teaching. The key here: they're adolescents. Children. And everything about them screams that pubescent fact. Which simply isn't tempting to me at all. Is that clear? I have no intentions of ever, ever going there. But before I started teaching it seemed a special on Mary Kay Letourneau and her counterparts appeared in the news every other day. So you become paranoid that you'll one day lose your mind and think that sick, predatorial kind of thing is okay. They didn't go into teaching with that intention, either. So I guess my paranoia leads me to secretly fear I will, like Mary Kay and her Crew of deviants, lose all touch with reality and find that option worthwhile.
3. We really should just combine this one with #2: basically, I don't want to be on Oprah's for anything in which I appear in the headlines. I like my privacy.
4. To ask Dr. Oz an embarrassing question. I don't think my pride could ask what some of those people do.
5. For any kind of furniture jumping.
6. To have my book, reputation, pride, and integrity slaughtered and hung for the world to see. I can't believe James Frey sat through that a few years ago.
That's pretty much it. Frankly, I just want to be invited to an all-teacher audience favorite things show. Is that so much to ask? Oprah, are you listening? I'll wear something bright and pretty.
4 comments:
There must be something wrong with me because I really hate the Oprah. Not her as a person but her as a trademark. ugh. I can think of so many people that deserve the spot light more than her.
ps. I left a comment on your post below.
I nominate you to be on Oprah just because you are you, and that is awesome enough.
I didn't know Nie Nie was on Oprah. I was in the UK at the time so I missed it, darn it.
Oprah is a piece of work. All I will say here is that any person who has a magazine named after herself and then continues to feature herself, front and cover, month after month, year after year, needs her head examined. Not even Martha Stewart does that.
I don't care how much $$$ Oprah gives to charity each year. She is not one of my fave peeps.
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