Be more like Oprah?

You know I like to get on here and write because it clears my mind, but man, I have been super busy over the last well, forever... Anyway, here are a few of the things that have been running through my head:

• Living Oprah - I love the idea of this blog because it is thought-provoking, but also it is really, really creative! This woman has spent the last year "Living Oprah" in that she buys or does anything that Oprah says "you must" do this, buy this, or whatever. She has kept a blog about her social experiment for the last year as well. Recently I thought of this woman because I saw a preview for Oprah's show last Friday where the commercial said something like "Find out what new gadget Oprah says you must have." It turns out that gadget is the Amazon.com's $300 Kindle book reader-thingy, which I only know because I got on her blog, finally, and found out that Oprah actually sent her a Kindle that day as a gift, but the woman sent it back! She said she decided when she began this social experiment that she would not take any financial help. I think that is smart because taking it from Oprah may create a bias in her experiment; although it would be really tough giving up a $300 gift from Oprah! : ( Anyway, it is pretty interesting to see how much advice Oprah doles out each day: LivingOprah.com
  
• I recently did some training to be a mentor for peer groups for high school kids that are giving presentation on sexual assault awareness (wow that was a mouthful!). Anyway, the day-long training went so, so well for me and it reaffirmed my choice of wanting to be a school counselor. Although the kids were all memorable, the thing that keeps running through my mind is woman in the media. This has also been the theme of the last week in my counseling classes. We even had a specialist come to one class who talked to our class about the hidden messages in the media regarding race and women. One of the main themes that seems to keep repeating itself is that there are no Disney movies where the woman is saving the man. The woman are all waiting bated breath to be saved by some guy they barely know. So, with that said, I am trying to coax my very creative, cartoon/computer graphics whiz sister of mine to write and create a new feminist Disney movie. We'll see.
• I was listening to Michelle Obama on the radio on the way into work today and learned: Obama's favorite snack is nuts (almonds, pistachios, etc) and bottled tea. The girls' second favorite holiday is Halloween. This is hard hitting news here. I am so glad I was almost late to work to tune in. LOL No, one thing that was interesting was that Obama has never missed a parent teacher conference for his kids. Pretty cool.
  
• Class night was very interesting for a couple of reasons: One, we were talkign about ethics in regards to new technology, such as MySpace, Facebook, etc and being able to view client information on these site or seeing this information by accident and whether or not clients can find our information on these site. Mostly though, this reminded me of the latest fad of teens sending uh, inappropriate pictures of themselves via text message to friends and how police in a couple states have tried prosecuting some of these individuals for sending child photography. These are the kinds of things we as a society are dealing with these days (yuck). I think the police are trying make an example out of these individuals, but I really feel that people need to understand that once you send this stuff into cyberspace, you can't retract it and you don't know who will view it. This may inadvertently be sent to some sicko out there, not just some buddy who will take it as a joke. In one of these examples, the text was sent to the football team. : ( Yikes. Article1 Article2
  
• We also talked about out "Creative counseling kits," which is a kit of props that makes me feel like a counseling version of Carrot Top. I wont go into my entire kit here, which includes a Newton's Cradle, silly putty, magnifying glasses and more! I did want to mention the example my teacher gave where she took a dollar bill and asked the girl "How much is this worth?" The girl said "A dollar," then the teacher crumpled and stomped on the dollar and then asked again how much it was worth. The girl again said a dollar. So the point is that no matter what you have been through - shredded, abused, hitting rock bottom - your value remains the same. Interesting! ;)
  
• I also learned a new word today. Well, I have heard the word of course, but I actually took the time to look it up since it has been used so frequently lately with all the election talk - Juggernaut: A relentless force.