If there is a word that means “beyond famous” you can look that word up in the dictionary and see a picture of me.
I’ve been giving lectures, along with various other SCC board members, to chemistry students at universities around the state. The latest of these presentations was at BYU in honor of national chemistry week.
Somehow this lecture landed me and Ryan, my co-presenter, an invitation to appear on a live talk show called Insight with Jon Du Pre that is broadcasted on BYUTV. Yes, I did say “live” as in lots of opportunities for blurting out baffling responses that cannot be edited into coherency.
Ryan and I agreed to be on this program without really knowing what to expect. Apparently we should have counted on some nerves, a little mayhem, and a whole lot of blush.
As soon as I arrived at the studio I was whisked into makeup. My look was glamorized, or depastified rather, with seemingly endless layers of foundation and eye shadow. It was a lot more than I would normally wear; it was probably a lot more than the average hooker would wear. And I wasn’t the only one that got obligatorily prettied up, Ryan was powdered and primped too.
After our beautification we did have a little time to prep for the interview while waiting in a holding room but most of what was discussed during that wait didn’t make it into the program. So much for being ready. I’m sure you’d never guess watching our segment, which was brimming with witty technical repartee, that we were totally winging it. Never.
The trickiest part of being on live TV was pretending that you weren’t on live TV. Ignoring all the teleprompters, the cameras focused on you from every possible angle, and the multitude of timing apparatuses while trying to quickly give intelligible responses was a little daunting. We pulled it off pretty well though. I didn’t fall off my stool or start spouting incomprehensible Rachel blabber. The fool I made of myself was not complete so I’d say my expectations were exceeded.
If you want to witness my attempt to sound scientific, but not too scientific, while encased in a nearly impervious makeup shell check out this link: http://byutv.org/watch/