When I grow up...

I was thinking about this yesterday. Who would I like to be when I grew up? I came up with the following people. Sorry to non Australians but the serious contenders are Australian, which when I thought about it was kind of nice, to have the people you most admire to be your own nationality. Warning: Britney did not make the list. Neither did Martha or Oprah who trade on our lack of self-esteem and sense of guilt at not being a "better" person.

1. Mary Kostakidis - newsreader par excellence!

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mary_Kostakidis&oldid=204882979

Because she is wise and courageous, willing to speak her mind despite a claimed culture of fear and silence in her workplace (SBS News!) She would not allow the collision of vaules that has been homogenising, commercialising and anglicising SBS, our multicultural telesivision network and forming a "boys club" to take her down. And managed to look great all that the same time. Bravo Mary. May I please be you when I grow up. Plus she can say all those foreign names without so much as a pause, rolling all her rrrr's in the right spot. My idol.

or if I can't be I would like to be one of the following, in order of preference

2. Maxine McKew - erstwhile member for Bennelong

http://www.maxinemckew.alp.org.au/

The woman who unseated a Prime  Minister - yes please. Former journalist, now Labor politician, I would happily walk in your fine shoes anyday. Anyone who can achieve the impossible and get John Howard shown the political exit door is the woman for me!

3. Antonia Fraser - author of history and fiction, Lady Antonia is the daughter of the 7th Earl of Longford. She has survived an assaination attempt on the lives of her then husband, and Caroline Kennedy who was staying with them as the time. The mother of 6 children she went onto have an spectaluar society affair, divorce and remarry. And still manage to write. Life on the large scale is the life for me - Lady Antonia would please me at number 3.

4. Melinda Gates. She gets its all. A man to handle all the technology bits for her, lovely children, and money mpney money. Money to give to charity. A heart of gold. A good person through and through. I could handle the life of Melinda Gates.

5.Quentin Bryce

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Bryce

Quentin Bryce is the current Govenor of Queensland and will shortly become Australia's first Govenor General. She gets to kick political bottoms if they misbehave too much! If you have to stay with the monarchy at least at a woman helping out the team. One of the first women elected to the Queensland Bar, she lecturered in law, raised 5 children, headed the Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner and much much more. Quentin is a female wonder woman. Not bad for a girl from Longreach!

(Quentin is the one on the right, the guy on the left is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd!)

6. Now number 6 is a very late one to the list and only came to mind after a comment Karen made - ERMA BOMBEK (yes I know she is dead, but I could be beamed up or cloned or something. It is my list I make the rules! ) Erma showed that life is sometimes a train wreck, it is tough, and that often we are all holding our families together with sticky tape and rubber bands. And any woman who requests the epitaph "Big Deal! I'm used to dust" is a role model in my world.

I asked some of the people I work with who they wanted to be when they grew up and got some interesting replies

Lee wanted to be Dianne Keaton - but before she started making movies with Mandy Moore, and not the bits that touched woody Allen. If not she would settle for the days I wasn't Mary Kostakidis.

Gay wanted to be Wonder Woman, but I said I made the rules and they had to be someone human. So she picked Dame Edna Everidge, who I guess passes for human. She picked Edna because that meant she got to be male and female and so had the best of both worlds.

Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
  - Dame Edna Everage

Ron wants to be Lachlan or James Murdoch (whoever is in with Daddy best), Bruce Sprinsteen or Jon Bon Jovi - obviously the man wants to rule the world one way or another!

And poor Jordie was stumped. He is only 25. I guess he is too young to know who he wants to be when he grows up. I guess he still has a year or two to dream. He wilted under the pressure of the life decision.

Who do you want to be when you grow up?