May Top Ten

I am 2 posts behind my pace of one blog a week!  So May is going to be catch up month.

Lately I've been trying to fight against my pessimistic tendencies by looking for cool people in the world.  And I have found some awesome people in unexpected places.  Some of them I think are awesome.  Some I disagree with and want to understand better.  But I find all of them fascinating.  Here are 10 living people I would like to meet someday.

10. Arianna Huffington - I think she is so smart, and usually right.  I really admire people who are well-reasoned. (I also love this talk that she gave at Sarah Lawrence College: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggMgAoSQpbI)

9. Julie Andrews - She is so classy!

8. Rainn Wilson - You should check out his youtube channel, Soulpancake.  It's hilarious and often profound.

7. Emily Deschanel - I have a feeling that we would be BFF...

6. Joanna Brooks - She is such an inspirational figure to me.  A lot of her story resonates with my experiences.

5. J. K. Rowling - I want to know how she was able to write such an intricate story, that is so developmentally accurate.  (One day, me and my friend Kiana are going to write an analysis of the series from a psychological perspective; the way the characters act and think change as they grow up is pretty accurate.)

4. Carol Gilligan - This name will mean nothing to a lot of you; she's an academic psychologist.  Again, this is not someone who I agree with all the time, but I think her story and her thought processes are fascinating.

3. Jim Holt - He wrote a book about the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"  He has some cool ideas, and has talked to a ton of interesting people (hear his interview on Radio West here: http://radiowest.kuer.org/post/why-does-world-exist-1).

2. Speaking of Radio West, I'd like to meet the host, Doug Fabrizio.  He is really sharp, asks the least idiotic questions of any interviewer I've ever heard, and is super good at hiding his personal biases. (Aaaand, this might actually happen...he went to high school with my parents...*wink* Mom *wink*.)

1. Jane Goodall - One of my secret, unfulfilled life ambitions is to be a biologist-anthropologist hybrid and study animals who live in social groups, like monkeys (and whales, and dolphins).  And I mean, what kind of awesome do you have to be to do the things she's done?