So, recently we each had to do an assignment where we wrote about five people who we looked up to as role models– the five people we would want at the table at a business meeting, so to speak.

This assignment also included making a creative visual including everyone at your table, as well as yourself. I chose to have an art gallery wall with pictures of everyone at my table (and, of course, me.)

This was what I wrote about the people I chose:

One fictional role model that I don’t think about as much anymore but still consider just as great a character is Jo March from Little Women. At the time that I first read Little Women, writing was one of my favourite things to do. Jo writing stories, and later on getting them published, and getting recognition for them, always made me want to go work on a story more, and it was nice to connect to the character through that. Jo is also a very independent character, although she is shown to care a lot about her family and friends. She is always depicted as doing whatever she wants, and usually not needing much help. However, she is a very helpful character, doing whatever she can to help her family, and doing chores and work without complaining. In the part of the book where Beth is sick, Jo spends most of her time taking care of her and trying to make her happy and comfortable. The coexistence of Jo’s independent and rebellious nature and her helpfulness and kindness towards others are what makes her a good character, and a good role model.

While I have a lot of people that I look up to for traits they exhibit, there are some people that I look up to more for the things they have created and the style, creativity or dedication that clearly went into those things. One such person is Tim Burton. While I don’t know much about Tim Burton as a person, I have admired the movies that he has produced and directed for years. While there are a lot of factors that go into making a movie, and many, many people involved in making one, Tim Burton’s influence on any movie he had a hand in is clear. The unique characteristic that Burton brings to his movies has come to be known as “being Burtonesque”. Something Burtonesque is usually imbued with an interesting mix of childishness and macabre, a balance that Burton seems to have perfected over the years. While any given Tim Burton movie is likely to have dark elements, a lot of them are children’s movies, and they make sense as children’s movies; they aren’t scary or disturbing, but they take things that should be scary and disturbing and add humour. Tim Burton has also created some of the original characters or ideas in his movies, both of which take a lot of creativity to create.

One of my favourite series is Harry Potter, and one of my favourite characters from said series is Hermione Granger. Throughout all the books, her values remained basically the same: family. Friends. Equality. Intelligence. All admirable things to care about, and things that she stood up for many, many times throughout the series, no matter how many people tried to shut her down. Hermione has influenced and inspired a lot of people, and for good reason; she’s an awesome character and an excellent role model. As is normal for a teenager, or any given person, Hermione dealt with some insecurity in the books. However, she always stood up for herself and what she believed, and she was always eager to learn new things in and about the world around her. Hermione also proves to be very observant throughout the books. She tends to be the character most attuned to others’ emotions and plans, and to small details that ended up helping in various situations. An example of this is in the first book, when Hermione remembers who Nicholas Flamel is due to his name having been mentioned in a book she’s reading at the time.

I spend a lot of time watching YouTube, and although I like watching various channels, my favourite YouTuber is a vlogger called Shannon Taylor (HeyThereImShannon). Her videos showcase a sense of self-confidence that I wish I could have myself, and always encourage people to be and do whatever they want. At the time that I began watching her channel, it seemed to be (apart from the short vlog-style videos that she still does now) mostly hair tutorials; perhaps a strange choice of focus for a YouTuber with alopecia, something she has always been open about, but has accepted and worked through enough that her hair has now become something she is known for. Although the content on her channel has recently focussed more on vlogging, and on the music she’s released, the message has remained: be yourself.

I’ve had various role models throughout my life, but the person I’ve always considered my biggest role model is my sister Charlotte. In probably every aspect of my life, from school to fashion to kindness and just being a good person, I look up to Charlotte as the standard that I want to meet. Seeing my sister exhibit traits like leadership, kindness and a sense of humour has made me want to do the same. Seeing her work hard on schoolwork— and watching her bring home good grades because of it —is one of the reasons that I’ve always wanted to show the same dedication and intelligence. Even in small things, like her makeup and fashion sense, Charlotte is the person I aspire to be more like. However, the thing I admire most about my sister is her creativity, and the creative talents that she’s developed because of it. Charlotte is an excellent writer, artist, singer and pianist– all things that I know very well don’t come without work and resilience. As a kid, I remember looking at Charlotte’s accomplishments and thinking they seemed unreachable, or impossibly good, but as the years went on, they inspired me to reach my own accomplishments, and develop my own interests in a lot of the same things as my sister. She isn’t perfect, but Charlotte has always and will always inspire me in many areas of my life, and I will always look up to her as my role model.

While I do look up to all the people I chose as role models to varying degrees, I found while I was choosing people that I was often inspired less by people themselves and more by things that they had created; songs, art, stories, videos. I didn’t want my entire list to be filled with people who I only looked up to for their work, but I wanted to represent this idea that I often looked to things people had created as inspiration, and this is the main reason I included Tim Burton; I don’t know much about Tim Burton as a person, but I am a big fan of his work, and the same is true of a lot of different people who are considered to be role models. There’s a difference between being inspired by or respecting something and being inspired by or respecting someone, so in the case of Tim Burton, and a number of people I did not add to the list, I look up not to them but to the worlds that they have created.

Toodles.