Disgruntled, Julia stared down at the little book she had made. Stapled between two yellow pieces of construction paper lay the pages. On them, she had filled out blue mimeographed prompts and further adorned the pages with crayoned illustrations. 'All About Me,' read the title Julia had penned with a magic marker. Why had her teacher and her mother laughed at her? She reviewed again the logic she had so thoughtfully followed only to be ridiculed.

Julia opened her book to the controversial page. 'When I grow up, I want to be:___.' She was eight and had lived most of her life in the four block radius that encompassed her elementary school, the local public pool, a park, and her home.

She reviewed again the options she had considered. She loved flying and had flown a handful of times to see her grandmother in Colorado and once to Miami. The stewardesses had impressed her with their beauty and glamorous jet-setting life. A stewardess was high on her list of career options, but there were so many others to consider.

Another possibility she could equally envision was to pursue a Ph.D. in biochemistry like her father. On the weekends he would sometimes take her to his laboratory filled with the distinctive smell of agar plates and various chemicals. She enjoyed the hum of the centrifuge and watching the contents of large beakers swirl in what she called the wibble-wobble machine. He had taught her how to pipette samples, which she admitted was mindless. Plus her second grade science class hadn't taught her anything about biochemistry yet. She would have to wait years before she could decide if it was the right career choice.

Third on the list of considerations was Olympic swimmer. She loved the water and took swimming lessons every summer. When she was very little she could hear cheering on Saturday mornings coming from the pool. Her mother had taken her to watch a swimming meet and she had immediately wanted to participate. Her mother thought she was too young and had told her she had to be seven-years-old to race. So the following summer she joined the team and wasn't very fast so she was only allowed to swim in exhibition heats. At the final championship meet her coach had promised her a lane in the 25 yard butterfly race. She sat waiting for her name to be called in the staging area, but her 18-year-old coach had forgotten to fill out a card with her name on it. She rode her bicycle home crying.

The next summer she gave the swimming team another go. Now at eight she dominated her age group and biked home with a fist full of blue ribbons flapping in the wind every Saturday. While she knew the Olympics were still a stretch, it was in the realm of possibilities.

She had sat there pondering the prompt, trying to reason out what she should write. No matter what she chose to do when she grew up, she knew she wanted to excel in it. There was only one logical answer in her mind. So why did the grown ups find it so funny?

Very neatly she had filled in the blank. 'When I grow up, I want to be: perfect.'