Review Assignment: Glowing Like a Solar Fire (story)

There were several people who inspired me to better my life in some way.  When I was in grade 10 and doing fairly well in school but not exceptionally so, there was a manual training teacher who told me that I had more scholastic potential than I gave myself credit for and inspired me to work hard enough to stand first in my class that year.  During my first year teaching mathematics in a French-speaking university, I was spending so much time preparing my lectures in my second language that my research output dropped, and a colleague scolded me and inspired me to increase my output, which I did.  But the person who inspired me to better my life in the most important way was my mother.

My mother's early life was about as close to Cinderella's as possible in a world without singing mice and fairy godmothers.  When she was a year and a half old, her own mother died of the Spanish flu.  Her father remarried a woman who had children from a previous marriage and who was determined to promote her own children at the expense of her step-children, especially my mother, the only girl among them.  She was continually insulted and forced to do a lot of the most menial work like cleaning the baby's dirty diapers.  Like her older brothers, she ran away from home and soon got married.  Like the prince who married Cinderella, the man whom my mother married was intelligent, handsome and charming, but unlike that prince, he didn't make her happy: he did almost no housework, he always made her feel that she was in the wrong, he was unfaithful to her on several occasions and after 23 years of marriage he left her for the latest of his many paramours.

Like my father, I resisted doing housework, claiming that my school work and music lessons left me too little time, the same claim that he always made about his professional work.  But my mother wasn't about to let me be one of those people who took advantage of her.  She insisted that I pull my weight around the house and she taught me the necessary housekeeping skills.  I didn't appreciate it at the time, but I certainly do now.  I lived alone for about 10 years and was able to look after myself.  More important, I married a career woman who would certainly not have married me if I hadn't been willing and able to do my fair share of the housework and child rearing.  In that case I could have married someone who was willing to be a housewife, but although that arrangement would have been convenient, it wouldn't have been nearly as interesting because I thoroughly admire my wife for her professional achievements.  I'll always be grateful to my mother for having inspired me, or rather forced me, to be a better son, a better husband, a better father and a better person.

Review Assignment: Chasing a Dream (a story with a poem)

If ever a planet is discovered with intelligent beings who have eliminated war, I'd like to go there, learn their secret and return to Earth to share it with my fellow Earthlings.  Until that happens, I'm quite content to stay here on Earth, but that wasn't always the case; so I'll answer the prompts in the past tense.

When I was eight years old I obtained a record about astronomy, which immediately aroused my interest in the subject.  I devoured every astronomy book I could find in the children's section of the local library.  Like many children, I dreamed about visiting other planets, especially Mars.  The idea of bouncing around on a planet with only 38% of Earth's gravity appealed to me.  At that time, some people still thought that there might be life there, even intelligent beings, who had built canals to irrigate their crops in a water-poor world.  I imagined myself going there to meet them, bringing some of them back with me to Earth and becoming famous.  At the age of fourteen I wrote a poem expressing my thoughts on the subject.  It's entitled "My trip to Mars."

As I was gazing at the stars,
I wished that I could go to Mars.
I wished I had a rocket ship
With which I could have made the trip.

I know I'd never be afraid.
Why should I be? My mother bade
Me not to go, as mothers will,
But I'd sneak out when all was still.

I'd try out the ship and learn how to man it,
And then I'd set out for that bellicose planet.
I'd have to refuel at a floating space station
Before I arrived at my destination.

Now Mars, for the most part, is monotonous land.
There's nothing to see there but rocks and red sand.
But some it's green, which means vegetation.
If I brought back Martians, I'd cause a sensation!

Now I'm not afraid of the Martians.
Fear is quite unknown to me.
I'd bring some back with me to old Mother Earth,
For there's so much that they'd want to see.

I can see the report in the papers:
"Brave boy pilots rocket through space
And brings back a pair of live Martians
Whom you can now meet face to face."

It's lovely to dream about going to Mars
But I must be contented with gazing at stars,
And I'd better go now, for, as you can see,
The men in the white coats are coming for me!

Well, I didn't have the right stuff to be an astronaut, and my grades in astronomy as a university undergraduate convinced me that I was better suited to mathematics.  I eventually became a mathematics professor, but I still follow the latest developments in astronomy - I subscribe to Astronomy and Planetary Report as well as Scientific American and I'll be following the Cosmology career path on HiH.  I hope to live to see human beings set foot on Mars and realize the dream I had so long ago, or at least that part of the dream that doesn't involve meeting Martians.