Just Me

location: In remote memory

mood: impressed

music: Jim Croce - Time in a Bottle | Powered by Last.fm

The first person that springs to mind when I think of France is Marie Curie. Now I do realize that she was born in Warsaw in what was then the Russian Empire and lived there until she was 24. But her education and work was in France and it was as a French citizen that she received her two Nobel Prizes and became the first female professor at the University of Paris.

One of the first books I can remember reading was about Marie Curie and the theory of radioactivity. I am quite aware that both her husband and her daughter and son-in-law were involved in her work but the book I read presented everything as the work of the heroic Madame Curie.

I found her struggle to acquire an education and the persistence with which she pursued her work to be very inspirational and the slim volume had a powerful effect on me as a child. It was the first book I can remember reading that inspired me toward the idea of making an achievement with one’s life.