The Hitchhiker’ s Guide to the Galaxy (HG2G) by Douglas Adams

This is a comedy science-fiction series about a man’s adventures in space. It was initially a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It is extremely funny and inventive, and has a very British sense of humor, whose true meanings foreign readers can hardly make out though it has been translated into French and Italian and so on. But when I read it I feel a strong connection to my home. It was published in paperback by Pan Books, after BBC Publishing had turned down the offer of publishing a novelization, an action they later regretted.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Have you ever read a description of a landscape or countryside that made you feel like you were actually there? For me, this book does exactly that. It is about a young girl who is taken to live in a big house in my hometown and discovers a secret garden.

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster

This book takes the form of a series of letters, and follows the story of a young orphan(孤儿), Judy, as she goes to university and discovers a whole world of new experiences. This book always reminds me of my family, especially my mother, because she used to read it to me when I was ill in bed.

The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

This was one of my favorite books when I was younger, and for this reason it still strongly reminds me of England and my childhood. It is also set in Yorkshire where I was born and spent my childhood, and follows three children living next to a railway and their adventures.

As the former great employee of NASA, Katherine Johnson, whose life was described in the movie Hidden Figures, died on February 24, 2020, aged 101.

“NASA is deeply saddened by the loss of a leader from our pioneering days,” said NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine on the webpage of NASA. “Ms. Johnson helped our nation push the boundaries of space and she also played an important role in opening doors for women and people of color to explore space. At NASA we will never forget her courage and leadership and the achievements we could not have reached without her.”

Johnson was born in West Virginia in 1918. She graduated from West Virginia State University with a major in mathematics and became a teacher at a public school. She was also the first African-American woman to attend graduate school in mathematics at West Virginia University until she left school to focus on raising children.

Her life changed in 1952 after a long career break. A relative told her about open positions at the all-black West Area Computing section at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’s Langley laboratory, and she began to work for the aerospace (航空航天) industry at Langley the next year. NASA depended on humans for complicated aerospace calculation as there was no high-functioning electronic computer. Female mathematicians usually took the job as their salary was lower. Johnson was one of those African-American human computers.

Johnson was initially in charge of aerospace analysis and then a space development mission when NASA was launched in 1958. Then she worked for the 1961 suborbital (亚轨道的) flight of astronaut Alan Shepard.   Johnson continued to sit for missions after she retired in 1986. Her hidden achievements were finally publicized when Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 and her dramatic life was made into a movie.

Blind imitation(模仿)is a disaster. To those who do not recognize their unique worth, imitation appears attractive; to those who know their strength, imitation is unacceptable.

In the early stages of skill or character development, imitation is helpful. When I first learned to cook, I used recipes and turned out some tasty dishes. But soon I grew bored. Why follow someone else’s way of cooking when I could create my own? Imitating role models is like using training wheels on a child’s bicycle; they help you get going, but once you find your own balance, you fly faster and farther without relying on them.

In daily life, imitation can hurt us if we subconsciously hold poor role models. If, as a child, you observed people whose lives were bad, you may have accepted their fear and pain as normal and gone on to follow what they did. If you do not make strong choices for yourself, you will get the results of the weak choices of others. In the field of entertainment, our culture glorifies celebrities. Those stars look great on screen. But when they step off screen, their personal lives may be disastrous. If you are going to follow someone, focus on their talent, not their bad character or unacceptable behaviors.

Blessed is the person willing to act on their sudden desire to create something unique. Think of the movies, books, teachers, and friends that have affected you most deeply. They touched you because their creations were motivated by inspiration not desperation. The world is changed not by those who do what has been done before them, but by those who do what has been done inside them. Creative people have an endless resource of ideas. The problem a creator faces is not running out of material; it is what to do with the material knocking at the door of imagination.

Study your role models, accept the gifts they have given, and leave behind what does not serve you. Then you can say, “I stand on the shoulders of my ancestors’ tragedies and declare victory, and know that they are cheering me on.”