Childhood dreams
When I was young, I spent afternoons imagining that I had my own rocket ship. I would invite my cousins and my friends to join my crew, and we would lie on our backs inside a very large cardboard box and we would go through a countdown then we would blast off into space, and we would spend the whole day exploring other planets. We used to be crazy about this game. So that was the beginning – my earliest memories of being fascinated by space – and now, I’m a rocket scientist.
We used to live in France, and as a child, I would collect small insects that I found in the fields near our house. One day I found a butterfly. It couldn’t fly so I put it into a jar and looked after it. The next morning, when I opened the jar, the butterfly opened its wings and flew away. This was when I realised that I wanted to be a veterinary surgeon.
It’s every young girl’s dream to be become an actress when she grows up. I used to love watching beautiful actresses on television. I was so sure that was what I wanted to do that I would practice my Oscar speech in front of the mirror in the bathroom. I would use a shampoo bottle instead of a microphone and would thank all my family and friends, even my three cats, for helping me.
My family used to live in Sheffield, just near the football stadium, so as a child, I would go to football matches most weekends. I remember the first match I went to, my granddad took me. I was very young, and I had never seen so many people in one place at one time. It was quite frightening, and I don’t think I watched the game very much. But I remember that we won. After that, every week I would ask Grandpa if he had tickets and usually he did. So we would cheer for our team and we would always eat hot dog and an ice cream after the match. I even used to have my own seat in the stadium.
