When I first came to Canada with my parents I was about 18. We landed in a city in one of the prairie provinces in Canada and we stayed with my sister afterwards. Because I grew up in the South of China which has four seasons and the weather is mild, so at the beginning I was not quite accustomed to the extreme cold weather of this new country.
Although it was cold, my passion for running, playing badminton and reading didn't wane because of the new change. Sometimes in the early mornings I snuck out of the house and jogged around in the neighborhood. Facing the cold and whipping winds I jogged down the street in dark for several laps, and when I got back home with numbness in my nose, legs and feet, not to my overwhelming surprise, I found that it was about minus 30 Celsius degrees outside! I was like "Holly smoke! I am lucky to be home alive." One day after a disagreement with my father, in order to vent out my frustrations, in spite of the heavy snow I managed to walk to a neighborhood public library, and then I stayed there reading a novel written by an author from Taiwan without realizing the whole afternoon had passed. It was my sister and brother in-law found me in a corner of the library and took me home.
At that time, I would not use "sucks'' to describe my English, because except some simple sentences such as "This is an apple and his name is Peter" and some basic tenses I knew nothing about English. That was why I kept reading Chinese books and didn't have the guts to touch any English books. Besides, my listening skills were even worse, that once my sister's home phone rang and I picked it up, as soon as I heard the person on the other end of the line spoke English I just simply threw the handset away.
I always like sports. Back then I was a passionate badminton player, and even back in China I played badminton almost every day with my brothers. So that was why after settling down, my brother in-law helped me find a place to practice what I had been into. And that place was where I met Tom, there was a gym in a community centre. Tom was the person in charge of the youth programs of a local non-profit organization.From then on, when it was time for badminton, Tom came to pick me up at where I lived at my sister's house, and I thought picking me up was included in his job description (scope). Maybe not, maybe he was just being nice. Every time when I faced him my heart beat faster than usual and my face got flushed quickly and I never dared to meet his eyes. With my broken English I seldom spoke up and my self-esteem was low, that was why I was always quiet facing him. I felt as I was so close but yet so far away from him. With him inside his car, I sneakily admired him for his beauty, his English and ever thing, but it seemed that he just treated me as one of his students/clients and a little sister. Unfortunately, before long my family and I moved to Toronto and ever since then I haven't got a chance to go back to visit that city. Until today, I still believe that Tom never knew that I had been secretly in love with him.
。