I loved reading books very much as a child, but my single mother was struggling financially, so I often went to the library to read for free. My favorite books were science fiction (科幻小说). Once, I spent a whole afternoon reading science fiction in the library.

While I was enjoying reading, an illness nearly knocked me down. My illness was very strange, and no one really knew what it was. I always woke up with a rush of urine (尿). And then I found out that the disease had impacted my entire life. I remember when I was in the sixth grade, I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of a class. Realizing I had to go to the front of the class and write my name on the blackboard in order to go to the bathroom, I put up with it. By the end of class, the urine had soaked into (渗透) my jeans and my chair. Since then I had no deskmate. And my shame spread from class to the whole school.

After that, I became more isolated (孤立的) and silent, but I got a ride to the library once a week and checked out all the science fiction novels I could carry. Thanks to them, I got through the days when I was sick and couldn’t go to school.

When I was fifteen, the high school asked my mother to take me out of school. My mother and I were both relieved. I had managed to get excellent grades despite missing 85% of my classes, but the school couldn’t put up with my absence of school most of the time. My mother could see how sick I was, and knew how much I actually wanted to be there. But the school officials had started to get involved.

Worse still, my mother died suddenly not long after I dropped out of school, leaving me an orphan (孤儿) at 17.

Just when I couldn’t live anymore, a science-fiction magazine saved me.

My background made my science-fiction works more creative.

My dream comes true

The rain had started to fall gently through the evening air as darkness fell over Sydney. The noise was deafening. As I walked towards the track, I glanced around me at the sea of faces in the stands, but mind was focused. The Olympic gold medal was just minutes away, hanging tantalizingly (引诱人地) in the distance.

My heart was beating loudly. I was so close to the realization of my childhood dream and the feeling was fantastic. I knew I would have to push myself beyond my known limits to ensure that my dream came true.

I tried to keep my head, telling myself not to panic, to stick to the plan and run my own race. I knew the Russian girls would set off quickly-and I had to finish this race fewer than ten seconds behind the Russian athlete Yelena Prokhorova. If I could do that, the title would be mine. I looked out along the first stretch of the 400 m track and caught my breath.

My ankle was bandaged against an injury in the long jump just a couple of hours earlier, but I shut out all thoughts of pain.

The starting gun was fired, and the race began. The first lap was good, and I managed to keep up with the group, but I was feeling much more tired than I usually did, and much more than I’d imagined. Both the long, hard weeks of training that had led up to this championship, and the exhaustion from two days of fierce competition were showing in my performance. Mental and physical tiredness were starting to over- come me, and I had to fight back.

Prokhorova had set the pace from the start. It was important that I didn’t let her get too far in front. I had to stay with her. At the bell I was 2.3 seconds behind her. Just one lap to go. One lap. I could do it. I had to keep going. I could see the gap opening between me and the Russian. Thankfully, my foot was holding out, so now it was all down to mental stamina (耐力).

Prokhorova was pulling away.

Then, the moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life—my name in lights.