I didn't start getting into reading until I picked up the novel, "The Island of Doctor Moreau" by H. G. Wells. The story was altogether fascinating, with its thrilling science fiction theme, and morals on life and ethics. This, as well as many other books, intrigued my sense of learning and encouraged me to read more. I was never really an avid reader when I was a child, and was ultimately bored by it. The only books that I'd actually pick up and read over and over were Laurence Yep's "The Rainbow People" and Judy Delton's "Backyard Angel." I identified myself with both books; the former for its cultural Chinese themes, and the latter for its main character, who like myself, led a dull, behavioral-changing, and curious lifestyle. "Angel" as she was named, made something out of her own childhood, despite how little she got out of it. She reminded me of myself, and hence, "Backyard Angel" has been the first book that I ever adored. 

I began writing when I was nineteen, scribbling daily accounts of all my struggles with psychological and physical disorders, school life, family problems, and of my thoughts and beliefs on the adverse society. When I turned twenty-one, I thought to just give up on life. I felt that I didn't serve a purpose, and was only making my family's life more of a burden than it already was. But on the night before I planned to take suicide, I was struck with an unusual dream. It signified all my desires and wants from life, and made me reconsider whether suicide was something I really wanted to do. So I started recording this entire dream, and from then on, pursued on writing and writing until I contrived a short story of my life. "The Life of an All-Time Loser: A Recollection of Short Memoirs," is the very book that entails much of what I've written in my past years of hellish living. It encouraged me to write, and from this day onward, I will never forget how writing can save an individual's life.