Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Your dream is mine
My hope is yours
Looking at the stars
Picturing the moon so far
When English meets Chinese
Will our hearts change


“Now look at this time line you guys. Past perfect progressive indicates a continuous action in a specific time frame of the past, so you must use ‘had’ plus ‘been’ plus ‘verb+ing’ as the sentence pattern,” explained patiently Mr. Lin. “What the heck is that? How often do we actually use that in daily life?” asked Wu Gin while nudging Chen Ue-Han. “Ai-ya, just learn the rule and pass the exam first. Why are you so worried about the usage?” replied sarcastically Ue-Han.

The English lesson was always full of grammar drilling and sentence analysis in our senior year. Not that I didn’t like grammar at all, it was just a bit boring at times, especially on Saturday morning. Early sultry summer air was thick enough to be cut with a knife; and there were no fans at all in our classroom. As we tried not to let our eyelids drop down, the ring of bell saved our life. Everyone bustlingly packed his books and stood up to stretch legs. The scorching sun was mocking at us, a bunch of 18 year-olds who studied hard in hopes to get into a good university after September.

“Hey Tseng Yu-Chi, don’t forget to meet us at the Wind Exit later, okay?” shouted Wu Gin as he rushed out the classroom. “OK, catch you guys later,” I yelled back. The weekly ritual for our English group was held at a corner of the staircase in the science building. The view overlooking the greenish vegetable gardens tended by the county agricultural institute was soothing after the half-day’s intense English lesson. There were three of us, a group formed by common interests in language and science. We wanted to study abroad after college, experience different cultures, see whether the moon in a foreign land was truly bigger, and of course visit places we only studied in the textbooks. However, I never knew fate was such a heavy and burdensome thing to tackle in life; and if I could turn back the clock, I would hold back some words I had said to my dear friends…