Nikki Woon has hundreds of stories about her studies, playing badminton and spending nine years of her life in Jamaica.

And then, there are others about her health, her twin sister and her future.

Woon is one of those pleasant individuals who is caring, considerate of others and has spent hundreds of hours helping to feed the homeless, visited hospitals and read newspapers to visually impaired people.

Now, the 24-year old Woon - a four-year graduate in sciences from the University of Waterloo - is focused on the first year of a two-year dental hygiene program at Toronto's George Brown College.

"After university, I decided it was time to look for a job," she recalled. "I just wasn't passionate about any specific career, but knew I had to focus on something. I like talking with people, wanted a non-stressful job and took an interest in dental hygiene."

Born in North York, Ont., at the age of seven, the family moved to Jamaica. She attended Campion College where she was a triple crown winner in badminton. Woon had won the singles title and joined schoolmates to claim top spot in the women's doubles and mixed doubles.

The oldest, by four minutes, her twin sister Alyssa is at the University of Toronto and, Nikki claims, she is the better of the two in badminton. But that hasn't stopped some challenging competitions, over the years, between the siblings.

In fact, Nikki wasn't expecting to play badminton when she came to George Brown. But things changed when she met up with Christine Nguyen, who also has a sister - and she plays on the George Brown badminton team.

Nikki doesn't give herself enough credit having been on the badminton team at the University of Waterloo that won a silver medal in the Ontario University Athletics playoffs.

And she's played badminton having never complained about dealing with astigmatism - an optical defect, in which her vision can be blurred making it difficult to focus an object into a sharp image. Nikki also has nystagmus, also known as "dancing eyes", which causes involuntary movement of the eye.

"My eyes shake and it takes longer to focus," she said. "It can have an effect playing sports, but I just go out and do my best, have fun and try to win."

While Nikki says he smash is strong and has been pleased with her serving, there's still work to be done on the backcourt backhand shot. In her last competition, the Kim Ng Invitational hosted by George Brown, she - and teammate Helen Shen - lost in the consolation women's doubles final.

Source: George Brown College