Story of my life
“Success is not always about winning, but the journey” this is what Jerry Sloan, head coach of the Utah Jazz NBA team said in the 90s when they lost the finals. This quote is extremely true in my case just that I took my own sweet time to understand it, but now after my first year in Hwa Chong basketball team, I have finally seen the light. I can still vividly recall the day when we lost to Fajar secondary school. It cost us the fourth place in the zonals and a chance to play in the nationals. It was the basketball season and we did well for our first round of basketball. From the very beginning of the match the scores were running neck to neck. We were sometimes leading by only 1 point and then trailing by 1. After being a part of a winning basketball team in primary school, I was accustomed to winning and losing was ‘unacceptable’ in my dictionary. Having such close scores was also unusual and I was uneasy with the looming thought of defeat. I tried to score as much as I could but to no avail, I only scored 8 out of the mere 43. In the end, we lost by just 1 point. It was a great disappointment when we missed the last shot and lost the victory that was just within our grasp. How could this even have happened? Weren’t we stronger than the other team? These thoughts circled my mind as I pondered on the loss. It was really a disappointment to me as I thought that only few of their players were good and we missed too many shots. Although it was ‘unacceptable’ to me, I had to face the truth and accept that loss. My emotions took over and i cried. It wall to let my grief out. It cost us a change to go further. The year has been hard on me, but I have learnt many things, but its not always about winning. I have my wonderful teammates to thank for going through these ‘turbulent’ times with. We had bonded as one and now we are as close as ‘brothers’. We have gone through all those ups and downs and we are closer than ever. One of them would be Sebastian. He has helped me in many ways and I thank him for being by my side each time. Over time, our team has improved. Although we are not as good as those teams at the top, to me we are the best. It’s not always about winning to me now. Some may think that at the adolescent age of 14, one should not reflect upon one’s life and should live the moment, but I think that only by learning from errors of your past could you be able to do better in the future. The internal conflict going within me has been resolved by this very statement made by Jerry Sloan
I think you could improve with paragraphing your draft perhaps? Overall, I find your story quite thrilling, probably because of your stating about the basketball competition, but you may make it more attractive and like make a mysterious end that makes viewers wanting to know more about what's next
ReplyDeleteHi Yiheng. I really agree with Charles that yo should paragraph your story. Otherwise, it is difficult to read the story with evrything clogged up in one paragraph. I understand how hard it was to accept losing to fajar as I was also part of it. I remembered you cried although you did not mention it in the story. I feel that your climax is still not to the max. As a reader, I do not feel the tension in the match. It does not make me sit on the edge. Wining is indeed not as important as the journey. Even though we are still young, we still must reflect on our actions and improve.
ReplyDeleteregards,
sebastian guek
I feel that your story is very touching, letting me have have some feelings for you. Yes, you need to re-paraphrase your paragraphs but other than that, i feel that your story is quite nice, thrilling and it can keep me attracted to it. Good Job!
ReplyDelete