Sportsmanship much?

Being an athlete, I like sports to be engaging and entertaining. With the many sports competitions that have been organized, more and more students have opportunities to represent their schools in these games. Sports and games among schools are always competitive so as to instill the spirit of determination among the students to strive for victory. Of course, the students train hard for many days just to perform their best during the competition where the eventual aim is to be champion. However, in any game, there can only be one champion, and some participants have to contend with losing in the competition. While it is important to achieve best in the competitions, students have to be able to take losses in their stride, as no one would be able to stay at the top forever. Thus, sportsmanship among students is more important than the end result of the game.

Though school sports are much less competitive than international sporting events, students have a tendency to think only of winning the game, where sporting values such as sportsmanship and friendship are rarely observed. Such can be seen in this case, where the brawl has taken place between the two schools. It is because of the lack of the display of vital values such as sportsmanship that has cause an after match brawl to take place. The implications of the brawl would be disastrous, where students were injured and being an athlete, I wonder if the coaches have instilled a sense of sportsmanship within the players where it is not winning that counts, but the process in pursuing that victory. Often, morality is forgotten where the individual only cares about winning.

A brawl is just a demonstration of how coaches are failing to channel the correct mindsets into their athletes where losing a game is perfectly alright and the right thing to do would be to congratulate the other team and not bash them up. Such is the failures to promote healthy competition within our student athletes where the actual meaning of the competition is diluted.

Also, I am more concerned for the safety measures that the schools take in ensuring that no casualties arise from the competition. There are many incidents that reflect on the mistakes the schools have neglected to rectify such as a student injuring his head in a judo match, a rugby player was hospitalized after foul play during the match and the student that died after a fatal kick in a taekwando competition. After such disastrous accidents that happen, many people are now afraid to continue in that sport for fear of ending up In the same fate as the people. As an athlete, I would like to encourage more students to take part in sports, but if the safety measures are not properly taken care of, how can we expect our students or their parents to participate in that sport without the fear of getting injured? We want to promote sports, and not shun people away from these sports that will be safe after safety measures are taken.

Hence, I think that for the true spirit of competition and sports to be made clear and enjoyable, the spirit of sportsmanship have to be understood and displayed where safety is also another major contributing factor to the overall enjoyment of the sport.

Life

Wow. The amazing topic on life. Life means a lot of things in different contexts. Scientifically, life is the continuation of biological processes in your body that allows respiration to occur to keep your heart beating. Religiously, life is a gift from god who created people. However, life can be summarized in a few lines.

You are born

You spend your first years learning about everything around you

You spend the next 10 or so years studying

You work for the next phase of your life

You grow old and wait for the Grim Reaper to come and take you away.

And that's it. That's what everyone experiences. It is monotonous. Nothing ever changes for anybody. (Unless of course, if you drop out of school at a young age.) If not, nothing is ever anomalous. If we skip some lines in between the order, Life is simply a slow wait for death.

Why? I don't get it. We work so hard and go through so much pain, suffering and mindless gaining of knowledge all for it to just go down the drain when you die. Well of course, if you look at things scientifically its just the end of biological processes.

Life can be exciting or a torture for us human beings. Some of us study hard, earn money and then have fun, while some play hard, earn money, and wish they could have studied harder. Life goes through stage after stage, bringing upon new challenges and discoveries for us. life is magical. Life allows us to feel, to hear, to see and to communicate.

Nowadays in this rapidly developing world, we tend to lose ourselves. Life is now but a way of getting on with each passing day, fulfilling what necessary duties there are for the day and then we go to sleep, not-so-eagerly waiting for the next day to come while we do the same things. We often have aspirations. Let's say we meet that goal. So what? We now have to contend with the workload or duties that comes along with it. Life goes back to another endless cycle of working our hearts out for the hope of a better retirement. After working like slaves for almost a quarter of our lives, we are now retired. And then? we are now too old to have any sort of 'real' adrenaline pumping fun. The giant savings we have acquired over the years have now not much use to us, except maybe for our daily cup of coffee or tea. Going traveling is possible, but tiring, pulling about your old frail body like that around the romantic streets of Paris doesn't really hit the mark. Well, we could go back to working, but then it would be the same process we have gone through for the last part of our lives. And then, after many years of sitting in our houses and watching soap operas or taking care of children, we rest in peace in the holy sanctuaries. That's life.

Sometimes, I really think that Life is just lifeless.

Childhood

Childhood. A word that immediately brings up bright pictures of children running around in the playground, chasing butterflies in big plain fields and behaving like monkeys around parks. Or is it? Childhood now brings up books, school and video games. Whatever happened to the time where children climbed around in trees, flew hand-made kites and caught spiders in match boxes? That was childhood in the past generation. Now, children stop having all these experiences, where they attend school for long hours everyday, when they reach home, spend long hours doing homework and when it is the weekends, spend long hours playing video games. The outdoor fun-filled activities that are experienced everyday have evolved to the stressful and fast-paced lifestyle now. Why are more and more children experiencing the stress and have to combat the rapid advancement of myopia among the children now?

First, let us talk about the education system. School begins early in the morning, a time where students are not awake enough to even be sure where they are. Then begins the lessons. lessons carry on for another 6 hours, where only a very small portion of it is recess. Fine, after school ends, where children are looking forward towards a rest for the other half of the day, then the teacher gives a massive pile of homework. Why? I thought we just spent a whole day at school? Anyways, the children that time only need spend 1-2 hours doing their homework. The rest of their time is spent playing with their neighbours and having valuable bonding time with their family. Children now are cooped up at home after school trying to finish their homework. Children then sleep late at night due to homework or maybe they just want to unwind after finishing their pile of homework. When weekends arrive, children are gripped by the hungry claws of more weekend homework. In any case, children are still buried under academics where they have lost their child spirit where mostly, they worry for the fact that they might be haunted by failed tests. Thus, children fail to experience the joy and laughters that children of the past generation cherish so much.

Next, technology is also a factor. With the rapid development of new technology and gaming consoles, most children now don't care about outdoor activities anymore, all they think of is leveling up their personally customized online avatars. Occasionally, they might come out for a game of soccer or two and then, it's back home for more mindless staring at the screen. Spiders now need not live in the constant fear of dying a slow death in a match-box or plastic bottle. Such practices are unhealthy but it seems the only alternative for modern day kids as people now are lazier and less willing to expose themselves in the sun when they can enjoy themselves in the comfort of their homes. As our world becomes more 'screeny' more and more kids are also suffering from myopia. Such is rare among children of that generation.

Hence, I feel that childhood has changed a lot through the years. I wonder when will be the next time where children would catch spiders, climb tress and play harmless pranks again.