As you know, a basketball championship across all the classes was organised in our grade last term. Nobody expected our class team, rather weak in sports, could win a single game, but in the end we beat two teams. Unluckily, kicked out of the competition by Class 2, we were eliminated halfway through.

At the game with Class 2, I was terribly on edge as I was watching our boys playing on court. Class 2 is one of the ace teams in basketball at YYHS. One of their players, a boy wearing the No 2 jersey, never failed to pre-empt our players when the ball came along. I could not help but curse him a lot when that was happening. I was so loud that I thought he even heard my obscenities. Instead of getting psyched out, the boy remained nonchalant and played just as confidently, if not more so. Such was my internal fire that I would have gone up and stabbed him on the spot had I had a knife then.

Days after our defeat, I was mentally flicking through the scenes of the game when it dawned on me that the player I had insulted was actually excellent. He had been playing so expertly. As time went by, my good impression of him only reinforced itself. I deeply regretted verbally abusing him at the match. With hindsight, I came to see that my behaviour had been totally irrational. How stupid I had been then!

I don’t think I will ever have a chance to make friends with this handsome boy because of my rudeness. What a pity! I wish an opportunity would present itself so that I could apologise to him and tell him that he is a really good player, but there is no way to make amends for it.

Therefore, we should get a grip on impulse. We should bite our tongue before anything stupid is blurted out.