Sunday, March 13, 2011 3:53 PM
It's all in my mind.
This ITC, a deluge of emotions.
I shall start in the order of how much I felt about it. Two main things, actually.
*Two things that popped into my mind during this ITC.
1. Without the officers, we NCOs are nothing.
2. With the officers, we NCOs are nothing.
(1) is with regard to the rope obs. As sirs correctly debriefed, we were probably ill prepared in doing this. The NP station in combined UG activity as vertical rope- which was totally done by the officers. The horizontal rope challenge in RVNP rope obs was also mainly done by them. Our rope obs succeeded with majority of the credits to the sirs. It was then that this first line popped into my head- NCOs are still dependent on the officers. And the support of the officers we love and respect is highly important to us; without which, we would probably have screwed part of ITC.
It leads me to (2). Which actually is a nice way to phrase what I truly think.
... I warned you all that I don't censor things here for any reader, didn't I? I will not censor what I have to say because there is an audience. In my blog, it's the one time I will not reign in my thoughts.
This is something I really feel about. And no one, NO ONE, will succeed in changing my mind unless you yourself speak. I pride myself as being wonderful in firing down objections. ^^
"你们以为你们NCOs就很大啊？"
So, what? You see the need to put us down in front of the cadets?
Sir. You were the one to say that a successful NCO is someone who gets the cadets' trust, respect, and they know they can confide in.
Sir. Can you truthfully say that you did not breech that?
What kind of eyes do you want the cadets to look at us with after that?
There is one female whom the NCO squad unanimously frowns at right now. She breeched that inexplicable bond between NCOs and their cadets. I have dedicated an entire post on it.
You, sir. You scoff when you hear her actions.
And? Sir.
And what?
It is conflicting, isn't it? ^^ Both your actions serve the same purpose.
Let me digress for a moment.
I remember that when Sir came back to be CI, I was really touched. He was an impactful IC, and he came back to watch over us again. The feeling... Is beyond words.
-sidetrack again: If he is reading this post right now, I am not embarrassed to admit that when he came back during ITC'10, when we did the fruit cheer for him, I cried. There's a reason why Hotshots went about redeeming the flag from our NCOs immediately at any cost when you asked us to.-
I recall that I was hugely disappointed.
The person who came back was not the Staff that I remembered, but a different officer altogether.
I don't remember the specifics, but I know I preferred Staff. He cared.
As sir, he didn't.
After we rose to become NCOs, the Staff came back. It's just that he was higher rank than before.
In the end, there was no difference anymore.
To me, it feels as if the IC was back.
So it seemed.
But who was the one who screamed at us after candlelight night? I am embarrassed on his behalf that it is the same human being as the one who debriefed us afterwards. Smiling as he did on the exact same topic. You managed to disappoint your cadet, Sir.
If it means anything to you, Sir. If it means anything to you, Staff.
Embarrassed that the NCO squad was being scolded in front of the cadets?
It goes beyond that.
After that scolding, Sir. I was ready to throw in the towel and say straight to your face that I resign. 我不希罕做你的cadet。我不希罕做你的NCO。I give up being under you.
Such a disappointment in the IC I looked up to so much.
I am not sure why my squadmates cried. Perhaps it was because of the injustice of it all.
But Sir, I was angry.
To me, there is no reasonable explanation for your scolding.
The casualties- Michele got injured at her eye. Sylvia got jabbed at with a broken end of a flag. Xing Yao and Ken were viciously kicked at. Madeleine was clawed. Shou Fong found bruises on her hands. Do you want to guess who inflicted that?
But these are just things I knew about. What about casualties I didn't hear of since I was taking the sec1s?
I don't know about the other squads, but none of the sec1 cadets were injured as a result of the flag snatching. Junianti and Pei Hao compiled the casualty list and commented that the NCO squad had the most casualties.
Do you want to bet that it is NOT because the cadets didn't want to report and show the NCOs in a bad light, but that it is us NCOs who did not lift a feather to hurt them?
Cadet welfare. PLEASE TELL ME, WHO IS GOING TO CARE ABOUT THE NCOS' WELFARE?
In your debrief, you asked rhetorically that "为了flag , 跟小孩子抢 , 受伤,值得吗?"
Sir, I don't think it is our fault that our cadets are destructive, vicious idiots. Could we anticipate that the cadets 会这么不择手段? Could we? Sir.
And yet, in your scolding, what was your point?
"NCOs! Was there a need to snatch flag until all the flags were broken? Until people are injured because of that? That the cadets have to protect the flags until they knock over chairs and get hurt?"
Were these your exact words? No, I cannot quote without paper and pen. But Sir, don't you see the injustice of this all?
If, by now, you don't even see where I am coming from, Sir... Then I can only say that I will lose all respect for you. All those years of building us from cadets, Sir. In one night.
You told us NCOs to repair every single flag we broke, by 9.30pm by any means.
Sir. The only difference I see between this year's candlelight night and previous years' is because not all the flags were broken. The previous batches of NCOs weren't imposed upon by officers to fix the cadets' flags.
There are so many factors to a flag breaking. Why do you consider that it is the determined way the NCOs snatched at them, not the way the cadets pulled without any systematic way and in all directions? Why not the quality of the pole itself?
Sir Kuan Yuan negotiated, and told the sec1s that they would repair the flags that they felt was broken because of them and NCOs would repair those that cadets think was caused by NCOs.
Out of three flags, want to guess how many the sec1s suggested?
All.
Does it come as any surprise? Though it takes two to clap, two to break... Theoretically then, the sec1s should fix 1.5 flags?
Is it any surprise that we have to fix all three?
And thanks to your scolding, we as ICs can't scold the squad for their earlier disrespect. Or of injuring NCOs. Or of their standard. With your scolding hanging in the background, the cadets would think that we are scolding them because we were scolded. Humiliated. Whatever.
Perhaps we were a bit overboard with the highness this time. Perhaps NP looked crazy infront of other UGs. Maybe there were cadet casualties.
But Sir. Did you look clearly enough before scolding us in the context of the hall?
Did you have to scold the NCOs infront of the cadets?
Are you even justified in scolding us NCOs?
I don't think you can be.
I fancy to myself. If it were Staff that was scolding us instead of Sir. If our sec 2 squad IC was the one scolding us, the NCO squad, he'd listen to our side before scolding objectively.
Sir. What was your purpose in scolding us there and then?
"scold objectively and with a purpose"- your own words, Sir.
Sir, you stepping in at that time only achieved one thing for me: you made the NCOs the cadets' equal.
For one who was trying to hone us from sec 3 cadets into NCOs... (Y)
Debrief, you held a totally different attitude from scolding.
All smiles.
If this is your style when debriefing or talking to our- your- squad, I have nothing to say.
The same thing- in front of an audience, you put us down. With us, you try to lighten our mood?
Sorry. Damage done. To me, it will never be the same again.
You said to Freda that come ITC, I'll be the Tan Jing Yee you knew.
Sir. What about you? ITC is here- who are you?
Sir, I cannot deny that you are probably a good CI. You know your stuff. CD knowledge is inscribed in the back of your hand. But Sir, you know you are also fallable. The situation with the rope obs. Telling us how we should teach, did you handle the situation yourself well enough that night/early morning?
Don't be offended, Sir. Since Hotshots stepped up, I finally realised that NCOs are only human. If so, it only follows that officers are, likewise, human- only more experienced.
We are all only human, Sir. But you made our mistake- if any- a crime. And we have now a punishment of which effects are intangible, but ever present.
*I cried. Even though I know that Kristine and Junianti said that crying serves no purpose and cannot change anything, I cried. Even though Michele, Shou Fong and Amanda tried to convince me that it is not my fault, that accidents happen, I cried.
Once I started, I couldn't stop. There was that overwhelming sense of guilt and failure.
I was the one who pointed her out to do the switch side window. I was one of whom who held her hand down. Seeing that she injured her thumb... It is 90% likely that it is caused by me.
She is one of the AP cadets in the sec1 squad. But it just makes me feel worse that I probably would cause her impression of NP to go down even worse.
.... how do I face that squad?
Kristine or Junianti said that if I really think that it's my fault, I could go and ask how she was, apologise or something.
You don't feel the crushing weight of the guilt, and yet how I cannot get myself to step down and do that. I don't know how to apologise.
The horror of the fact that I was the cause suffocated me.
I don't know how to face it.
I am remarkably weak in this area.
I don't know how to climb to my feet.
Make me fall hard, and I cannot find my way up properly again.
How can I hold my head straight taking the sec1s when I am assaulted by myself in the core of my being?
It welled over, and every other thought that rose to my head caused the flood of tears to continue.
Come next act, what do I do? What can I do? I don't dare to take them anymore.
I knew something was wrong when she landed. I felt something wrong in the silence. How her breathing became audible.
How she gasped when Sir Raymeo gently moved her finger, how he asked someone to look for Mr Oh.
Punching the wall was far from enough. I should have slammed my head against the wall.
I don't know what to do. No response is correct, yet the lack of is the wrong answer.
I don't know what to do. I want bury my head in the soil. I don't want to be faced with the situation
This is why I should never be placed into leadership positions. I am at a loss.
Only when it's smooth sailing do I float.
Eventually, eventually, eventually. My tears ceased only to flow again, but at the end, I was greeted with fatigued hollowness.
I didn't want to take their squad anymore. I couldn't face up to what was my fault. Stupid, since I screamed at the sec1s today for not facing up to their mistakes of injuring NCOs intentionally over a flag.
Can I just slam myself against a wall? Will that help?
But I didn't get what I wanted. Avoiding squadmates first because of my red nose, swollen eyes and teary face; avoiding the sec1s subsequently, trying to hide my swollen eyes from them; but when Kristine cried during the candlelight night episode, I was induced to join the remaining two sec1 ICs. When they were needed at the back to respectively repair flag and remove the road obs, I was left with debriefing the sec1s. As I debriefed from the beginning, I skimmed over the road obs. I forgot how I did that- I think I just suddenly mentioned candlelight night dance.
Obviously, I haven't faced up to the elephant in the room.
But I don't dare to.
It's pathetic.
But there's this barrier I cannot cross in my heart.
Labels: Deep Emotions, Hotshots♥ /RVNP
