Thursday, March 05, 2009
Today my council book fell, and when I picked it up, the first thing I saw was page 48. There was only one line of thing in it. Nothing else left in the page. But this one line made me think alot of things, from the time I started off to be a vice-chair until who I am today, and I really feel like blogging it.
Firstly, I was quite a selfish person at the start to think that becoming a vice-chair will be slack, and so frankly speaking, that was why I ran for vice-chair and I got it. (Better dun let April see this, or else she'll kill me!) And indeed, times were rather slacking and I think it was as if April did not have any vice-chair at all for the first few months of council term.
And after a few months, I feel kinda bad just wasting my time not being a useful vice-chair and that was why I realized I have to do more. But that was not the end of the story. I did not know what is too much to do.
It happened first when I tried to help Ming Wei in Night Study Programme. It went on quite smoothly at the start cos my help was really appreciated. But at a certain point in time when I was getting too caught up with being nice and wanting things to go on smoothly, I kinda 'took over' it, and had an argument with Ming Wei and our relationship worsened overnight and I don't know how, time kinda patched it up, and we are now crapping and laughing together, both mushroom and (R^3) CMI.
So yups, that was not my first 'argument', or rather a conflict. The second one I ever remembered was a conflict with April. It was totally my fault that time, I must admit this fact. At that point of time, I was like using April as some bad examples (I forgot what I managed to think up of...) when she was gone for ex-co meeting, then I sent an email to her to tell her that I've did that to keep the spirit of the meeting mood up. (That day was when welco came up with our motto: "Towards a professional welco!". Yups, anyways, after that, she 'feedbacked' to me that i've never appreciated nor supported her as my duty as a vice-chair before, and she asked me to think about it. After that, she blocked me on MSN. Then at first i was thinking if it was really my fault, and I don't know why, my conclusion was that she was the one who did not notice the things that I've done. But to think of it now, I really did not do anything to help her at the point of time. So I kinda did not really talk to her for a few days cos the following day after she blocked me she asked me whether I've thought through it. Anyways, she thought I didn't though I really did after that. I totally realized that it was my fault that I did not support her that much. Then from then on, I started to support her more.
And time just flies and flies so far and there is only less than 3 months of council term left, and the problem is that I still do not really know what I, as a vice-chair, is supposed to do. My actual job was to liaise with the school admin, but somehow there is no need for me to do that until maybe when we are settling the welfare projects once and for all. So I was like pondering and I did some things like asking the 3 comm heads and 2 other vice chairs what our roles are. And yet, today, I still do not really know. But what I can tell my junior taking over me is this...
A vice-chair's role is undefined. Whatever your chair asks you to do, DO! Whenever you try to help, please talk to your chair about it! Everybody's deadline is your deadline. You are supposed to ensure that quality products go up to your chair, cos your chair has to balance between exco, welco, adhoc and school work.
But this kinda leads me to the part where I repeated the same mistake with Ming Wei on April just these few days. I was like over-enthu in trying to help her that I forgot that she was 'boss'. Hahaz, sorry about that. I was like sending gmails without letting her know until I've sent them and I can tell that she is very disappointed in my actions, but she just tries to make it sound nice when she feedbacks it to me. But this time there wasn't any arguments, it was just settled like that.
But this once again, brings me back to another of my job as a vice-chair, which is that you MUST NOT start any arguments with your chair. I remember a time quite long ago (dunno whether it is after or before retreat, should be before), April, I and Pynx were discussing welco stuff (this was the first time we included pynx into both of our discussions) and there was at a point, some potential 'conflict'. Cos for me, it was all about the development of the Welco members, but for April is getting things on hand done first. So that meant that we had a clash of objectives. Then she told me that we should focus on the things we have on hand first, before developing the welco members, and by right, by right arh... I felt like I really wanted to argue, so I opened another chat in MSN to pynx, and asked her what I should do cos things are going to get real bad, and she told me that she could also sense it, and I kinda threw away my idea of trying to argue and support her decision (That is the least I could do). Yups, and things went on smoothly when I had to do the HTHT in the expense of my own time, just because I made that sacrifice of making sure the argument does not occur.
And even talking about the gmail that she'd sent me to feedback to me that I've been like keeping things from her until the last minute through long long SMSes, I somehow really feel that my work is not appreciated, and I suddenly had a bit of heartache, and my gmail reply wasn't supposed to be that nice too. But I sat there and stoned for a few mins, then I remembered that incident that happened in the previous paragraph, I thought more and I realized that it is my fault, entirely my fault for trying to help too much, especially since I've promised her that I'll help her out loads when she is focusing on CCA, and that I just cannot ignore the fact that she seems to be PMS-ing such that she isn't in the right mind to do things well (hope she doesn't see this line), and I thought about how bad a vice-chair i had been at the start and not wanting to repeat it. So I sent a gmail and SMS of apology to her, since I'm really in the wrong.
So yups, my life as a vice-chair is simply full of ups and downs, and lots of 'feeling-that-I-am-a-lousy-vice-chair' feelings, that I am not supporting my chair enough. But somehow, I've got a feeling that I'll have this 'feeling-that-I-am-a-lousy-vice-chair' feeling again sometime soon, but I am not sure when though. Just have this feeling...
As I looked at the line in the page, many thoughts ran through my head...
(R^3)CMI wrote some crap again... <3 12:22 AM
