I can still remember vividly about what happened when I was in Secondary 1...
Being an outstanding Euphonium player in the band, and was once a Quarter Master (one that takes charge of all the instruments in the band) in the Primary school band, my instructor thought very highly of me and asked me to undertake the position of an Ex-Co when I was in Secondary 1.
Of course, there were seniors that I have to take care of, and I did not have the courage to tell them off when they did not take care of their instruments well. But I was typically strict with my batch of band mates, because I knew that seniors will not allow the juniors to outshine them.
The incident happened this way:
My friend took out his trumpet and showed off to our classmates on how a trumpet looks like. And he accidentally dropped the mouthpiece. Being in the military band, we have to punish them accordingly by doing push ups later during the band practice. But as soon as I punished him in our drill session, everybody started scolding me for being a 'suck up' to the instructor.
I tried explaining to them that I have to set the punishment because that was the necessary thing to do. If I don't, everybody will start to disrespect me as a Quarter Master. However, they beg to differ and started to 'boycott' me in whatever things I do.
I did not say anything else later, but continued doing the right stuff that I was supposed to do all the way. It was until when they moved on as a senior, and started realizing how hard was it to be in my shoes for the past few years, and started talking to me.
Those were very bad years for me as a band member. That was the reason why I set my mind to be a better leader in years to come. But the question that I have always asked myself is "was I such a bad leader last time, or is it because we were too young to understand things from different point of views?"
The question still remains as a debatable topic among my friends. If anyone of you wants to voice out on this, do write in and share your view on it!
Labels: class assignments
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