The Hot Seat

Ahh….

The joys of university life, of living in a place which you have to call your own (though it may not be paid by yourself) and of handling your own time yourself. You get to go to an institution of higher learning, enrich yourself with knowledge and experiences (extra-curricular activities and extra-institutional activities) and mature in all aspects thinkable; body, mind, soul, and for some of us, spirit.

Speaking of university life and extra-curricular activities, one extra-curricular activity which most university students go through is known as orientation. In some universities (like the one I’m coming/going to right now) it is not compulsory. But seriously, if you’re not going to have fun during orientation, when on earth are you going to?

Ok, ok, so before I go about extolling the virtues of attending orientation (for all it’s worth, it was fun, but it was also tiring, dirty and can also be quite frustrating) I’ll get back on topic.

During orientation, we (as in the whole intake of medical students) got split up into groups. While most of orientation was spent with the Orientation Group playing games, acting, practicing for the former and going to mamak, there were occasions when one of us would have to do something on our own. Normally games were played as a group, but some games only required one or two members.

One can’t imagine how hard it is to be in the hot seat until one finds oneself in such a position. A position where the fate of one‘s group rests in one’s hands, one’s other assorted appendages, or other organs of one’s body, or the ability to use the aforementioned properly.

More specifically, it is one thing to cheer other people on as they arm wrestle, eat, show off their bodies, thread needles and type SMSes.

It’s a completely different thing to find oneself in a similar position.

Case in point… well there was the indoor treasure hunt. For some reason of bizarre nature, the organizers decided that they would have a 4x8 chess game right at the end of the treasure hunt after the hunting was over. As the guy who tried out for the house chess team, I was pushed to the forefront and asked to coordinate the tactics and strategy for the chess game.

It should have been a piece of cake.

Except for the fact that I am very out of touch with chess tactics and that with regards to 4x8 chess, I was as good as any newbie.

Needless to say, I gave up a pawn at the start, for no positional or tactical advantage. Then there were numerous free pieces given away; knights and more pawns. After giving away practically half of my group’s pieces we were then told that there is a time limit and then after that, points would be calculated.

So they put me out of misery really quickly. Thank God for that. Otherwise, my group would have been routed on stage, for the whole batch to see.

In any case, my team’s loss was my blame entirely. I haven’t apologized to them for such a terrible display of chess, though frankly speaking, I might never get round to it; orientation is over and we aren’t playing any more games. But then again, we will still be sticking together for two and a half years; there is probably a lot of time to repair the damage done.

While the damage done was minor (just a couple of points), I can only imagine what my group was thinking after I gave such a pathetic display of chess. Sure, we were already screwed over by our inability to find our clues (there were allegations we were sabotaged, but that is besides the point) but to end up in last position when we had a chance to take one position higher… sigh…

And as the chief architect of the failure... it hurts even to think about it.

It makes one want to run up and down the tallest block in Vista (Which I did. Okay, so I didn’t run, but I went up by foot), to figure out what went wrong, to dissect the chess game in one’s head, to force oneself to never ever make such a stupid mistake again.

Such is the power of failing whilst in the hot seat.

Well, I thought that would have be the last occasion I messed them (actually, all of us) up. Needless to say, I was wrong.

On the very next day, we went for the outdoor treasure hunt. One of the stations involved, again, one member being singled out to do some not-so-menial task (mental arithmetic) and if he or she failed to do so in a timely manner, the rest of the group (the one in the hot seat excluded) would have to get a bath of lake water. As for how clean the water is… let’s just say that most fish won’t even be able to survive there.

After one of my group members tried the first three questions (he got one right), the group decided to switch him for me as he had more failures than passes. Well, that was half of the reason… the other half was that I was giving out the answers faster than he could.

So I got thrust into the hot seat, again.

And I didn’t fare much better than the other guy. I did manage to get the first question correct, really quickly, but after that I messed up the second one, and I had absolutely no idea on what to do for the third one. So one could say I performed at about the same efficiency as he did.

When we’re in the hot seat, we find ourselves under pressure. People are watching; people are looking. It doesn’t really matter whether they are our competitors or our teammates; if we are competing against them, we need to make sure we do well, if we want to win. On the other hand, if they are our teammates, we want to make sure that we do well, so that we don’t let them down.

Our every move is seen as what seems to be the whole world is watching us make every move, with every move possibly rewarding them with victory or costing them a victory.

When we have to do some high-stakes activity by ourselves, we need to calm down. Yes, the whole world is watching. Yes, if we mess up, we might take down our whole group with us. Yes, if we mess up, we might have just made someone’s day.

But we need to remember that if we do panic, we will mess up. And that can’t be good.