This Is How We Do

I would estimate that about five nights a week we have a game-marathon at our apartment. We've been on the on night shift pretty much since we arrived, which is 1:30-8:40, so usually by the time we get off there's no point in leaving campus because most places would be closing shortly (except for the few overnight markets of course!). So playing games with other teachers has become somewhat of a nightly ritual, which is really fun and also a good way to save money. The regular competitors are me and Mel (or course) and Emma. Emma has been our best buddy since we arrived here. She is from Yorkshire and has a funny accent and says a lot of silly words that make our simple minds laugh. It was definitely cool to meet someone we get along with so well this far away from home. Unfortunately, Emma is also going home at the end of the month- two weeks after we leave for Suwon. Not to worry, because a trip to England is imminent as Mel and I have talked about travelling there for years, though we will certainly miss our games buddy! Now, back on topic- the remaining rotating list of nightly competitors are Vanessa (Canadian theme park lover seen in Lotte World/Everland posts), Ryan (Brit as well, and cohort of Emma's), Rob (another Coronation Street-lover), Mary (from the US of A), and Shannon (also of the US of A).

We had a pretty intense week at work. All of our students had really low english and the students that I taught theatre in the evening had the very lowest. Also, in my daily magic classes I was randomly assigned the ten lowest teams of students as well so my days were just as frustrating. Well, I'd been looking forward to Friday night for a lonnnnng time so my team could put on their play and get it over with. I was proud of them! The three princesses (we did the Paper Bag Princess, remember?) had to read from their scripts, but we got through it and nobody walked off stage or started fighting or talking korean. Woo hoo! And so you know, Mel's team did great too. They were the best in our mini-showcase of four teams!



A video of my team performing feturing me as narrator- only for a minute or so as the memory stick ran out of room, but it's cute and gives you an idea of what went on...

So after that shmozzle (and a graduation that ran lonnnnng) we headed back to our place for our Friday night routine of ordering pizza, beer, and playing cards. We always get a korean staff member to order the pizza for us because... well we don't speak korean. I've heard horror stories of teachers calling and the call taking 45 minutes and the order will still be wrong! We order our pizza from 'Pizza Mong', which sounds a little dodgy, but it's only 15,900 (16.00 canadian) for two large pizzas with the works and stuffed crust, a big bottle of Pepsi and some pickles. Gotta have the pickles.



Friday night was special though because I got Emma to cut my hair. I figured she'd do a good job because she'd been teaching 'Hair Salon' class at school for the last month. She did some awesome work! I was nervous about getting my hair cut here and the length had started to bother me. Now I think I can make it until January when my regular hairdresser, Dayna, arrives to teach!



Now to the games. We generally play for about 4 or 5 hours. It's ridiculous!! But time flies when you're having fun! We all play different games at our own homes so we've wound up playing a mix of different regional games, plus old favorites. We now play so many games that we can't play them all in one night!



Nertz- Nertz was taught to us by Shannon, and was the first game we got into playing while here. It's a fast paced card game and you usually play in pairs. There's always a lot of screaming and yelling, especially at the end when you've gotten rid of all your cards and must scream "NERTZ!!!" Nertz has inspired a number of catch phrases such as: "I'm HAVIN' it!" (two players are attempting to play the same card and one person really wants it lol), "It was in flight" (technically cheating, this means you play a card after the other team has already gone out, claiming that it was 'in flight' as they went out), "It's anyone's game" (self-explanatory and usually said when a clear winner is emerging), "We had a lot of cards in there" (at the end of the game when you think you've played a lot of the cards in your hand, similar to 'we had a lot of men in there' when talking about tragedies of war"), "I'd like a dark nine please" (red is 'light' and black is 'dark'- this is not a rule of the game just something dumb we say, and requesting a card is a good headsup to your teammate to watch for that card to become available), "NEHHHH" ('neh' is Korean for 'yes' and is fun to say in a nasally voice), "F*** YOU" (usually directed at Emma). Also talking in a british accent is fun in this game as well. For more on Nertz, the game has a website AND an official deck of cards you can order us for Christmas. Visit HERE.



Nertz- all set up and ready to play



Even the scoring can get competitive...

Farkel- Just learned last night, this dice game is VERY exciting. Similar to Yahtzee, but with more chance and risk involved, you score by rolling a 1 or 5 or a triple, and you can keep going until you decide to stop (like Deal or no Deal) but if you don't roll something of value you lose everything! First player to 10,000 wins. This game comes to us from Minnesota (Mary), but has existed since the Renaissance! Visit HERE for rules (highly recommended and addictive)



Blockus- Jason originally told me about this game at home and it sounded fun. When I saw it here in Seoul I immediately snatched it up. It's a board game that looks a bit like Tetris, you play with four people and the goal is play all of your tetris shaped blocks on the grid. It's harder than you think and the other people get in the way. By the way, the motto of our games nights is "Screw Shawn" (it really is, they say that all the time because I have a horseshoe up my ass and apparantly gloat when I win- but I don't think I do- singing and dancing isn't gloating is it?) so I will often be targeted first in Blockus. You can play Blockus online to try it out- the actual game can be found at The Little Shop of Science in Saint John! Visit HERE for more info.



Scattergories- You have to come up with words in twelve different categories all starting with the same letter. If you come up with the same word as another player you get no points for your word. We have a 20-sided dice with a bunch of letters on it. It's fun to roll. We brought this game from home.



Manitoba Farmers- This is kind of a personal favorite for me, and was taught to us by Vanessa. Each player gets 10 coins and the goal in each of the 8 rounds gets harder- you have to play 1 set of 3, then 2 sets of 3, 1 set of 4, etc... all the way up to 2 sets of 6. Two sets of 6 is hard because you are only dealt 11 cards, so you have to buy cards with your coins. But you can only buy ten cards so you have to be wise with your money. This game takes about an hour to play and it's really annoying to play with Mel because she always wins. I think this card game must have another name because I can't find any info about it online, but it's FUN!



Upwords- Scrabble that builds UP.



Well this turned into a long post! Fittingly so because this IS what we do for a great chunk of our week. Next week we're on day shift so our nights can't be as long (we usually finish playing between 2-3am even on school nights!). I would say that (more than anything about teaching) the one thing I've learned here has been all these games. So that being said, I would highly recommend teaching at an English Village because you will have time to be foolish and play games with funny names, like "Nertz".