March 29, 2013, by Ollie

Bored games

At around 2pm on Friday I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. All my work was handed in. I was now free for a month, well free until the point I could no longer avoid starting revision, but upon arrival back at my room I came upon a horrible realisation. My work had only just begun.

My suitcase was poking out from under my bed, taunting me. It was time to pack. Living on Jubilee has it setbacks, when the students aren’t in town, it appears someone else is and the two halls become accomodation for people attending meetings and conferences hosted by the University. So everything has to be gone. That meant moving all my stuff into the back of a Honda Civic and lumping it home with me. A challenge.

As a male, packing has never quite been my area of expertise. I sat on my bed and wondered where to start. Several hours later, this was the result. With my parents arrival imminent I accepted defeat and lazily sat on bed hoping my room would pack itself.

Another hour later – wardrobe empty, floor visible and electronics bubble wrapped to an irresistibly high poppable amount. I was ready to go. I treat (Lincolnshire slang!) *treated myself to a nap in the car followed by a further nap once I got home.

Now back to all that free time I had. It started the moment I woke up the next day. I played on my PS3, I enjoyed unlimited internet connectivity, I wandered far too many times to the fridge and found food not empty shelves and I sat and watched oodles of channels on a TV… on a SOFA! What luxury.

On Saturday I met up with friends for a few drinks at our local. Our local is the mid-point between everyone and our varying villages/towns so a 20 minute drive down the road courtesy of my parents and I was sat cradling a San Miguel. The night was full of good company and many a laugh was had playing, “This is the which… the what? the which, ah the which!”. I’d closely rate that game not far behind packing as my 2nd area of non-expertise.

 

The day after I was BORED. Bored of all the free time I suddenly found I had. Friends and Football Manager at the same time only managed to pass a few hours. Thankfully the day after I was to be spending time with my girlfriend who I hadn’t seen the other night at the pub. So my girlfriend came round the next day and after watching some Friends, which never fails to pass some time I had a brilliant idea. We could play board games, especially the ones I was good at. Battleship! In terms of 2 player board games Battleship was the best. I remembered my cunning strategy of ship placement and thought I was in for an easy game, my girlfriend have never played before. Around 30 minutes later I was losing 2-0 and had to win this last game. In true heroic style I turned it round to 3-2. I hadn’t had so much fun in a quite a while and I had to have more of this fun! I raided the cupboard and found Kerplunk, Jenga, Boggle and Cluedo amongst many other things. Sadly, my success in Battleship was not repeated as I suffered defeat many times, especially in Kerplunk!

 

 

Until Jenga came along, my girlfriend managed to have a bit of a mare and lose on the first go of the game. That takes skill, trust me!

Reliving the days of my childhood where board games were THE entertainment made me sad. I fear for future generations that will only ever play games on iPad’s or computers and so I am glad I grew up in the generation that played board games, alas this same generation is the one paying £9,000 a year tuition fees.

As a footnote: Through my School Education Rep and then the University’s Education Officer Matt Styles I ended up in touch with Channel 4 about a documentary they were recording about the tuition fee rise. Sadly, after a brief exchange of my thoughts and background I was not needed for interview, so I will not be famous… yet! But keep an eye out and you may see some Nottingham students you know giving their opinions.

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