red card delight
Kia ora everyone.
I'm Angus but please call me Cosby or Coz. “Cosby?” You’re all thinking... Basically, I once tried giving myself a nickname but, as you might expect, it didn’t exactly take off... however, as a reward for my brilliant idea I am now stuck with an email address containing cosby_styles. So, if you would be so kind as to start calling me Cosby at conferences I’ll be very grateful!
Now I live in the massiveness of Takeo. You may have heard of us for our great wine, fine women and jazz music... oh who the fuck am I kidding. The only thing we have in our "city" worthy of mention is an Onsen (that I haven’t even been to yet), a fabulous small tenpura restaurant (run by an old hunched over lady and her giant of a son), and (with the recent acquisition of Yamauchi and Kitagata) a total of 9 ALTs and some change. It’s not the most happening place in Saga, and that’s saying a lot, but... oh yes... BUT…. I for one have a total blast here. A great cast of ALTs who are always up for a good time surrounds me, and, to me, that is what makes all the difference in producing a great episode of ‘the Gus Show’.
I consider myself a Kiwi most days. Although, there’s the occasional time I jump back on the English bandwagon (for example when they won the rugby world cup). But, don’t be fooled, most days I'm kiwi through and through. A few months ago I introduced something to our circle of friends that I thought was common knowledge, but it turns out was a ‘kiwi thing’ (just like shagging sheep… oh how we love sheep…).
I have decided to make this, my first ever post, an educational one and to share with you this 'kiwi' idea. Hope you like it.
Red Cards:
Ok, first and foremost, you need to have a group of you, ideally 4 or more. Full commitment from each member of the group is essential. The idea of red cards is to enable you to have a day/night activity of whatever you want whenever you want it. Red cards are normally reserved for university students in New Zealand. Each flat usually has a red card for each flattie.
Rules:
1. You can only use your red card once.
2. You must use your red card before it expires or it is wasted. You choose the time length when issuing them. We gave three months.
2. The person who used the red card decides the activity. No one else.
4. You cannot get out of a red card*
To give you an idea some of the things we have done are:
A 3 P's night... porn, piss and poker
A Quiz night
A Mafia night
An all-nighter consisting of different drinking games
A Fancy dress ‘Pimps and Hoes’ night - involved dinner at gusto in full costume followed by poker and way, way too much drinking.
Ok, so you get the idea. Now I put a * above next to not getting out of them. We decided the only time you could not partake was if you had a work event you HAD to attend at the same time as the card was being used. In New Zealand the only time you would be able to get out of was if you had an assignment or test the next day worth more that 20%.
Now for more fun I should make it clear you don’t have to give any warning to people that you are planning to use your red card until the night. One night a few weeks back I received a call from 'The Tan' at 12am to tell me to get out of bed and next door in 20 minutes cause he was using his red card! Pulling your red card on a weeknight is also highly advised. It breaks the monotonous weeks up something chronic!! Just be mindful of the neighbours. We found out the hard way with an email from Kencho to inform us of recent noise complaints.
I hope some of you are able to install the red card system with the other ALT’s in your area. Also don’t be shy to bring Japanese friends in on the idea. Be sure to explain it well though. One Japanese person we tried including seemed to think they could red card all of us into cleaning up their room at home!! HELL NO!
Now go forth, use the cards wisely, and get yourselves one-hell-of-a-drunk!!
ka kite ano
Cosby
5 comments | Read/post comments | Permalink