All Fun and Games

Today’s meeting with Isabela was not only enjoyable but also different. The Intensive English Program had a social that all of us conversation partners were invited to attend. I made it a point to stop by and chat with her there. We met up and asked each other how things were going. I just realized we have a pattern of doing the same introduction every single time. After our typical introduction, she introduced me to some of her good friends, two of which are also from Brazil. They pried me with information, especially about Texas and “cowboys” after seeing my boots. After talking to them about that, Isabela asked if I would play the game Jenga with her. She had never played the game before so I explained to her how the game worked. Simply put, I told her to pull one tile out and don’t let it fall. We began to play and talk at the beginning and it was fun. Then it got really intense. I soon found out that she was competitive as we continually battled it out against each other. As the tower got higher and higher with less and less support we began to take our time and strategize. Our faces said it all as we would pull out the tiles. When I went, her face read please fall. Once I succeeded, her face read intensity. It was a fun game to play. Well until I went to put the block at the top of the tower and it came crumbling down. Isabela exclaimed out and made sure to rag on me a little bit for losing. It made me laugh at the fact that we could have this friendly game and that when it was all said and done we had the ability to sit here and laugh and just have a good time with each other. What was better yet is that there was no way we were going to stop after one game. She wanted to make me really lose by beating me twice and I couldn’t go out without a fight. So we repeated the competitive process that had just occurred. The difference this time around, however, was that I was on the winning in. Our expressions flipped and each did what the other had done the previous game. Then we laughed for a bit and talked. It was fun to change the atmosphere up a bit and just have a good time laughing with each other and expressing a side of us that we don’t see when we’re sitting a table just talking about different topics.