Assignment 3C: Observe and Record!

HOUSE!!!!!!!!! ..... Unfortunately we never got to shout it out loud but I got really close to doing it and embarrassing myself and my friend Fawn. I was concentrating so hard to not miss a number and be as fast as I could when suddenly I saw a full house! I got over excited that it took me a moment to think what to shout out and thank God I didn't because my new unlucky number was there... RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE! I was gutted but so relieved I hadn't embarrassed myself!
hmmm... Maybe I should let you all know that the purpose of this assignment wasn't to go to Bingo and gamble, but it was to observe people, the environment they are used to and most importantly how we felt in their environment (territory). I had never been to a proper Bingo hall before, only to a cheesy bar in Kos where I live and I was playing amongst my mothers friends while there was a really funny guy calling out the numbers, I remember him saying: '' Two fat ladies..88..''. Ok, it's not that funny but at the time I was 9!
So, coming back to the assignment. For this part of it, we had to visit a primary site which was one of these: Bingo Hall, Football Match or the casino. As I had been to the other two, I chose the Bingo Hall, as did a couple of my friends. There were about 6 of us so when we got there we asked if we could get in for free because we were only going to observe and that wasn't a problem, although we had to become members first. It ended up being just me and Fawn because by the time we had filled in our booklets for the membership the rest had already gone through  and upstairs so we couldn't find them. At first, we stood up near some booths and shared our notes as we were observing the people in the Bingo Hall. I must admit that I didn't feel out of place or alienated because everybody was so into the game they didn't stare at us, until an elderly lady came stumbling next to me, pushed me over (not literally) and huffed and puffed, played one round then went and got herself a seat at one of the tables. Me and Fawn couldn't believe what had just happened, after that we felt nothing but embarrassment, especially when we got talking to the manager and he told us that a couple of regulars where asking him why are there strangers looking at them and taking notes. Everybody took the games really seriously and I was surprised because I thought of it as being joyful (probably thanks to my childhood experience). We noticed that the caller kept saying: ''If you need assistance one of our kind/ friendly staff will help you''. Elderly people were comforted and reassured at all times that there is someone there to help them although it didn't look like they needed any help at all. We were the dummies that needed assistance, they knew exactly what they were doing. Some were even multitasking as they were eating, chatting, drinking and playing more than one game at the same time. Every time somebody shouted out HOUSE you could hear their disappointment in their sighs.

I think even the theme and decor in the hall was design in such way, that makes the regulars feel comfortable as it was more likely to be their generation therefore their style and taste. It had a 60s feel to it, with the colorful and patterned carpet and blues chairs. Every time a game started, the lights would turn down, creating a cozy atmosphere. 

After observing as much as we could, me and Fawn were sitting at a sofa in the arcade part of the hall when the manager came over and asked us how we were getting on. We told him we thought it was amazing how seriously the players take it and he said they have it as a hobby, some of them have been going for 14 years and they sit at the same seat each time and sometimes showoff by multitasking and moving the markers without even looking. After a couple of minutes of chatting he suggested we should play a game in order to get the real feel of Bingo, so he went off to get us some free books which was really kind of him!
Before we did anything, I needed a drink but the bar was all the way across the hall, Fawn was absolutely terrified about the idea of walking though all the players and she thought we should wait till later but I insisted we went, only to have the bar lady say to me: ''You have to wait for this game to end before you get anything''. I'm sure we both turned bright red and sat down at the first seat we found while we got plenty of dirty looks. A couple of minutes later the game had ended and we were allowed to get a drink.

Finally, we got to play!!

Happyyyyy!!!

Look at that excitement!

 We weren't as happy all the way through the games, things got serious for us too!! In fact too serious we couldn't look anywhere apart from our sheets trying to keep up with all the numbers. We really wanted to win but at the some time were too embarrassed to shout out HOUSE loudly  if we did win, ignore the fact that we didn't even know what we had to shout out until we heard a couple of people calling it out. Half way through the game the manager came to us and we suddenly become the subjects of observation. He saw me struggling to find the numbers in time so he gave us a tip, on the table under my notebook there was a little screen where the numbers would come up 2 seconds before the speaker called out the lucky numbers so that gave u extra time to find them before the next number was called.

Walking out of the Bingo hall a had a totally different opinion with what I had in mind when I was entering. This was some serious stuff and I'm so glad we got to play and actually experience the feeling of alienation more intensely although towards the end we kind off got the hang of it. As you read, there is more to Bingo than you think, there are tricks, rules and behavior codes some of them are: silence, speed,attention and most importantly seriousness.The more familiar you get with an environment, system or even people around you, you feel a lot more comfortable.