Brendan Dwyer

You just don't know what you're going to find.

It was the FIFA World Cup in Doha, Qatar.

So it was in November.

Which means my students were here, they were in our workroom, and they were huddled around a laptop.

They were watching Morocco and Belgium.

which is a very unconventional game for these students to watch because they weren't from Morocco or Belgium.

But these students were like enthralled by this game.

And as the game was going on, more students were starting to gather around.

And it was not a knockout round game.

It was really not a semifinal or a final.

It was an interesting game, but we're talking second half.

It's not the last couple minutes.

But each moment, they were yelling and screaming and getting upset.

I found that they were getting upset mainly at the referee.

more than they were getting upset at a missed shot or a missed pass or a missed play by one of the players.

That's when it was like, what are you guys cheering about?

And they mentioned that they weren't betting on the outcome of the game.

They were betting on the number of corner kicks.

So every time the referee awarded a corner kick or did not, they reacted a certain way.

And that was hilarious to me, and also at the same time got me a little caught off guard, because I've never seen, one, I didn't realize you could bet on the number of corner kicks at that point, and two, the fact that these students were so enthralled, not by who's gonna win a World Cup game, but corner kicks.