Ciarán Searle

Hi everyone! I am Ciarán, 9TM's English teacher. My family and I are originally from Yorkshire, England, but I moved to New Zealand when I was five years old. I grew up in North Canterbury with my mum, dad and younger sister Freya but now I live with two flatmates on the east side of Christchurch. Some things that are really important to me are games, theatre and my family.

Games
When I was very young, I used to design board games when I was bored and wanted my sister to play with me. With her specific interests in mind, my first games were mostly about fairies and unicorns. Since then I've discovered the incredible world of modern board games and my designs are a bit more sophisticated. I even published a game of my own through Kickstarter!

I also enjoy roleplaying games (like Dungeons and Dragons) and LARP (Live Action Role Playing), which is similar except you move around in costume instead of sitting at a table rolling dice.

The reason I like games so much is that it stretches my creative muscles, helps me learn about strategy and planning ahead and is also a great way to meet and interact with people. Personally, I find it a lot easier to get to know someone if we are doing something together, like a game, rather than just talking.

Theatre
I've been performing in one way or another since about 2002. I attended and later taught at the Hartley School of Performing Arts in Rangiora, where I loved improvising and being in musicals in the holidays. At one point, I founded a theatre company called "Black Peach" and we made up and toured Christmas musicals around local primary schools. Nowadays, I mostly like to improvise. That is when you have no script and you get in front of an audience and make up a scene. This year I am an apprentice with the Court Jesters, which is incredibly exciting for me. I have been going to their shows for years and to perform with them is a real step up for me.

I love telling stories and entertaining people, so I think that I get something similar out of games and theatre.

Family
For most of my life, my family has mostly felt like a small group (those of us in New Zealand), so I was quite jealous of my friends who had lots of cousins and extended family they would see all the time. We occasionally got visits from my Grandad, and there were a couple of other family members who also moved over from England, but mostly we didn't see the rest of the family. In the summer I went back to England for the first time since I first moved (over 20 years ago!) and got to meet a lot more of my family. I was really excited to see that we had quite a lot in common and that they were really easy to get along with. Everything felt really natural in a way I didn't expect.

I think it's really important to learn about and connect with where you are from because it grounds you and lets you realise that even when everything is changing and things are difficult, you still have a heritage and a group of people to draw on.