Week #2

At this point I've had two meetings with my group (Which I absolutely love, they're all such fun and interesting people) and they both went extremely well with only a couple minor issues that were relatively easy to resolve.

On the day of our first meeting, I went to the Biggby on Liberty street-the place we'd agreed to meet-only to find out it had closed down a couple months earlier (I'd never have imagined a coffee shop could run out of business in a college town, but I guess anything's possible.) My phone had broken the day prior, and the only electronic device I had on me at the time was my iPod, which needs Internet to do anything of worth. So I frantically ran into the Sweetwaters across the street and stole their Wifi to send a mass email instructing my group to meet me there instead; it was about 10 minutes before our scheduled meeting, though, and I worried my group wouldn't receive my message in time. 

I eventually managed to wrangle everyone up after loitering outside of the empty building formerly known as Biggby's and approaching every confused-looking person I saw walking down the street in my direction, so fortunately the catastrophe was limited to only taking up a couple minutes of our scheduled time. We went to the nearby Ben & Jerry's and proceeded to have a lively conversation in which most of the members were well engaged, which is more than I could have hoped for for a first meeting. Every member of my group brings a different perspective to the table, but being that 4 out of the 5 are from China and one is from Korea, they also tend to have a lot in common. 

During our second discussion the following week, I only had three group members (One didn't show and one had emailed me to say that she had too much homework that night to make it) but our conversation flowed endlessly. One of my members is really enthusiastic and talkative and, since I also have these characteristics, our combined energy encouraged the other quieter members to speak up. I've found that both times the hour has flown by, and we often go over our "time limit," a sure sign of a good conversation group. 

I'm so excited to become friends with these people! They all have so much to offer and have so far been pretty open with me in terms of what they want from the group and from being in this country in general. Using a second language always presents a slew of problems and confusion to a speaker, and being able to provide advice for these new friends is an opportunity I consider myself really lucky to have. Sharing our cross-cultural experiences and interests has proven to be quite fulfilling so far, and I'm excited to see where these next few weeks take us. 

Although I already have one consistent no-show member whose never come to a meeting and one who dipped out of the last one without letting me know, I think that it's really important to focus on the positive and the people who appreciate the time and effort we're putting into this program. If we do that, I think we're all bound to create some really unique lasting friendships.