Blog Post 2

It's funny (and probably a feeling shared by every person in WRITING 302) how much I worried and fretted over my first Chat Cafe session. My session was at 7pm on a Friday (I think it's the latest of all the sessions) so the pressure definitely mounted over the course of the week. Hearing the stories other facilitators told Carson and Angelo didn't help with my odd portentous sensation. What if no one shows up to my session?, I thought, what if they don't like me? What if they think I'm too laid-back? Too rigid? In my mind there was much to be worried about. So when Friday came around (o that fateful Friday) and the time approached 7, rather than prepare for the session, I decided to take a nap. My mind was all over the place, a jumbled amalgamation of nightmarish expectations and optimistic anxiety, so I thought it best to simply relax myself and allow my mind to cool off. When I awoke around 6:30, I still felt anxious but in an oddly rejuvenated way, in a way that I couldn't wait to find out how the Chat Cafe session would go.

And now that my first session is a week behind me, I can't wait for tomorrow. Even though two students were absent and it was somewhat awkward trying to locate them in Diag (there was an unfortunate instance where a student was offended that I dared suggest he needed to be a part of a Chat Cafe session), it was still a great time. The four students that came were all actively engaged, were keen on asking each others and just seemed like genuinely good people. All the backup plans and the backup backup plans I had in the back of my mind, stayed there. It was just as though I was hanging out with regular acquaintances. The main things we discussed were football and American college student's proclivity to alcohol consumption. Sometimes I felt like I wasn't the most appropriate ambassador for 'AMERICAN CULTURE' since I've only lived in the country three years but even the little information I could give them on things was more than appreciated. Hopefully I can try to uncover the subtleties of Chinese and Spanish culture. And though I hope that the two other students make it to the session tomorrow, I personally think that four is probably the optimum group capacity.

This is going to seem somewhat off topic but I just thought of this point as I was writing. Some other facilitators spoke about playing games during their sessions, which I thought can occasionally be a fun idea. But after thinking about it, I find the idea of playing a word game or having them complete some comprehension exercise to be ultimately patronizing. Playing a game like Taboo once is more than fine, but if you feel the need to rely on games or word exercises or even funny questions, in my mind, is condescending to the student. It's as though you think they are incapable of being interesting outside of a few word games. I know this is harsh and I am by no means indicting trying to do fun things in sessions, especially as a means to try to get more shy students to open up. This is just me jabbering. I'm curious to see what other facilitators think and am eager to hear different viewpoints.