Blog Post #4

I know this post is coming early, but I'm too excited about how my Chat Cafe session went today to stop myself from raving about it right now.

For the first time, my group had a session that felt like a real conversation.  I don't mean to discount the things that have happened in the past few weeks--those were also great, in their own ways, and were crucial to helping group members become more acquainted with one another.  Today was different though; for the first time, topics of discussion were arising freely without my prompting.  Side conversations between people were forming organically and taking place at the same time as the larger discussion.  At last, the group felt completely comfortable--people asked personal questions to one another, solicited advice from each other, and, when we wrapped up the session, continued talking to one another on the way out of the Union.

On top of all that (or more likely because of all that) I spoke very little today.  Part of the reason for this was because I wasn't familiar with some of the topics of discussion (such as how to obtain a visa to travel to Canada while living in the US as a Chinese citizen), but also because the necessity of having a group facilitator seems to be fading.  Today I saw myself as an equal member, rather than a leader, of the group for the first time, which was refreshing--it gave me the opportunity to listen and learn more about other people's opinions and ideas, and it made my own contributions more thoughtful and worthwhile.

Still, I remained aware of my role as facilitator and did my best to guide the conversation in the occasional moments when necessary.  For example, one group member, Qianli, asked me a question about what exactly constitutes camping gear to Americans; my answer wasn't great, seeing as I've never been camping, but it still gave me the opportunity to act as a sort of ambassador of American norms to my group.  At other times, I managed to redirect questions directed towards me to the group at large; when Camille asked me what scuba diving was, I asked if anyone else in the group could explain it (shout out to Sarah for setting a great example of this when I sat in on her session this Wednesday--she was doing this left and right, giving her group members a chance to interact and practice their speaking).

On the whole, this was a session I would say was almost perfect.  I know that's a bold declaration, but it's one that I feel is true.  When leaving my session today, I thought: "Wow, I hope every meeting is like that from here on."  They probably won't be--fewer people might come, or people might be more tired than they were today, or the conversation simply won't flow as freely--but I think that, in general, sessions have been getting better and better.  Now that we're about halfway through the semester, it seems that group members have become familiar and comfortable enough with one another to talk as friends, rather than randomly assigned peers.  Today, the relationships we've been building really seemed to be fully on display, and I feel fortunate to be part of such a friendly and talkative group.