Blog 6- Reflections

I have to say, the past two conversation circles have been a great improvement from before!  I would have to attribute this success to changing the meeting location and the topics.  I decided to take the advice of some of the other conversation circle leaders, and hold a conversation circle at the Natural History Museum across from CC Little.  The two girls that showed up enjoyed the museum immensely, and we had a great time walking around and discussing the dinosaur remains.  There is something so relaxing about moving and just talking freely about whatever you observe, which is something I was afraid to do earlier in the semester for fear of running out of things to say.  When we had watched the movies, I always felt like the facilitator, but in this case, I feel as though I am on the same level as my conversation circle participants.  We enjoyed this new style so much that we agreed to meet at the museum for our next conversation circle.  I only wish I had started this earlier!

            From this point forward, I would say that I am adopting a much more comfortable attitude with the participants.  Now that we have been together for almost three months, I think of them as friends, not merely participants.  I would like to use these last couple weeks to do more fun activities with them that we would not have been able to do when we first met, such as dinners together.  We actually have one planned for later this week which is really exciting!  Additionally, some of my members had mentioned that they will be on the west coast in San Francisco during Christmas break, and I offered to show them around the city, which they sounded flattered and honored, which was really heartwarming.  I think that this transformation into true friends is something that I hadn’t anticipated, but is welcome nonetheless.  When I study abroad myself next semester, I hope to participate in a similar style of conversation circle, and have a similarly rewarding experience.  I think that I could apply my experience as a facilitator when I come back senior year, and maybe work as a Sweetland peer tutor hopefully!