2nd Exchange

Our second Skype exchange was a funny and strange experience. This time I was supposed to talk alone with my American peer Kelsey. Unfortunately she wasn’t there and so I joined Alberto’s conversation. He was talking with Leah Barreras, a girl of Mexican origin. We talked about the years of lead in Italy. What she knew of our ‘70s came from some Italian movies she saw. However, she ignored who the Brigate Rosse are or what happened to Aldo Moro. Then we focused our conversation on international terrorism and the problem of immigration after September 11. According to what Leah said it seems that there’s no great difference in the approach of Americans towards immigrants after that terrorist attack. Mmm, I’m a bit sceptical about this point. Then we ran to Bush’s policy and the Iraqi war and finally we discussed about American and Italian coming elections.

When I said that this time I had a lot of fun I was not referring to the topics of the conversation but to the strange dynamic of our talk. During the first half an hour we were supposed to chat with Leah because in the same class room there was another lesson taking place. We explained the problem to our peer but she continued to talk instead of chatting. You must believe me when I say that it’s almost impossible to keep in silence when someone is talking to you or to answer him/her by writing. That new form of communication we experienced was really funny but at the same time it was also a bit difficult to keep it going on. Furthermore, it was really frustrating to listen Leah talking and we couldn’t answer in the same way. I realised that I find speaking much more interesting than chatting. The whole thing ended up in a strange experience with Alberto and me making a lot of noise and with Sarah who scolded and silenced us every two seconds. If you want to read the transcription of our conversation have a look to Alberto’s blog.