OK. They're 14.

A long overdue introduction...Meet my informants!

(from left to right) Beth, Courtney, Stephen, and Phillip

Tonight I hung out with my group and they were crazy! The first 2 hours were a regular youth group meeting, with other students as well as my 4 informants. After youth group I took my 4 to the diner where they did an excellent job at embarassing me and making me regret taking them anywhere... but I got over it pretty quickly and let them just be 14.

I got to do a lot of observing them and their behavior and interactions. There was eating sugar straight from the container, water spit across the table (several times) because they crack each other up...pretty gross, but, absolutelly hysterical....they were singing, making fun of each other...typical teenage stuff. The surprise of the evening was the conflict/resoloution that took place without me having to say a word. Good stuff. And I got a lot more "teen talk" phrases that I'll put on that link.

The thing that I realized after tonight is that I can't meet with all of them at the same time if I want them to actually talk about something serious. There's nothing that can hold their attention outside of themselves for any period of time when they're all together. So I'm thinking I'll try 2 at a time...I'm not sure, I have to think about that because I do think the group interaction is good. It's just not very productive.