Today I was fortunate enough to interview Mutaz and Longfei. When I was interviewing Mutaz he taught me a great deal about Saudi Arabia. It was surprising to learn that he has eleven siblings and he is in the middle. Compared to Longfei who is from China, he is an only child and it is against the law to have more than one child. While interviewing Mutaz our conversation flowed very well. We kept asking questions and asking some back so it really felt like a true conversation more than an interview. One thing that I found very interesting when talking with Mutaz was that the men in the family when they do get married they still live at home but on the second floor until their family starts to expand then they will build their own house.
While I was talking with Longfei, he seemed genuinely sincere about interviewing each other and he was very interested in hearing and learning about what I had to say. The communication in the interviews flowed very well and it was easy to understand each other. If we did have a problem of not understanding what each other was trying to get across we would rephrase the question in a way that would work for the both of us. I believe that these practice interviews helped me get ready to actually go out on my own and interview an international student. It gave ideas of what to do and not to do. Watching and talking about what went good and what went bad was a tremendous help. It was a great idea to have these practice interviews before the real ones because I could of made a fool of myself and that would have been embarrassing!
