Things Will Be Different.

Professor Robert Fessler, end of the Fall 2001 Voyage: "You're going home. No you're not. At least...not to the home that you left in January. When you get off the ship in Miami, you are going to know that. You already know it in your head, but when you get off the ship in Miami, you are going to know it in your bones. You are going to feel it in your skin. The world that you left behind isn't there any more.

There's a story that I like to tell my students about a fish in a fishbowl. There is a way in which a fish swimming around in a fishbowl knows nothing at all about water...because water is so much a part of the fish's life. It is surrounded by water...it is embedded in water. In that sense, the fish does not really KNOW water. If you want the fish to really understand water, you have to take the fish out of the fishbowl and say, "Look, that's water". Now if you put the fish back in...the water doesn't look the same any more. Well, in a certain sense, we've all been taken out of our fishbowls. You've been out of your fishbowl for three and a half months. Now you have to go back. It may not happen to you immediately. Caught up in the excitement of seeing your friends and your relatives...it may take a day. Maybe a week. But sooner or later there is going to be a moment. It might happen to you at the airport. It might happen to you in your hotel room. Maybe not until you get home. But sooner or later there is going to be a moment when you realize that the world just doesn't "fit" the way it fit before.

Many of your friends...even your good friends...are going to seem suddenly...strangely...stupid. You will want to talk about...India. And they will say, "Yeah, right. That sounds great". And somehow, that is just not going to be enough. And you'll say, "Yes, but I was in Chennai...let me tell you... the smells...the colors...and the babies... Let me tell you about the babies!". And your friends will say, "Uh huh." And you will watch their eyes glaze over as they smile and nod and glance over your shoulder. So you will try Japan. "You know, I was in Japan! I was in Japan right after the September 11, 2001, tragedy, and people comforted me, after we had bombed them years before. Can you believe that? I was in Japan!" And your friends will say, "Oh".And then your friends will suddenly get enthusiastic again as they begin to tell you all the things you missed while you were away. Like that big party...where everybody threw up on each other. And that really funny episode of Ally McBeal. And they will start telling you some of the lines...and laughing as they are telling them to you. And you will be crawling out of your skin.

And you will say, "But I saw beggars! I saw children begging! Did know that parents sometimes actually maim their kids to make them better beggars?". And your friends will say, "Awesome". And you will know that they don't get it. In fact, you might even begin to wonder if some of your friends really know what it means for something to be...awesome. Seeing a sunset while walking along a beach in the Seychelles Islands... that's awesome. Watching the ship crash through the great waves and have splashes of white and blue...that's awesome. Seeing the Great Wall zigzag off across the mountains into the mist...that's awesome. That big party you missed... isn't.

And you are going to hear yourself sounding pretentious. You won't FEEL pretentious, but you are going to hear yourself SOUNDING pretentious. You know, here on the ship, if you are sitting around with one of your friends or your roommate and you start a sentence like, "One night in Ho Chi Minh I was taking a cyclo back from the War Atrocities Museum....". That doesn't sound odd...here. But can't you just see your friends back home rolling their eyes? You are going to have to choose between sounding pretentious...and being silent. An you are going to long to be back here with us...where you can be normal.

And maybe you have a relationship back there. An important one. One that seemed really comfortable and promising...back in September. Oh boy! All those letters you wrote? Or didn't write? Some of them maybe feeling a little forced as you wrote them? Tht relationship might not feel right any more. Like an old pair of jeans that's all broken in, but out of style. And you think, "I just can't wear this any more."

Many of you have become independent on this voyage. Much more genuinely concerned about the world. About other people. Stronger. Braver. BETTER than you were in September. And the life that you had planned for yourself may not be big enough any more. You might be thinking about changing directions. A new major. A new career. Maybe even a new country. Who are you going to talk to? How are they going to understand?There are a thousand litle ways that the world is just not going to fit any more. And a thousand little reminders that it doesn't fit. WORDS are not going to seem the same. You will hear the word, "Havana City". Havana City is a place now...it's no longer just a word. Vancouver. It all comes back. It's not just a word. How could you posibly have imagined, back in September, that you would spend the rest of your life smiling whenever you heard the phrase, "plate tectonics"?

The world is never going to be the same again.So what do you do? Well, I think one of the things that you have to do is to forgive your friends. Looking at your pictures...listening to your stories...is not the same as having been th ere. You know that. You've looked at people's vacation pictures before. You know that pictures can't capture the experience. They are going to be looking at it and listening to it...you've lived it. It has changed you ...it hasn't changed them. So you have to be a little patient with them. You have to be a little forgiving if they don't quite get it.

But I think that you can only do that if they are willing to let you be the person you have become. It is not the places you have been to...and it is not the things that you have done that have to be shared. It is who you have become that has to be shared. You don't have to find people who have been around the world to understand you, but you have to find people to understand you. And if your old friends won't let you be the person you have become...get rid of them. Make new friends.

There are plenty of people out there. And I'll give you a good suggestion. You know those foreign students on your campus? Those strange people with the accents? You see them wandering around confused and not knowing what building to go into. Been there. Done that. Go talk to them.There are a lot of people out there who can confirm who you are ...and who you are becoming. Even if that is not clear to you now. In many ways, the person you will be six months from now is still brewing ...still developing right outside of consciousness. You don't know yet how much you have changed. And you won't know that for another six months or a year.

Other people who have been up here have suggested that you might want to try action. Find a cause...something that you believe in... and work for it. I agree with that. I think that's a good idea. But I am not worried about you. I don't think that you need to be urged to do that...you don't even need to be reminded to do that. I think you are going to HAVE to do that in order to feel at home. If the world does not fit any more, then you have to create a world for yourself that does fit...a place where you can feel at home.

I have been on this trip before...and gone home. So has Les... and Elaine...and Milt [academic deans]. We have all been taken out of our fishbowls and put back in again. And I think I can speak for all of them when I say ...come on in, the water's fine."