I'm blogging this on the fly...
I just spent the entire morning welcoming the student body onto the transformational voyage that will change their lives. Even as I rushed around, manning a position as the pinch in the pipe before baggage screening, I was thrown back to September 13, 2000, the day that I board the SS universe Explorer. Some things never change, and the more things change the more they stay the same. I could barely stop myself from grabbing each student and giving them a shake, determined to impress upon them each and every lesson I had learned during my voyage and could teach. Every warning, every precaution, every exaltation -- a wild-eyed Jane the Baptist.
I marveled at how identical families look, how much love they share, and how close some parents hover. I sighed at the quintessentially white American sense of entitlement, impatience, and lack of interpersonal sensitivity that has become our international sterotype. I snapped digital photos of smiling families holding one another with an impatient and more than slightly embarassed student in the center surrounded by two chin wobbling parents. I snickered at parents determined to watch their child go through the security line, snapping more photos than Jean Paul Gaultier's runway photographer.
Lastly, I was surprised by how many students left their parents with the plan to enter the ship, register, and run right back off to have lunch with their parents. Am I missing something here? After all the waiting, the long travel, the screening lines, etc, you would get to the ship and see your room and all the people waiting to meet you, to reveal themselves to you, and you would rush right off to enjoy ravioli with your parents?!?! Wow.
On ship time is 3 pm, and the ship departs for 5. Parents aren't allowed to stand on the dock and wave anymore, so most parents are meeting at the port and traveling to a nearby park to watch the ship go by. I remember my embarkation day in Vancouver, and the magical excited feelings I felt. I even remember what I was wearing. I also remember that never had the sun been brighter, the air more crisp, the future more limitless. I can still hear all those nautical flags and dancing and snapping in the wind. I can't wait for 5pm when it all begins!
I just spent the entire morning welcoming the student body onto the transformational voyage that will change their lives. Even as I rushed around, manning a position as the pinch in the pipe before baggage screening, I was thrown back to September 13, 2000, the day that I board the SS universe Explorer. Some things never change, and the more things change the more they stay the same. I could barely stop myself from grabbing each student and giving them a shake, determined to impress upon them each and every lesson I had learned during my voyage and could teach. Every warning, every precaution, every exaltation -- a wild-eyed Jane the Baptist.
I marveled at how identical families look, how much love they share, and how close some parents hover. I sighed at the quintessentially white American sense of entitlement, impatience, and lack of interpersonal sensitivity that has become our international sterotype. I snapped digital photos of smiling families holding one another with an impatient and more than slightly embarassed student in the center surrounded by two chin wobbling parents. I snickered at parents determined to watch their child go through the security line, snapping more photos than Jean Paul Gaultier's runway photographer.
Lastly, I was surprised by how many students left their parents with the plan to enter the ship, register, and run right back off to have lunch with their parents. Am I missing something here? After all the waiting, the long travel, the screening lines, etc, you would get to the ship and see your room and all the people waiting to meet you, to reveal themselves to you, and you would rush right off to enjoy ravioli with your parents?!?! Wow.
On ship time is 3 pm, and the ship departs for 5. Parents aren't allowed to stand on the dock and wave anymore, so most parents are meeting at the port and traveling to a nearby park to watch the ship go by. I remember my embarkation day in Vancouver, and the magical excited feelings I felt. I even remember what I was wearing. I also remember that never had the sun been brighter, the air more crisp, the future more limitless. I can still hear all those nautical flags and dancing and snapping in the wind. I can't wait for 5pm when it all begins!
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