The End of the World: Final Ship Days

…Until we're back on the ship—and the voyage continues!

This entry will be dedicated to the final days of Semester at Sea; therefore, the accounts may be conveyed with height-ened emotions and contain additionally saccharine sentiments. If you are with-out heart, you may find the next few pages difficult to read. If you are a/my grandparent, parent, or other close rela-tive, please read on. Maybe you will be moved by the heart I've found in myself.

Pulling away from Costa Rica is not a happy time for any of us. Once the land is out of view, the ship becomes a sort of vacuum; everyone is sucked inside, shuffling around like dust particles riding an air stream. All anyone can say is, "It's over."

Port excursions are over. With them, pre-ports—cultural and logistic. Making reservations—plane and hotel—and plans for what we'll do in port. Finals are over. In turn, classes, lectures, paper-writing, due dates. Anticipation has been replaced by anxiety. Nobody wants it to end. We will live the next few days in dread of that moment we are called off the ship.

That must be why the shipspeople arrange the much awaited Ambassadors Ball for this time, to give us something to enliven us in this otherwise pale week. And with too much time on our hands—what with no classes or tests or anything—there is little to do but plan outfits and dream about what we might be fed that night. Because without that dream, it's brooding for all of us. Some people try running in the opposite direction of that thought, inviting everyone in their hall to exchange stories and pictures, but it all comes back to brooding. Ultimately, even those distracted by their dresses or their suits have to lay their heads down at night. It simply can't be avoided.

Luckily, Kelsey and I, who have been designated as the ship's artists, somehow, are given the task of providing some decorative banner-length dragon, which keeps us engaged for a long while. Sitting on the hard floor in the only hidden but accessible space on the ship leaves us with enough bruises to draw our minds away from being sad. We listen to peppy music and scribble away with markers, outlining, cutting. After a very long day, we put the dragon to sleep with the promise of returning to it the next day.

December tenth, the buzz around the ship is Ambassadors Ball. While there isn't much to discuss beyond which dish we'll have or what our dresses look like, everyone finds a way to keep talking about it. Kelsey and I get back to scribbling the dragon; hours later, perhaps two hours before our five thirty dinner serving, we get the dragon set up outside of the Aquamarine dining hall and retire to our rooms to lie down for a couple minutes before getting going again.

Come five thirty and half of the ship is lined up outside of the Aquamarine Dining Hall, decked out in their six inch pumps and custom-tailored suits from Vietnam. It's funny that we're eating here; there are two dining halls, and my friends always eat at this one, the Aquamarine. The upstairs dining hall seems to be the more popular dining hall, though, so for all of those people, this switch preserves the magic. For us, it's like our everyday dinner in an alternate universe with Chinese lanterns where people dress up and the dishwashers serve us food that actually tastes good.

So you have a better idea of what goes on for this Ambassadors Ball, our dinner ticket:

Front:

The Ambassadors Present

A Forbidden Night

The tenth of December of the year two thousand and eight

First Dinner Serving at Five Thirty & Second Dinner Serving at Eight

In the Aquamarine Dining Hall

Desserts and Dancing to Follow

Back:

Menu

Vegetable Spring Rolls, Dumplings, and other Asian Dim Sum

Hot and Sour Soup

Mandarin Salad

Entrees

Filet Mignon with Pomme Frites and Asparagus

Poached Salmon with Hollandaise Sauce, Saffron Rice, and Asparagus

Tofu Stir-Fry and Brown Rice

Dessert Buffet

Amazing what italics can do, huh? Anyway. The men of our table (Chris, Scott) eat the filet, the women (Kristin, Kelsey, Eilis, Amanda, Jen and I) choose tofu. We eat it down with the one glass of champagne we are allowed. After dinner, we hang out in headquarters, which is the abode du Kristin and Mitzi. I have never been a resident of "the house to be at," so it feels good. Chris helped rally for our title and everyone else followed suit; it may be thanks to our laziness, as no one would ever see Kristin lest they come to our room. In any case, I am cool here and I am very sad to go home because my status here is already so favorable and well-articulated. Shame.

When the dessert buffet is set up, we race to deck six for finger-brownies, cupcakes, cakes, cookies and strudels. While the sugar is still racing in our blood, we go to the main lecture hall, now having proven itself a very adaptive space, and with the chairs contained to every wall, we dance.

I would continue to update you on the rest of the evening's happenings, but I will save you the repetition. So in one sentence: We dance until we sleep.

The next day, December Eleventh. Nobody has anything to do. We are still resisting from packing our bags to go home, because it's still safe to deny that it needs to be done. There is enough time tomorrow and the following day to do that. Today is paranormal, Bermuda Triangle. We've been through the Triangle already, from Florida to the Bahamas and on past Puerto Rico; we're not actually there now, but it's a peculiar feeling here on this ship. We're not coming or going. Time doesn't pass today.

We sit around. We drink coffee. We play board games. We watch movies. We eat the most average meal we can at every meal to retain the mediocrity of this day. This day isn't special.

The evening. We attend the final pre-port for Miami, the apotheosis of pre-ports. Students replace the usual presenters and are given the creative freedom to impersonate and mock them for our entertainment. The ship's doctor and his assistants, who developed a routine of incorporating their warnings of severe illnesses and dangers into humorous songs, perform their final opus. Nobody leaves the room without having had a good laugh.

At the end of this emotionally barren day, everyone finds himself on the open deck, number seven, by the bar and around the pool. There are more people gathered here than there have ever been—save for the Sea Olympics, which was mostly mandatory—and none of this was planned. After all of this sailing, we're finally on the same wavelength. We all have a glass of wine or two and take pictures with the people we never got close to, but wish we had. But no one mentions leaving. We're all drawn into hugs, but won't admit why it's any more comforting today than any other.

December Twelfth. Two days away. Some people are starting to get sad to the point of crying, the end of which we'll never get to see. While last night was for living out the ends of our lighter relationships, from this point on, we spend every moment with the people we'll miss the most.

Today, Chris, Kristin and I find ourselves sitting together admist morning fog on the seventh deck. We joke about the most menial things, what certain words mean, the state capitals. We quiz each other on our knowledge of other countries; while Kristin and I can't remember the currency of Malaysia, we remember the lights of Kuala Lumpur at night and the hot smell of China Town that crowded itself between the throngs of people walking every direction. Chris and I have forgotten how much it cost to take the cable car down Table Mountain, but we can still feel how burned and unusable our freezing hands felt as they sruggled to peel oranges at the top. We make fun of each other and laugh at Chris as he tells us how much he misses Chili's, the mediocre American restaurant, and plans to go there as soon as he gets home. Then he goes into how much he'll miss us and promises that he'll visit; Kristin and I play cool and unaffected, adding only to the list of foods we miss, (mostly: burritos, good cereal, pizza and cheeseburgers). Of course, I know that I'm not, that I am internally very glum. I'm not sure about Kristin, but I like to think that she, too, is feeling doleful deep down.

For the rest of the day, we are inseparable. Chris, Drew, Scott, Eilis, Kristin and I sit around headquarters talking and telling each other how much we love one another. Even Scott who wears a thick coat of "I don't love anything" admits he'll miss us and steals a few candid pictures of us to take home. We eat together. We stroll the ship capturing mental images.

From our beds that night, Kristin and I share our worries with each other, unable to fully articulate any of them. We repeat those more important musings, each time trying to find a clearer explanation. More or less, we are able to express our gratitude for being here, for having each other, and for being sent together. And isn't it cool that our parents did this, too?

We fret about returning home, if we can readjust to a consistent and stationary life after this great adventure. What will we tell people when they ask about it? Will we forget about what we've done here? Can you believe that people lived in this room before us, and that more will move in when we're gone? Doesn't that make you feel cheap? Kind of, but we can't live here forever. What? Share my experience? But it's mine. Oh yeah, I forgot about Devin. Sure. He'll be a better person for it. So will the rest of the world.

December Thirteenth. Tomorrow, we will be stranded in America. We wake up in the Panama Canal and spend the next few hours slowly wedging our way through. We split our time between watching some men control the height of the water as they sift it between a number of containers, and being inside, in our rooms. Every minute spent in the room is devoted to packing our lives quickly and messily back into our suitcases to be brought to a loading room by dinner time.

The last supper. Being what it is, we expect the food to be especially well prepared, but what we are given is perhaps just as good. The norm: cream of something, vegetable medley curries, pale fish. It's comforting, it reinforces our being here.

After dinner, everyone crowds into the main lecture hall for a goodbye assembly where Brittany App, the ship's photo-grapher, will showcase her voyage slideshow, and Garrett Russell, the AV-guy, will reveal a few clips of the video yearbook he has been working on all semester. There's a nice shot of me on the unicycle in Brazil, then a few words about how I enjoyed the circus, which is embarrassing to watch in front of everyone. The people who have already cried cry through a large portion of the show, and many others cry for the first time. Kristin remains blank-faced, unfeeling; so does Scott. Chris, with his laptop, distracts himself. I eat M&Ms, rictus spread. The night is coming to an end, and with it, everything, everything.

As I try to sleep that night, everything falls on top of my head.

Regrets: I should've gone on this trip or talked more with that person. I should've branched out and not let myself be so comfortable all the time. I should've watched less Gossip Girl and read more of what was required of me to read. I should have written more about my reactions to things instead of keeping a log of activities.

Dreams: How will I save the world? How will I make money to donate to kids without crayons in Africa, amputees in Cambodia? Will I remain involved?

Memories: Will I ever feel as accomplished as I did at the top of Table Mountain? As scared as I did trying to sleep in the tent with hyenas stalking the camp? Will I ever meet the compassion I saw in the yoga instructor's eyes when she opened them to me? The desperation of limbless men selling sodas in the street? Will I ever feel as liberated as I do watching the sky and sea unreeling for miles off the back of the ship?

Woes: How will I retain all of this? How will I keep in touch? Will I hold on to my newfound sympathy for the world? Will I forget about the plight of people countries away? How will I get myself on another ship, and quick? How will I sleep without the ocean waves to cradle me?