Onboard United #578 Enroute to Boston 18 August 2012 "Are you excited?" I've heard that question countless times over the past several weeks as my day of departure--tomorrow--has moved closer and closer. "Not really" has been my usual answer. Jaded? I suppose a little, though I think I know the reason: I've been there before. Three years ago, the prospect of boarding a ship, sailing around the world, teaching college classes again: all these represented a launch into the unknown. I'd been onboard a cruise ship before, but this one, the MV Explorer, is different. It's a luxury liner converted into a floating university: the old casino is now the library; the showroom that once hosted singers and orchestras is now the union; the lounges and private dining rooms are now classrooms. Exploring this boat ("It's not a 'boat,' it's a ship!"), living and teaching in a moving combination dormitory and teaching space, was an exciting and a little unnerving prospect. Three years ago, I had already traveled to many of the countries we'd be visiting, but never on a ship, never while taking my temporary home with me. And arriving via Cape Town harbor, or watching Singapore go by as we cruised through the Strait of Malacca, or sailing up the Saigon River: these were experiences that I had been imagining since I was first accepted into the Semester at Sea faculty. The coming departure date was to me like Christmas to an 8-year-old. And three years ago, it had been over two decades since I'd last stepped into a college classroom to teach. By departure day, I had honed lesson plans for three communication courses and, like those engineers at the Jet Propulsion Lab who have been working on the Curiosity lander for the past umpteen years, I was ready to see if the 69 lesson plans I'd invented would land successfully or would tumble into an ocean abyss, taking the lesson objectives and my self-esteem with them. This time, I know the ship well, having spent 110, plus or minus, days onboard just three years ago. For a big boat, it can feel very small when you've been sailing between two ports for almost 2 weeks, as we did between Japan and Hawaii in '09. This time, we'll have a similar crossing between Cape Town and Buenos Aires and only slightly less time between Ghana and South Africa. The boat doesn't hold quite the same romance in my imagination that it did in August '09. This time, I'll be traveling to many of the same countries we visited in '09, though I am looking forward very much to seeing and doing things--Fes in Morocco, the slave castles of Ghana, the Stellenbosch region of South Africa--that I missed on the last voyage. And I'm looking forward to arriving in Montevideo, up the River Plata, where the German battleship Graf Spee scuttled at the end of one of the great sea chases of WWII. Sailing up the Amazon into the heart of the Brazilian rain forest, docking in Rio, golfing in Ireland--what more is there to say?! Finally, this time I'm much more confident that the lessons won't sink. Most worked last time, and those that didn't have been fixed, or so I hope. I still have a few holes to fill, and I'm using a couple of new, untested (at least by me) texts, so there's a touch of the new-school-year trepidation, but only a touch. And I know what to expect in the students. To that end, I've re-read several times the final blog from my '09 trip. I think I know better how to tailor the classes to meet the diverse abilities of the students. I know much better how to recognize the students who see the voyage as a genuine learning experience and those who are onboard for a 1-semester boondoggle and binge. And I know better how to communicate with kids who are 25 years younger than the last batch of US Air Force cadets I taught during my final year at the Academy. It's a different environment; this is a far different generation. So, sure, I'm excited, but it's a different kind of excitement than I felt when I boarded the Explorer in Norfolk. I know what to expect and what not to expect. I'm older. Jaded? No, not really. There's still a little of that 8-year-old waiting for Christmas. Maybe today I'm more like 12.