All I Ask Are Calm Seas and a Star to Steer By

2008? How can that be possible? As yet another year passes us by and I finish my fifth (fifth?!?) semester as a college student I can feel the winds of change just beyond the horizon.

I've moved everything out of my home for the last 18 months at University Village and finished the last page of a chapter of my life. I know it's just a building but I have a strange sentimentality and nostalgia towards it and... well... everything. Perhaps this arises from the fact that I've only lived in 5 different places in my entire life including the year long stint at the dorms Freshman year. Or maybe it's because as Michael, my roommate of the last two and a half years and longtime friend, pointed out: that last chilly day in Boulder will likely be the last time we will ever live together for the rest of our lives. That was a profound realization for me. Not only that fact itself but just the fact that 2 1/2 years flashed by in the blink of an eye. It feels like my life has been stuck on fast forward and that the days are ticking by faster than I can keep count.

Complicating the matter is the fact that I am rapidly approaching one of the greatest adventures I will ever have embarked upon. Beginning on January 21st I will be leaving the United States for 108 days to participate in the Semester at Sea program sponsored by the University of Virginia. Leaving from the port of Nassau in The Bahamas, SAS will sail us around the world on a journey stopping in 10 different countries across 3 continents before transiting the Panama canal and a return to the States. (If you're interested here's the full itinerary) Needless to say this is quite an undertaking for a mild-mannered Colorado boy who's never spent more than 2 weeks outside of the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

If the reactions and memories of the more than 45,000 students that have participated in SAS over it's 30 year history are any indication, the person that I am today will be a different one from the one that returns home in May. This thought is both immensely exciting and greatly nerve-wracking for me. I hope that this journey will help me grow as a person and give me perspective on our increasingly intertwined world. I hope to return with new friendships and a new appreciation for the friends I'll be leaving behind. I hope to bring home a lifetime's worth of stories. I hope to return humbled and grateful for all that I take for granted. And I hope to return without Malaria, Yellow Fever, Japanese Encephalitis, and generally still alive!

So now that the profound segment is out of the way... This will also be the first time I have dealt with the experience of having an unknown roommate as I dodged that bullet Freshman year by rooming with Michael. So I hope we get along well and that he doesn't have any weird habits like stockpiling massive quantities of potatoes or making string-cheese stick figures. I also hope that I'll be able to overcome my usual tendency to be shy and that I won't become "that guy who supposedly lives in cabin 215."

Packing is also interesting for me as I need to plot out about how many diabetes supplies I think I'll go through in the time I'll be gone. In a way the whole experience is just like playing Oregon Trail where I have to decide how many boxes of each kind of supply I think I'll go through during the trip. Except this time around there aren't any forts to resupply from and the consequences for running out of wagon wheels will be a bit more severe.

Overall though the idea that I'm leaving in 18 days still hasn't quite hit home...