Pitiful

In three days, I leave blistering hot Baton Rouge for cold, wet Ireland. Unfortunately, I'll be doing so in the company of 20+ students. I've never spent four weeks, 7 days a week, several hours every day, in the company of undergraduates--not since being one myself, that is. So I'm a tad concerned. For one thing, there's no way I'll be able to maintain professorial dignity all day every day; I can barely do it for an hour at at time. And you know how it is when you travel with a group: you learn all kinds of things about people. Who's constantly late, who's hungry all the time, who can't stand not being in charge, who's the whiner, who has no sense of humor, who's a really bad dancer, etc etc etc. Do I really want students to know these sorts of things about me?

Nonetheless, I'm optimistic. I do like my students. They are not, on the whole, a very jaded lot. They don't tend to be hugely privileged--or widely traveled. Many, probably most, of the students on this trip will be taking their first steps outside the borders of the U.S. There will be several who have never before ventured outside the South, and it's quite likely we'll have one or two who hasn't traveled beyond Louisiana. Many, probably the vast majority, will never have ridden on a train or a city bus, let alone a subway. I figure it will be a bit like traveling with the little Bushman guy from The Gods Must Be Crazy--the one who's trying to get rid of the Coke bottle.

My students, of course, will be desperately seeking Coke, and they'll find it, and almost every other American product you can think of, almost anywhere they want it. That's a change. I remember my first time in Europe--when I was an undergraduate and yes, a city bus and subway virgin--and this incredible summer-long quest for Tab (oh, surely you remember Tab? Before Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi or Diet anything else, there was Tab) and failing that (and we did fail; there was no Tab in Europe in 1981), for ice in any drink. And later sojourns in England, and longing for peanut butter and Oreos and real chocolate chip cookies and sweet corn and Mexican food. . . . But it's all there now, in abundance, right there with the Starbucks and the McDonalds and the KFC. And the Americanisms, like "8:15" instead of "a quarter past 8" and "Santa Claus" instead of "Father Christmas."

Which is too bad. Oh, I know I sound like Woman-Way-Way-Way-Way-Past-50 instead of Woman-Facing-50, but isn't the point of travel to encounter something different?

Which brings me to email and Facebook and dear God, the cell phone with the intergalactic network. Here Endeth Real Travel. You cannot really, truly be Away From Home if you can log on at any time and any place and talk to friends and family. This is an incontrovertible fact. A given. Geez. A natural law. It's just not right. Such an essential part of my first amazing, life-changing summer in Europe was the fact that I could only communicate home by air mail. A week for my letter to arrive, a few days for the response to be written, a week for the reply to reach me--by which time whatever it was I cared about or obsessed over was done and dusted. I do feel sad that my students will have no idea of what it is to Be On Your Own--one of the most difficult and most wonderful things in the entire universe.

So often, my students look at me with such pity. When I can't figure out how to show the dvd clip. When I talk about VCRs. When I admit I haven't taken a photo since 2001 because I can't figure out how to upload, let alone print, the damn things. When they look at my hands, or feet, or face. . . But this time, here, I pity them.