The only thing I felt sure about when I landed back in New York last November was that nothing is what you expect it to be, and even a country with eight times as many sheep as people would take decades, if not lifetimes, to begin to be understood, much less to be conquered.
My original clue that I might be better off throwing my preconceptions (and tanning plans) out the window was the fact that it rained the first nine days of my program. After spending the first three days sulking under my bright red raincoat, I took the advice of my Kiwi flatmate and adopted the local philosophy of "No worries, mate." Soon, the uber-American raincoat was at the bottom of my closet, and I was joining the crowds of local students who would pause under a store awning until the rain shower had passed and then continue as if nothing had happened. "No worries" became our mantra for the semester.
When I set out to a small town three weeks later to spend a weekend living and working on a farm, I once again had to toss aside my preconceptions. The husband and wife who picked me up from the bus station were not stout New Zealand-born people who had been milking cows and herding sheep for generations. Rather, Burt and Rita had emigrated from the Netherlands a decade ago in search of a better life, and had just bought their first cow two days before I arrived at their farm. So while Burt and Rita went out of their way to try to give me a "true" New Zealand experience (we watched a neighbor slaughter sheep and then we ate one of them for dinner-I'll never look at my food the same way again), it was their courage in leaving their country, their language and their extended family behind to try out a new life, that I will remember most about that weekend.
I also never expected to be harassed, questioned, praised or confronted about my own country and identity to such a degree, yet I wouldn't change the experience for anything. There were moments during the semester when I loathed my giveaway accent, or felt a desire to lash out at the fifth person in two days who asked me if I got sick from eating McDonalds, Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell three times a day, every day, in America. At the same time, though, I found myself realizing for the first time in my life how much my nationality, my education and my beliefs shaped my identity. When I spent three days living on a marae, a traditional Maori compound, I was proud to stand with 22 other Americans and sing my national anthem. New Zealand taught me not only to be less passive about the decisions my government makes, but also to take pride in who I am and where I come from.
Over the course of the semester, I was lucky enough to spend time in Thailand, Fiji and the far reaches of the North and South Islands of New Zealand. I saw beggars with no arms on the streets of Bangkok and lived on an island in Fiji with no electricity, phones or roads. I went flyfishing for a week and didn't see a single person the entire time. I kayaked Milford Sound at sunrise and watched the fog give way to some of the largest fiords and waterfalls in the world. I went scubadiving, skied, hiked, camped, rode elephants, white-water rafted, watched the Louis Vuitton Sailing Cup and tasted a whole lot of wine. I spent the first anniversary of Sept. 11 in a portion of Thailand that was 95 percent Muslim.
The experiences I had and the people with whom I came into contact are something that I will spend the rest of my life digesting, analyzing and reliving. But as I got off the plane in November, I realized that my quest to pack a lot of living into a short amount of time was something that didn't have to stop when I got back to the "real world." My plan in life is to listen, to learn and to take nothing for granted-not just in the classroom or when I'm traveling through some foreign land, but every day. With my mantra of no worries, and a working set of ears and eyes, I may not be able to conquer the world, but I sure will get more out of it.