Aloha Brah!

It's official.  I live in the most beautiful place on this earth.  

It doesn't get much better than this: sunset at the beach on my first day. 

      I just finished my first day of school at BYU Hawaii and I already love it! I'll be honest, I really miss my friends and family, but I'm still super excited about life here! It's like an entirely different world out here. There are so many different cultures and personalities and peoples.  For example, my 3 roommates alone come from Korea, Guatemala (well California really, but she's Guatemalan!), and Russia.  It's amazing.  At first I kind of felt like an outsider.  I mean, so many people speak this pidgin language.  They say things like "Eh, brah, you go library?" and "Let's go beach ya?" and "Hey cuz, where you stay?".  The people who aren't local are either from Utah and California, and so they still kind of have a weird beach-y lingo, or else they come from another country entirely and have a thick accent.                                                   

Where I will be spending much of my time

     Naturally, I was feeling kind of out place at first, and wasn't exactly sure how I fit in here.  But then I had the first day of classes and attended my anthropology class.  It just kind of hit me as the teacher was speaking that everyone is from somewhere and has their own unique and individual culture.  So, while I may not be from some place exotic or say things like "Howzit", I too have something to bring to the table, and I'm excited to get to know people here and make friends.  Once I get into the swing of things, life here is going to be really great.  It already is awesome and it's hard to imagine how it could possibly get any better, but I'm positive that it will! I'm so stoked!

The view of my bedroom from the doorway

I pass by this every day on my way to school.... :)

    As far as the living situation goes, I'm not entirely loving that, but how much time am I actually going to spend in my room anyway, right?  My room is pretty tiny, but as far as places to live here go, my place is pretty decent.  It has a washer and dryer, a kitchen with a dishwasher and lots of dishes and spices for my use, and a place to lock up my bike.  What more do I need? The pace of life here is really slow.  I'm talking land-line internet slow, like in those commercials with talking turtles slow.  The word "hurry" doesn't really exist here.  People don't walk to class.  They meander.  They literally just creep along, and if you walk any faster than that you look really out of place.  I'm interested to see what it would look like if someone just yelled "fire." It'd be like watching mass chaos break out among sloths, no doubt.  But I kind of like it.  Stress just doesn't apply here.  It's wonderful. 
    In other news, the beach is everything I imagined and more.  Well, I guess I never really imagined it...because I'd been there before....but I digress.  The fact is, the shoreline is beautiful and something that every person should experience at least once in their lifetime.  It's really humbling to look out at the vast cerulean sea.  You just kind of get lost in it. (Here comes the abstract, poetic English major in me...) Also, there are a plethora of bugs and crawling things here.  It rains a lot, so most of the time there are things all over the sidewalk.  Like yesterday, when I was walking to school.  I saw 27 geckos before I stopped keeping count, because...who stares at the sidewalk for that long? Moving right along.... it's probably because of the time zone, but ever since I arrived here I've been going to bed by 9pm, because I'm so exhausted, and I'm up way before my alarm. I'm talking 6:00am, everyday, without fail.  Thus, I have had ample time to go on a nice stroll every morning.  Laie is even more beautiful as the sun rises, let me tell you.  So yeah. This blog post is really just a bunch of rambling, so I'll go ahead and cut it off here.  The moral of the story is that I love it here and I finally feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be.  Classes are awesome. Life is awesome.  The end.