Welcome Week Day 2
Hello everyone,
Boy, today was a sigh of relief. It's truly amazing how you can go from feeling absolutely horrible to comfort. If I had to pick the weirdest part of my day it would probably be the feeling of deja-vu I got at the most random parts of the day. Crossing the crosswalk in front of the East West center? Deja vu. Looking at the palm trees across from the Queen Liliuokalani center? Deja vu. While I felt yesterday like I didn't belong, today I felt the opposite. I wouldn't say I feel like I belong, per say, but rather I feel comfortable and almost like I'm in a familiar place.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say something that I'm sure will catch many people by surprise. You see, I'm not a very religious person, but when I have very hard times I often pray and ask God for the best. I don't think the feelings I got today and the day I experienced were because I "put myself out there" (which I did, by the way!). Instead I truly believe it's because God helped me. And I won't go into much more detail, but I will share that I'm very excited to get involved on campus and begin attending weekly mass.
Now onto the rest of my day. After being woken up by both garbage trucks and roosters, I decided I couldn't just lay there any more and instead I got ready for my day. I knew that my mom would be stopping by, so for the first half of my day I knew I would be alright.
Once she got here we did our laundry and set up my payment plan. At Manoa, students have many options of paying tuition. If you don't get scholarships or your loan money falls short, there is a third way to pay your tuition: via a payment plan. Pretty self explanatory, but a payment plan is essentially paying everything for that semester up front. I won't share how much I pay, but I will share which plan I signed up for. At UH there are three plans a student (or their parents/guardians) can sign up for. The first is a four month plan, typically for upper classmen. In this plan, students pay for the fall semester in four payments. Payments can be done up front, but only in the beginning. The school requests that you pay online, I personally think because it's quicker, through either a checking or savings account. In my case I had to sign up for the credit union out in Manoa and pay for tuition that way...Carrying on, the second type of plan is a 3 month payment and the third type is a two month plan. The perks of the payment plan are great, because not only does the school give you time to come up with the money, but they also don't kick you out if you're late or low on funds. Also with a payment plan you aren't tied to a bank that you'll eventually have to repay!
At the end of the payment process mom and I hopped on the shuttle to Walmart and from there we walked to Ala Moana. Ala Moana, a mere 15 minute bus ride from campus, is located right outside of Waikiki and consisted of over 300 very interesting stores. From your standard Coach and Disney Store to your only-available-in-Hawaii stores like Hilo Hatties and there ABC Store, there's something for anyone and everyone. While at the mall mom and I ran into Old Navy (which is quite honestly very cheap here) and went out for lunch.
After lunch we caught the bus back to campus and finished setting up my dorm room. I know that I haven't posted pictures yet, so here are a couple to hopefully satisfy until I become more comfortable sharing pictures online.
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| The day of move-in before anything had been unloaded |
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| After unpacking everything. Isn't it adorable? |
Overall I think my mom and I did a great job of setting my room up. Now I just hope my roommate and I get along so that I won't need to move rooms and take it all down!
Afterwords was when things went downhill.
I knew that I would feel lonely again, but was at that point in the day where all I could think was "Why won't people hang out with me? Why is my door the only one open in my hall? Where is my roommate?!" In short, I was thinking very negatively. In an effort to change things I decided to reach out to one of my friends Shannon. Shannon and I know each other from Colorado, but that's about it. I opened with, "Hey! I hope I'm not bothering you-" and asked if she had signed up for NSO (New Student Orientation). She quickly said she has, and I explained my situation (could you really call it that?). She quickly texted back that "Of course, you're more than welcome to join the three of us as we do NSO. If I had known that your roommate wasn't there yet I would have reached out!" This was when my day began to get better. Before I knew it, I was rushing to get my room tidied up before leaving to go have dinner with Shannon. I'm sure my mom wanted to spend more time with me, but I was very eager to hang out with people outside of my floor! And really, I haven't done much of that. My floor seems to be the silent type, in which no one leaves their door open and instead of socializing they all stay inside of their rooms. In fact for the whole day yesterday mine was the only room with the door open- on my entire floor. I understand that people are still getting acclimated to campus, but shouldn't you also be getting to know people?
When my mom left was when Shannon came over. She actually came over right when my mom was calling a cab. It was really nice spending the majority of my day with my mom while also getting to hang out with my friend.
Once inside my tower, we hung out for a bit before heading out to dinner. We ate in a different cafeteria and it was a crazy experience. I say crazy, but really the only thing crazy was how much effort the school puts into the presentation of their food. No, really. I'll attach a picture my next post. Also, Ashley ate dinner with us! I'm actually really glad, because Ashley is really nice and I would hate to be left out had she gone and eaten with someone else. Because Shannon and I had been talking about going to Banan and the Japanese garden after dinner, we extended the invitation to Ashley and she accepted. So, after eating my tilapia, rice, and fresh green beans, we left and began walking.
Banan is interesting. And also vegan. Do you know what an acai bowl is? Banan has a similar look except it's misleading and gives off the impression of being ice cream. Don't be fooled, IT'S NOT ICE CREAM. Instead, it's yogurt made entirely out of bananas. Around the yogurt is anything from coconut shavings to fresh slices of strawberry. In my case I got the Acai bowl (it looked like chocolate) with a side of banana slices, strawberry slices, granola, and puffed quinoa. Like I said, very vegan. But still good. I think next time I'll read more of whats in the bowl before buying.
Once we finished eating we walked over to the very peaceful Japanese garden. One of those moments where I thought to myself, "is this really happening?" happened as I walked down the aged stone steps to go look at the koi in the pond. With a full moon in the cloudy sky, it was one of those times where you can't help but think, "I couldn't do this stuff if I was back home" Seeing the garden, while at night, was still very cool and while I don't think Ashley enjoyed it as much as I did, I'm glad Shannon was able to show me.
Later was the inflatable fun in the courtyard which Ashley wanted to do. When we showed up, there were 2 inflatables and a dunk tank. It's a very small courtyard. Since Shannon and I didn't really want to do the challenge course or basketball we just decided to walk around campus some more, given that the two of us haven't seen a good chunk of it. The walk was interesting, we saw a mongoose and many wild cats, but the weather was great so it was nice to walk without getting sweaty.
After that we said our goodnights and went back to our dorms. Tomorrow we're going to get breakfast and will then take the bus into Waikiki. I'm not sure if Ashley is going to go, but I'm still so excited. God is so good.
Until next time,
Aislinn
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