Home in 50 days??

Day 101: October 26:

1. This happened last week, but I felt I should mention it because I forgot. Last Friday.. I took 6 taxis in one day. Yep. That’s like a record. I took one to the museum, back from town, from lower campus to upper campus and from upper campus to my house, then shared one with cindy and sonia to get to fashion week and took one home from there too. Pretty insane eh?

2. I have recently began learning French. It may sound weird because I am in fiji so maybe I would learn Fijian or hindi ( I know a little of both), but french is where its at.. cause I am living with two frenchy canadians. C’est suif.

3. I need to shop for a Halloween costume.. asap, even though most of fiji does not celebrate Halloween.

4. I had no idea it was daylight savings this past weekend. I found out Monday morning when I got to class as it was ending. I was so mad, I was suppose to do my presentation.

5. Daylight savings in Fiji-we move up one hour in time and me no likey. I already had time go forward in April back home.

6. I have officially bought three of my plane tickets, the main ones.. Nadi, Fiji to Brisbane Australia

Sydney, Austrailia to Christchurch, New Zealand

Auckland, New Zealand to Nadi, Fiji

Then I stay here for two days and leave December16 at night time for Los Angelos, California…. And I still need to buy my ticket from there to Utah.. hmm.

7. I leave for Australia on November 25, two days before mis compleanos (birthday). Everything I have buying for myself here and when I got over to Australia and NZ is for my birthday.. haha.. I think I am getting a little spoiled.

8. I need to cook Funfetti

9. I ate at the fancy restaurant in town (Taki’s) Its on a boat and the boat just stays parked next to the sea wall all the time. It made me super dizzy, it kept rocking every 10-15 seconds and it was weird, I don’t think I will go there again.. but I must share this, I got calamari, that is seafood, I ordered seafood, that is rare, first time actually. I also tried baby octopus and ate a tentacle.. not sure how I feel about it, but I probably wont eat it again. I tried it, and that makes me content in life.

10. Less than two more weeks of classes then its study break.

11. I have moved out and off of campus, and I absolutely love it so much more. I might have mentioned that already, but I mentioned it again so booyeah…

12. 30 more days till I leave for austrailia

32 more days till its my 21^st birthday

50 more days till I head home, but it’s probably more like 51-52 till you see me at home.

I can’t wait for all of the above, I just want to be done with school already

I want to travel already, it will make the time go by faster

And I want to be home already to see everyone cause I miss everyone so much, loverboy, sisters, rest of family (ma family, yo family, loverboys family, etc) and friends! I miss you too friends.

Pray for snow!!! I would like that to be there when I get home too!!

Day 102: October 27, 2010

1. One month till my birthday…just saying. It’s a big deal (in America)-21..

2. I have about 7 more days of classes.

3. I wish I was done with school

4. I need to do riversfiji asap.

5. I watched 3 episodes of vampire diaries.. and it was sooo good, I must watch more. It was like having a stash of chocolate for me.. which I have that too. It made me feel very American to eat my chocolate and watch my tv series.

6. That’s all for now. Choi.

Seqa Na Leqa ... & I love Utah Football

DAY 99: October 24, 2010

1. I went on another field trip and .. my friend got stung by a crown of thorns.. I laughed, and then realized he was probably in a lot of pain. Anyways to sum it up, he lived and he is okay.. and I’m a terrible friend for laughing, but it was sooo funny.

2. I have almost finished my clay project for art.

3. Indian dancing.. is superb

4. I have not been able to sleep well at my new home, not yet. Well last night was ok, but before that. Iyiyi

5. The cats started meowing a lot, two of them, I think they were mating. Funny thing is, they were not my cats, they were just on my front porch mating. I now have one cat no and its name is funky.

6. I went to fashion show week, the Friday night part of it. It was me, Cindy, and Sonia.. and we got the $50 dollar tickets, but were able to go to the V.I.P. section because Sonia hooked us up J. There were free drinks and cheese and crackers. It was soo high class.. the most high class function I have been to here. Lots of imported people and a couple of Fijians.

7. We danced the night away while we were there and everybody just thought we were crazy. We decided that they were just jealous cause they could not dance easily due to their extensive high heels. I have never seen so many people in high heels in Fiji.. In fact I had not seen one person in high heels until thee other night.

8. It was such a good girls night.. we ended it with Mcdonalds.. which I could not afford cause I was out of money.

9. Luckily, the next day.. I got money, vinaka refund check.

10. This is the first weekend I have stayed in Fiji since, I don’t even know. I have left basically every weekend, but I decided I was tired and needed a break, so I stayed.

11. Me and Cindy dedicated out Saturday to shopping.. first Pure Fiji, then off to the handicraft market, then tapoo, then MHCC… and then the supermarket.. we had to get stuff for spaghetti sauce.

12. Cindy has 23 kilos (50 pounds roughly) of pure fiji, I told her to stop, but she would not listen.. My point being.. one bag that you check can not be more than 23 kilos when you check it at the airport. Hahaha-we have to buy her a new bag. On the up side, she is set for the next 2 or 3 years with Pure Fiji.

13. I met a guy selling handicrafts (carved wooden things) who went to BYU in Utah.. crazy right. He got a scholarship for basketball.. and his name is Racash..? look it up. Haha. Pretty cool eh.. minus the fact it was BYU not Utah that he went to.

14. I bought too much stuff..dear little brothers that are bigger than me.. I don’t know what to get you for Christmas, but I got you something and you better like it.

15. Dear sisters, I wish I would stop buying stuff for you.

16. After a long day of shopping, me and Cindy were burned out and cooked, yes we both cooked a nice dinner of mashed potatoes, chicken, and salad.

17. So I was suppose to go to the “Fun Day” Fuction that the tourism department was having, but when talking to my friend she made it sound like it was at night.. so as night time rolled around, I walked to lower campus, which is where it was going to be held, just to find out I missed it.. and it was 10 am, not 10 pm.. L I was super bummed.. I know it was called a fun DAY not a fun NIGHT, but I was under the impression by the bad communication in fiji that it was a night thing, I even helped plan it, what the hekkkk.? Anyways.. I was a bit sad.. and mad because I walked all the way over there in the dark, which is scary .. and then two dogs started chasing me and I thought they were going to bite me open.. L .. I made it home safely.

18. Me and Cindy are in the process of making Bula Mi Fiji 6.. its going to be good.

Can you say Bula? I'll show you how to Bula.

Day 95: October 20, 2010

1. Well, shoot it has been a while, I have so much to say.

2. Genny and Kyler arrived early morning on October 11, 2010 and I had almost 8 magical days with their company.

3. We started at the beachhouse.. they were going to come straight to suva, but I wanted them to see.. a nice beach in Fiji, which is very non-existant in Suva.

4. Took them into Sigatoka for Fiji Day and man was that an adventure. It was a great way to jump into the Fiji Culture..we ran into the TALSA team from USP, that I was suppose to be on… ( I didn’t cause my friends were going to be in town) then we ate on the broken bridge over the river and watched some of the bili bili races.

5. We headed back to the beachhouse after a bit, we were tired, and well I was sure they were jet lag as well.

6. We hung out that night with some eachother as well as some of the other beach house guests we met and then went for a sleep that would hopefully last for a while. (like all night and then some).

7. Next day came and we all chilled out for a while, played at the beach with fluffy/snowy/lucy and blacky.. I love those dogs.. and swang a little bit, you know.. the usual.

8. We also went kayaking.. Genny helped pull out a surfer to the waves, but stopped before we got to the waves then I thought it sounded like a fun idea to keep paddling as I talked with the girl who was going out to surf.. I soon learned that was a bad idea..

9. I sat there in the middle of the waves (where they were not breaking for a minute) then realized, maybe I should get out of there.. there was another kayaker – who I later learned was the groundskeeper- out in a kayak beyond the waves fishing.. so I figured it was okay for me to be there.. but soon realized I needed to start paddling back, cause the waves turned out to be a little stronger than I anticipated.

10. I start trying to paddle in.. and turn to look behind me and see a huge wave, I just think to myself, surf the wave in the kayak.. or die.. so I attempt to surf the wave.. bad idea, the wave breaks, I flip headfirst into the water… kayak flips over me and hits me on the head.. and then surfs without me.. for a whole second I thought.. well I got hit on the head with my kayak so do I pass out and drown now or something?? I realized I was still alive and retarded and swam to the surface with camera in one hand and paddle in the other… then.. I start.. slowly swimming to my kayak in the strong current… swimming for at least 10 minutes, then luckily one of the surfers came to help me (give me some support on their board.. and the owner goes to get my kayak.. ) I was really caught off guard.. I actually thought I would make it and surf the wave. Hahhh. Well I get in my kayak, start attempting to paddle, look behind again.. and same thing… only luckily the kayak did not hit me on the head.. I just thought well crap.. and hurried to my kayak..again.. then I start going look behind me and another wave is coming that is big, so I just jump out and hold onto the kayak.. and then I hurry and jump in and tried to use any strength I had left to get out of there. Needless to say I made it, after about 3 kayak crashes into the reef.. I was sooooo exhausted.. and I thought I had a concussion, but I didn’t. I know this because I called my mom at 2.30 am and asked her if I did…..by naming my symptoms. Sorry mom for waking you.

11.Unfortionately I had to head back to Suva around noon so I could make it for my class, so I did.. just before I got in a van to head to Suva, it started raining.

12.I rode in a van when it was raining, which I vowed, I would not do, but had to get to class and luckily, my van driver was a very safe and cautious driver…

13.As we drove it just got more and more rainy.. pouring so hard it was ridiculous.. but does not top the storm from last week.

14. I somehow made it to class on time, just barely.. I had to bring my backpack and stuff though from my long weekend.

15. School, school, and more school, had to work hard and finish my group project for tourism on Tuesday and then go to indian dance as well.

16. Yay, Genny and Kyler are coming to my house today…….. we meet at mcdonalds.. typical American meeting spot.. eh hahahah.

17.We head to my house and I let them hang out there while I run to class.. its raining anyways.. it rained the whole time they were in Suva.. 3 days straight. Yessssss. Suva and its rainy days.

18. Thursday rolls around and………..we go to the germanssssss. Yep. We go there because that’s what I do around here.. I go to the germans, my neighbors across the street.. and then I introduce my friends from home to my friends here in Fiji.. and then……we go clubbing…………kyler danced……so did genny, they may not admit it, but they shook it a little.

19.For some reason, we could not find purple haze (the gay bar) we wanted to go to it, just because.. we later learned that it was about 200 feet away from O’reilly’s, we just had to turn the other way.. oops haha.

20.Did I mention that we had a dinner of mashed potatoes.. salad, bread, or wait, was that lunch…..then we had another dinner of.. chips and salsa.. and then later another dinner of quesidillas. Yeppppppp

21.So good

22.Somebody tried to break into my house the last night I was there… I was asleep, but Greg watched a hand reach in through the window and feel around.. I’m not sure why he watched it and did not do anything, but yeah.. all he did was pound the table.. then the person left. Supposedly.. I think it is the labtop thief.. he stole the labtops of Norway and turkey across the street.. at the germans house.. and he stole a labtop from the house below mine.. im in the triangle.. and im glad I moved out, cause I don’t want a burglar there..

23.I packed up and moved out of that house………..to Cindy’s house. Yayyyyyyyy.

24.Packing was a hugeeeeeeeeeeeee thing.. I packed way to much stuff for Fiji!! Way to much.. my bad weighed about 80 pounds.. or. 37 kilos roughly.. P.S. little sister Amber.. your birthday present is in a side pocket.. P.S. #2.. if there is a bottle of bounty.. it is a gift for someone not related, no worries mom.

25.Ps. Thanks mamma for all the goodies you sent me with genny..

a. Medicine

b. Funfetti cake

c. Reeses

d. Kisses

e. Letters from sisters

f. Birthday present from amber

g. Chapstick! (the good kind)

h. Dry sac

i. It was like Christmas, but with things that I needed not wanted for a change.. that sounds kinda weird, but yeah…… I reallllly needed things this time.. Christmas is done for me. (unless you just want to get me things this year just because you still love me anyways)

26. We went to uprising the next night.. it was a fairly quiet night, little bit rainy, sleepy time early.. and the best internet I have ever had in fiji.. which lead to homesickness a bit.

27.It is Zip Line Fiji Day J yesssssss we did the zipline in fiji and it was awesome… I want to do it professionally. Me no likey millipedes though they huge.

28.Next stop after that.. and arts village and lunch.. = beachhouse… again.

29.It felt more quiet than usual.

30.We did a very dodgy snorkeling trip.. 2 bloody feet from the reef that was 15 feet below .. but really 5 feet below.. and a ridiculously unsafe current.. he dropped us off where the waves were breaking.. made it a very unsafe snorkeling trip and a very sketch one too.

31.Did the waterfall hike from the beachhouse.. to a waterfall. It was lovely……..me likey.

32.We were going to go to monurikki, but we decided to stay at beachhouse and chill out for the rest of genny and kylers vacation.. it was good.. full of chocolate brownies and ice cream, banana pancakes, and unlimited beer for super cheap (as said by kyler.. or basically said by kyler. Haha) 

33. Swimming. So nice, swinging so nice.. fluffy/snowy so nice, blacky so nice, beachhouse, so nice, if you minus the sketchy snorkeling trip.. haha

34. the beachhouse is my home away from home.

35.It was sad to see genny and kyler leave for home, I wanted to go with… I miss home, but I couldn’t got to finish school and enjoy this time while it lasts.. I just want to see snow again. I missed the first snow L

36. My belly aches.. and I am bad at pool, but good at sleeping cause of sore belly during pool.

37.I spent my last night hanging out by the toilet for part of the night.

38. I am now at Cindy’s house… and I feel a lot more at home now.. I do miss having a big bed and air conditioning, but its okay.. I really don’t need it..

39.It’s nice to feel at home now, and not worry about when the maids are going to come in and sit around and not really do anything.. I always felt so uncomfortable whenever they came.. which was everyday. So yeah.

40.Pizza night was tonight at me, Cindy, and Jesse’s house.. it was the best pizza that I have had in Fiji.. (better than Pizza king that is.)

41.My belly still aches.. and I have a paper due tomorrow.

42.I can clean clay.

43. I am at 95 days since I have been in Fiji.. about to hit the big 100.. woahhhhhhh.

Life as of Late

Day 81: October 6, 2010

1. Friday night I had a lovely dinner with my Qamea group of friends and it was marvelous. Good food, Good friends and a backpacker.

2. Saturday, I woke up a bit late, and decided I should go to beachhouse again.. So I got a bus to the bus station.. and missed the bus heading that way by five minutes… the next one did not come for two hours.. so I walked to the van station to indulge in my first van ride.

a. It is safest to take the bus because the vans drive real fast

b. Vans are more likely to crash than bus’s

c. Vans are a little bit more expensive than bus’s, but not much.

3. I got a bit nervous in that van ride, but I lived.

4. I jumped in the ocean first thing when I got to beach house.. so nice.. ahhh.

5. Finally.. I also got internet wifi for free. So I brought my computer and did some homework.. but mostly. I skyped when I was on my computer.

6. I ran into three of my friends there from the weekend before.. and fluffy.. the white dog.. and blacky the black dog.. they both love me.. for real. They come in the ocean when I do and they bark at people that come near me. That is love ya’all. Alright.

7. I ate dinner of a queen. A coconut.. and then I asked for some hot water to throw my chow noodles in. –chow noodles = fiji’s version of top raman.

8. Went and did some snorkeling.. saw an eel, almost nemo fish, butterfly fish, lots of sea urchins, etc.

9. Took the bus back in a rush… after tea time of course. I love tea time.

10. Bus ride back, there was no seats available.. at some point after we started driving a nice fellow stood up and let me have his seat… and thank goodness he did.. I was sooo tired.. fiji makes me so tired sometimes.. or maybe it was the sun..or both.

11. Monday… I did not get to do my presentation.. it has been bumped back two more weeks now.. and that is annoying.. I want to get it done with already.

12. My professor did not show up to my integrated arts class.. that angers me too.

13. I joined an Indian dance group.. yes… and it is rockin… we have to do a fashion show next week.. in Indian clothing.. and then we have to do a Indian dance with them in two weeks during fiji fashion week.. should be exciting.

14. Went shopping with my friend tika and we got Indian clothing for cheap.. it’s a huge sale in suva this week.. huge sale like it was hibiscus time.. and well.. if you know me.. you know that I like sales… where stuff goes cheap.. cause when stuff goes cheap.. I may buy it.

15. indian dancing.. and new words…it sounds out like this boo-cha-roo…-that is not how you spell it though… don’t say it to your friends if they speak hindi.. but this is what my friends taught me today.

16. Today in integrated arts class… after it started 30 minutes late.. we had to clean the clay.. the clay we are using came from the ground in one of the villages… and we get to clean out all the rocks so we can use it and fire it and not have it break… me and miranda.. wanted to buy it like we can back home.. but we actually found it a little soothing after a while.. until our fingers got sore.. yep.. we be super hardcore now… fiji style that is.

17. I got my final dates for my exams.. I get done.. November 23.. so im flying out of here to austrailia.. on the 24.. then off to New Zealand after that.. I have big plans there… bridge walks.. bungee jump.. swings.. zorb. Yep cant wait.

Day 85: October 10, 2010 -10/10/10

1. What a long stressful week. Hmm. I had an exam for biogeography and I stayed up sooo late the night before studying.. ish.. it was really hard.. you see it was raining.. and thundering the most strongest rain storm I have ever been around for in my life.. Thought it was going to cyclone. Anyways. Point is.. hung out at my friends house to study, but when I got there I was soaked.. soo we made some Vico –hot chocolate basically and added marshmallows.. I only took one huge one from my housemate.. borrowed I mean. And did that then practiced our indian dancing and then had more chocolate.. yeah. I stayed up till about 5:30-6 am the day of my test. It was a long brutal day after that. On the upside.. the indian dance is getting better.

2. Test happened. I think … I passed

3. I told my indian friends I would go to the clubs with them and show them who’s the best booty shaker in town.. ahaha. It was a blast.. minus the fact I forgot my id.. in fact I did not even think to bring it… clearly.. I must not go out that much..

4. Thank goodness for my indian friends.. its so much easier to be saved from creepy guys at the bar that are islanders when you are hanging out with islanders!

5. I learned how to speak hindi.. in fact I am fluent in Hindi .. but I cannot spell it soooooooooo… I will sound it out for you… tooom mal lecto booo char rooo..

6. I carved my name in the germans/turkey/Norway friends house’s home made bar.. wow that was a mouthful of words.. yes

7. I was coming home from town after dark and was walking up the hill fast like, but then I came across and man with a bottle in his hand… clearly drunk and got a little nervous. He started chatting to me then I was like oh I got to go here and turned to walk to the germans house and hang out there.. well turns out they knew the old man and he came down too.

8. I went to celequi island with two of my Canadian home girls… woot. I did two dives.. and well they were pretty good for the most part, but the Crown of Thorns is eating the reef and destroying it.. it is so sad.. and the crown of thorns starfish are everywhere and super huge..

9. I saw 3 moray eels.. and I touched the tail of one, I know I am not suppose too, but I feel like when I see things sometimes.. I need to touch them.. so yeah.. it was a huge eel.. yep yep. I also saw a pretty big white tip shark.. probably 2 meters.. it was bigger than me which was crazy.. I didn’t realize white tips got that big..

10. I also saw some of the most colorful coral.. and soft coral.. no wonder fiji is the soft coral capitol of the world. There was a wall dive that was sooo cool. So colorful and ah I just loved that wall.

11. We got the chance to go over to leluvia ( I may have spelled that wrong). The reason people were going is because celeqai is a dry island because it is owned by the Methodist church. Now when it was offered I was like, can I just go to hang out and well basically touch the island so I can say I have now been to 19 islands.. and there like yeah.. So I went with them. There was about 10 of us that went.

12. Once I got to leluvia.. I fell in love with the island.. it was so nice, so relaxed and everyone was very nice. And the ultimate highlight was that they have lights in the toilets (bathroom). I started talking with this fellow who I had seen in suva but never had talked too (H-name protected because I said so) from I think austrailia. As we got talking I learned that he has started this organization called the south pacific conservation project. They evaluate the coral reefs and the life underwater in fiji. It sounded awesome. He introduced me to the crew of volunteers who were from Greece, England, Germany, and America(but living in austrailia, forever) and a Russian too. They all are here diving and whale watching and evaluating it, documenting it, and conserving it. It sounds really interesting, I would love to do that some time because it sounds like the ultimate project to me, I always knew I was secretly a marine biologist wannabe.

13. I also ended up meeting one of the four owners of Laucala Island (the 7-star resort island I mentioned earlier in my blog). H –the auzzie told me I should tell him the story about how I tried to get on his island so I did. I told him his security workers did a good job because they did not let me on the island.. The owner was quite a bit younger than I expected.. probably early 30’s.. I was a bit surprised, just because a 7-star resort.. that’s big stuff there.

14. I am probably going to go back to this island and dive with them hopefully. I was asked to maybe give some feedback so I think I will definitely take advantage of this opportunity.

15. This guy (H) also knows 3 of my 4 professors. The conservation project works closely with USP . yeah yeah.

16. There was phytoplankton everywhere… and the stars were amazing out there.. it was like there was stars above and below us in the water cause of all the phytoplankton. Ahhh. So cool.. one of those “awe” moments.

17. The boat ride there took about 5-10 minutes… but the boat ride home… took about.. well. 1 and a half hours…first off we were stuck on the sea shore and could not move the boat off the sand .. then…the captain of the boat (along with everyone else except me).. was a bit drunk.. so we start coming up on our island on low tide and ran into reef cause it was sticking above the water.. the boat had no lights sooo. Yeah.. we were using my terrible tiny flashlight and one other good flashlight.. we kept crashing into the reef and finally we backed out. The engine kept stopping, the two divemasters were freaking out, well one of them was the other was trying to snog another lady in the boat.. and then another lady started snogging the captain..after the boat started moving.. and well. Me and one of the other girls were just sitting there being like “alright, lets go to bed here, were never going to get home.” Needless to say, we eventually made it back to our island alive.. after a long long long journey in the dark. It was cool cause of the stars and phytoplankton… otherwise.. I would have been more frustrated I think.. the dog swam out to the boat too and joined us when we were stuck at sea.

18. I went snorkeling… I fell kinda hard on the coral and jammed my finger.. so much that it bled inside my nail.. I hope my fingernail does not fall off!!

19. I got some sweet coral pictures…

20. Crown of thorns.. go die. Your killing my colorful coral. L I like the color and the coral and your ruining it.

21. I found a garden underwater.. a coral garden.. it was soooo coool. I wish I had a huge bathtub.. and I made a coral garden.. and could go swim in it all the time like a mermaid.

22. I came home today.. so I can go meet my friends (genny and kyler) at the airport!! That’s right.. two more utahns are coming to fiji to representttt. Haha. They get here.. in about.. 8 hours I belive.. yippieeeeee. I cannot wait.. which means I must sleep now..

23. One more thing.. it is almost somebodies birthdayyyyyyyy. Dianaaaaaaa it’s almost your birthday in fijiiiiiiiii. So happy birthdayyy J love you and miss you! --Correction it is now your birthday in Utah!!