你好！

Aloha!

So today was pretty crazy with orientation in full swing and classes just around the corner. I was going to go to a PCC tour today but on Tuesday my Chinese professor emailed me asking to meet with me. Turns out when you have taken Chinese for 5 years, you'll probably be asked why you signed up for a 101 class. My thought process was that since I had forgotten how to write anything besides “你好” and “克丽丝蒂哪” (hello and my name), Chinese 101 would be a good refresher course. But, after having a pretty decent conversation with my professor, I came to the decision that a 101 class would only bore me really. So I walked back to the dorms, dropped Chinese, picked up an online history class, and applied for 2 jobs. Woo! Here's to hoping something works out :)

Later, my roommate and I ate dinner with another girl. We sat near these kids from Taiwan and they were conversing in Chinese and I was super excited to be able to understand bits and pieces of their conversation! I ended up talking with this one Taiwanese girl, Mandy, about Taiwan and my ability to somewhat speak Chinese. She was very enthusiastic about me serving a mission Mandarin speaking in Taiwan haha. Honestly though, I would love to serve Mandarin speaking anywhere in the world. As much as I said I hated Chinese in high school, I guess I secretly really did enjoy it. I felt like I made Xin Xin (my Chinese teacher from 6th grade to 11th grade) proud today :)

A little bit after dinner we went to the talent show that's a part of orientation. It was actually way cool. A lot of people did the classic mormon talents: piano, singing, and (since we are in Hawai'i) the ukelele. Don't get me wrong, I go to school with some CRAZY talented people in those areas! I seriously wish I was at least half as talented as those guys. One guy did some crazy tribal native american dance with hula hoops and an entire getup. It was absolutely insane! Two girls signed Party in the USA and kind of danced along which was way cool. After the talent show, I really wanted to get a ukelele and learn how to play. Maybe I'll enlist some help from Logan when I go back to Boston for Christmas haha ;) The perks of having a boyfriend that is part Hawaiian and knows how to play the ukelele.

To end the day, me and a few other friends hopped in a car and drove to some gated path. We weren't exactly sure where it lead to but the guys were pretty determined that a beach was nearby so we kinda just wandered around until we smelled salt in the air. I mean, it is Hawai'i. You're bound to hit a beach at some point. Luckily, we found one and wandered around it a bit. The guys were entertained by the crabs crawling all along the beach. There was a sketchy swing made out of rope and a piece of driftwood that they also tried out. One thing that ceases to amaze me is how warm the water is here. I am so used to the cold New Hampshire/Boston/East Coast beaches! Here, you step in and its warm. If it's cold for some odd reason, it doesn't stay cold for very long. After we finished exploring, we headed back to campus. One weird thing is that at some point at night, a security guard stands outside and kind of barricades the entrance and has to clear everyone through. With 8 people in the car, the security guard was a little less than pleased with us. He finally let us go with a warning, thank goodness. By the time we got back to the Hales (it's the Hawaiian word for home and it's what we call our dorms), it had started to downpour. Here in Hawai'i it does not sprinkle. It pours when it rains. It's super refreshing after all the humidity we get during the day and at night. Here's to hoping tonight will be a lot cooler because of the rain!

♡,

Nina