Adaptations.

It’s crazy how quickly we can adapt to our respective environments. New friends, new living spaces, new pass times – all of these are adjustments that are made during travels, and we seem well-equipped to deal. Since arriving in Fiji five days ago, Ang and I have been without internet because Macs are incompatible with USP’s WIFI. As frustrating as it’s been for us trying to configure our laptops, I can’t help but feel as though this predicament is a blessing in disguise. I say this because I’ve just spent my second night in a row on our balcony where I’ve eaten local foods with friends, gazed at the stars, and enjoyed the impeccable evening weather. I feel as though such evenings often fail to be prioritized as a result of technologies that we’ve grown to be dependent on to entertain us.

I’m so grateful to have Ang here on this experience with me – it’s nice to have a person from home whose going through the same transitions and such. She’s an awesome person – very chill and embraces everything that Fiji has to offer with open arms (she’s a true Pacific girl, as her mom is from Papua New Guinea). Christy and her husband Kevin are staying in the married quarters on campus so we don’t get to see them as frequently, but we all get together for outings as often as we can. They were traveling in Australia and Fiji quite a bit before we all arrived to Suva, so it’s been awesome to hear their stories and recommendations. I’ve really been enjoying exploring Suva and USP with them all.

Fiji is so beautiful. It has so much to offer. I’ve seen so little of it, and yet am taken aback by its wealth of opportunity. Part of that has to do with being surrounded by people who judge little and embrace a lot - USP is made up of twelve official regional states (Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tokelau, Kiribati, Niue, Nauru, Marshall Islands, Cook Islands, Tuvalu). Then there are international students here from literally all over the world (Canada, the United States, Mongolia, Japan, Papua New Guinea, China, South Korea, Germany New Zealand...). In Vancouver we have so much diversity and yet people lack the motivation to get to know one another’s cultures and backgrounds. Here it is the complete opposite – we learn from each other by learning about each other and I love it.

The last two outings that we've went on as part of the Orientation Week have been great. The first one was to the Fiji Museum where we saw some amazing artifacts and learned a great deal about Fiji's history and culture. The second one was today and it consisted of various traditional dances and songs from the twelve regional states of USP. I can't adequately describe how amazing the various cultural performances were. I loved seeing how people from places I'd honestly never even heard of before celebrate and express themselves.

We've been really lucky to have been provided with so many fun and informative sightseeing opportunities through USP!