Week 1: 1/3-1/7

My first week here has been absolutely incredible. I decided that I would write a blog every week and break it down into the different days!

Tuesday: Arrived in Hilo really really late

I got into Hilo around 9:40 pm Hawaii time on Tuesday January 3rd. I left at 8 am East Coast time and got to Hawaii around 3 am East Coast time, that is one long day of traveling but it was so worth it! I met a lot of neat people on the shuttle back from the airport, checked into my apartment, made my bed and called it a night!

Wednesday: Slept, relaxed and explored campus

The first couple of days were tiring just because I was getting used to the time change and readjusting after having an almost 21 hour travel day. That first night I got here I couldn’t sleep. I went to bed at 1 am Hawaii time and woke up around 5 am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I was SUPER excited and extremely HOT. Trying to sleep in a room without air conditioning and not knowing how to open the windows makes it really really hard to sleep. So I decided to wake up and walk around the campus. And it is so pretty and so open! They have the biggest and coolest trees I have EVER seen! The campus is also really neat because everything is open. All of the buildings are connected via covered open air walk ways; that way if it rains you don’t get soaking wet. I really like this campus, it’s also nice because of how small it is and how easy to get around campus. The rest of my first day here was spent exploring the campus and meeting new people. I met several people in the NSE program and a lot who are transfer students and we explored together. A group of us tried to get a taxi to go down town, but it never showed up so we decided to just hang out and get to know each other. Later that night we got on a shuttle the campus puts on at least once a week and went to Target. You can bet the first thing I bought was a FAN. For a girl who grew up in the south not having air conditioning was a very strange thing.

Thursday: Orientation!

The second day I was in Hilo the Orientation program started. Today was the day that most people who were coming in for orientation or from out of state came in. Not a lot happened on this day either partially because they knew everyone coming from out of state would be super tired still, and they wanted to ease us into all of the activities. I met a lot of people from all over the country, a lot were from Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont, Massachusetts and couple from California. So far I am still the only southerner which is cool and really weird. The rest of Orientation day was spent walking around and mingling with people and getting to know the campus. Later that night we had a campus involvement and resource fair and then we went back to Target to go shopping for things we needed or had forgotten yesterday.

Friday: New year’s Party, learned how to make a Hilo Braided Lei,

To start the day off, the first thing I did was attend a speed mixer, which instead of looking for the love of your life you are looking to make friends. This was a lot of fun! I met people from Korea, Scotland, England, Minnesota, California, Ohio, more from Massachusetts, Washington, Alaska and natives from Hawaii. It was a great way to make friends because we all were in the same boat and didn’t really know anyone. The next orientation sessions I attend was getting involved with your CSO’s and go to school and get paid! Both of these sessions were very interesting and I really want to sign up for one of the service clubs and get to explore and help remove invasive species from the island. I went to the job session just to see what kind of jobs they had, but ended up deciding that this semester I wouldn’t have a job. I am going to take care of myself and have fun exploring! One of my favorite parts of today was that I got to learn how to make a Hilo Braided Lei bracelet and I got to try Hawaiian version of Chipotle, it was so good. It was also a lot of fun to mingle with some of the student ambassadors and just learn what they did for fun, what their major was and why they chose to come here. After lunch there was a break, and then when we came back for the afternoon sessions the group of friends I had been making and I decided to go to the Welcome to Da 808 State which was a session put on by the sociology club (which also happens to be one of the coolest clubs on campus!) They do all sorts of community service and go on really exciting and fun trips all over the island and will go on one trip each semester to a different island for either a weekend or over one of the breaks. It is also FREE! Who doesn’t love free stuff! After attending that session, my new friends and I went to the Ring in the New Year with NSP party, we had tons of great Hawaiian food and spent the night playing Egyptian Rat Screw! It was a lot of fun and we spent the night laughing.

Saturday: Coconut Island and Pool Party

The last day of Orientation was my favorite I think. First thing in the morning, the NSP orientation leaders took us on a van tour of Hilo. We got to see Mauna Kea, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL, I can’t wait to go to the top later in the semester! We also saw downtown Hilo, Hilo Bay, Coconut Island, and the King Kamehameha statue. It was the first time I had left the campus during the day since arriving, and it was a great way for me to learn some of the roads and how to get to downtown from campus. After that the vans dropped us back off at campus the NSE students all went to our NSE orientation. This was the first time that all 75 of us would be in the same room together. This orientation was a lot of fun! We learned a lot about the different places we could go on the island and some of the resources the school has for us like the taxi coupons, $1 bus tickets and the bike share program. I think my favorite one I learned about was the Outdoor Edventures. Every weekend this group, which is run through the gym, takes groups of students all over the island to do fun and exciting things. I really hope I am able to do all of them, they all sound so cool. For example you can go whale watching, volcano hiking, scuba diving, Star gazing, beach days and all sorts of cool things. At the orientation we all went around and had to introduce ourselves in order of the state our school is from, and being from South Carolina and towards the end of the Alphabet, I thought I would have fun with my introduction so people would remember me! When it came time for me to introduce myself I said “Hey Y’all! My name is Katie Frame and I am from the REAL USC double majoring in Marine Science and Chemistry!” As soon as I said that everyone from the west coast stated laughing at my joke. When that was all done we sat down to eat lunch. I had people come up to me saying I was hilarious and that I had the best introduction, which I am not going to lie made me feel pretty darn awesome! I never knew I was so cool! For lunch at this orientation, Kadian, the NSE coordinator for UHH bought some really cool pizzas from Big Island Pizza in downtown Hilo. My favorite was the coconut Prawn! It was so good! After the NSE orientation my friends and I went down to the pool party for a little while and then decided we wanted to go exploring. We ended up deciding to walk to Coconut Island since we had been there earlier in the day! We walked through downtown Hilo and then along Hilo Bay until we got to Coconut Island. It was super cool. I think the island used to be part of a fort because on one side of it there is a tower that is 10 feet to 15 feet high depending on the spot. The coolest part is that you can jump off the tower! And we all know I did it because why not! It was so much fun! I have a video of it too-so it did happen! We ended up walking around 9 miles round trip that day, but was an absolutely great way to get to know each other. Later that night I went back to my room and crashed so that I would have enough energy for our big plans on Sunday.

#CoconutIsland #Leis #Orientation