week three

Hello again!! I’m so excited to share what’s been going on the past two weeks. I’m backtracking for week 3, and will post week 4 right after this 🌴✨🐠

Starting with the week of February 10th (two weeks ago), I went to the school pool just about everyday. No one goes there besides the exchange students, so every time I show up I know one of my friends will be there!

school

I was very adamant about the international office changing my course load, and allowing me to take multiple law courses to count towards my legal studies minor. After lots of pushing and convincing, they finally allowed me to enroll in three 200 level law courses. But it turns out that these aren’t undergraduate law courses, they are legitimate law school courses. Apparently no one felt the need to share this information with me. All of the students I have class with are second year law students. They will be graduating in two years, taking the bar exam, and practicing law in Fiji.

I was unaware that law school in Fiji is only four years, and that you cannot take courses in the law school unless you are an actual law student. It didn’t even cross my mind it could be possible for students to only have to do four, not seven years of school to be a lawyer. But alas, this is the case. So now I’m in Fijian law school. Definitely getting my moneys worth of education while I’m here haha.

So far, this has not proved to be too challenging. But, I have a mock trial coming up soon so we’ll see how I’m feeling about law school after that.

week 3 weekend

After my third week of classes, my friends and I took a trip to the eastern side of Fiji. We stayed in a small village on the beach, at the base of a mountain. It was stunning. The beach had pure black sand, horses grazing on the shore, and beautiful flowers falling from the trees.

We stayed in a small hut like structure with about 10 beds in it. All the places we stay in are dorm style rooms. As you can see, I slept on the top bunk. This ended up not being a smart decision for me. I dropped my phone in the middle of the night and it shattered. Yes, now both my phone screen and laptop screen are shattered. And no, there are still no Apple stores here for me to fix either of these issues. But I am choosing to see this as a positive thing, as sign for me to spend less time on my phone and computer. I’ve been working on having less screen time since then and starting reading more books. I also listen to a lot of podcasts- shout out MindBodyGreen and Crime Junkie!!!

On Saturday, we all took a boat about 20 minutes off the shore to where the dolphins tend to hangout. Seeing the dolphins was an unreal experience. There were pods everywhere, at least a hundred dolphins. There were even tiny baby dolphins that were only around 2-3 feet long leaping out of the water. I couldn’t believe it. (I didn’t take these videos, my friend Jordan did)

After watching the dolphins, we went snorkeling. The water was very choppy which made it a bit difficult and tiring to swim, but it was still very beautiful. (I also didn’t take these pictures, one of my friends did)

Sunday morning we woke up and hiked about 30 minutes up the mountain to a waterfall. I didn’t bring my phone with me on this excursion, but it was just as amazing as you could imagine. We had the cutest tour guide, a 7-year-old boy named Junior. I asked him all about his life growing up in a Fijian village, and it sounds pretty amazing. Apparently, he just goes to school and plays in the ocean. We each gave him $2 FJD for his services. He and I both agreed he should spend all that money on candy.