{"id":1388,"date":"2019-03-03T01:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T09:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/?p=1388"},"modified":"2019-03-12T15:02:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T22:02:07","slug":"tahiti-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/2019\/03\/tahiti-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Tahiti Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

We hear the phrase \u201cTahiti-time\u201d quite often around here, usually as a justification for a delay in departure or in getting class started or something of the sort.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s rude, honestly.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot I can\u2019t do if I have to be ready for class to start at any minute.\u00a0 I can\u2019t go for a swim, I can\u2019t leave the immediate vicinity, I can\u2019t commit to any lengthy games, I can\u2019t even shower.\u00a0 And they don\u2019t do us the courtesy of letting us know when things are running behind schedule, they just show up at eleven instead of ten and begin their obnoxious countdown.<\/em><\/p>\n

Teacher Chris (TC)<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013 HUSKIES!! CLASS DOWNSTAIRS IN 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . .5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1<\/em><\/p>\n

Everybody<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<\/em>Scrambles to the living room from all corners of the house<\/p>\n

*Class begins*<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

*Approximately 2 minutes later*<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Silvia<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Walks down the stairs to join the class<\/em><\/p>\n

TC<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013 you\u2019re late<\/em><\/p>\n

Silvia<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Weren\u2019t we supposed to start at 10 though?<\/em><\/p>\n

TC<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013 It\u2019s Tahiti time . . .<\/em><\/p>\n

Silvia<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013 Oh.\u00a0 Then it looks like I\u2019m right on time.<\/em><\/p>\n

Everybody<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<\/em>laughs<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Now all I want is a little Tahiti time, and I don\u2019t mean I want to be back in Tahiti.\u00a0 Although that would be great too. . . I just mean that everything was so easy, so slow, as close to perfect as I\u2019ve ever experienced anything to be.\u00a0 But Tahiti really wasn\u2019t perfect, especially in the moment, but, as the saying goes, hindsight is 20\/20, and I now realize that perhaps it was the flaws that made it extraordinary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

No internet for a month doesn\u2019t seem too hard to me.\u00a0 I\u2019m hardly ever on my phone anyway, but I should at least try to call home.\u00a0 I decide to make the trek to the post office with some others to connect to wifi, and we manage to only get a little lost along the way.\u00a0 Upon arrival, we all purchase wifi cards, only to realize that the wifi is incredibly sluggish.\u00a0 We\u2019re lucky if our messages send at all, so calling is not an option, especially considering that we\u2019re periodically booted off the network with no explanation.\u00a0 I hope my mom doesn\u2019t miss me too much because it looks like she won\u2019t be hearing from me for about a month.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine what you would do without internet access, without a phone to glance at in awkward moments, or just to fill the space.\u00a0 Upon reflection, I realize that internet access is a crutch.\u00a0 Even with my good friends whose pure and simple presence I enjoy, I find that we often pass the time by looking at memes together.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t have considered myself to be attached to my phone before, but I now realize how much I do rely on my phone for entertainment, how much we all do.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here, none of us have internet access so we\u2019re forced to rely on each other for entertainment 24\/7.\u00a0 We\u2019ve naturally fallen into a routine of spending every spare moment playing games.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t played a ton of games like this before, but it\u2019s been a blast.\u00a0 So far, I\u2019ve perfected my karaoke skills (not really), learned lots of new card games, been stumped by many riddle games, played some intense rounds of UNO, just endless games.\u00a0 I think I\u2019m the worst at Egyptian Ratscrew.\u00a0 I am eliminated easily by Tbone and Sylvia every time, but I keep playing for some reason.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And those low-effort friends?\u00a0 The ones you can just laugh at memes with?\u00a0 Here we lay our towels out on the beach, star gaze, and just talk.\u00a0 It\u2019s after dinner and, as has become habit, I ask Geraldine if she wants to go out to the beach, and soon enough all five of us are down here.\u00a0 Others join us for a bit and head back inside, but the five of us lay here for hours.\u00a0 Being engulfed by dark, with the twinkling light of the stars far off, is beyond serene, beyond peaceful, and even more so when shooting stars move through the night sky.\u00a0 All our walls come down and we have real conversations.\u00a0 Under the stars these strangers quickly become easy friends.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Upon return, I\u2019ve found myself frustrated and overwhelmed by the internet.\u00a0 Texts I\u2019ve haven\u2019t answered, my eternally overflowing inbox, a never ending to do list, and\u00a0a constant connection to all of these demands<\/em>.\u00a0 Demands coming from every direction imaginable.\u00a0 Which demands do I accept, and which ones can I reject?\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I can handle them all.\u00a0 I think I was better at this before I studied abroad, but now I know what life can be like without these demands.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, Tahiti wasn\u2019t entirely free of demands, just the unnecessary ones it seems.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think it\u2019s necessarily about getting away either.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been on road trips and visited family before, but something about the \u2018get away\u2019 that Tahiti allowed was different.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been trying to find that here, but I just can\u2019t seem to do so.\u00a0 I just want some \u2018Tahiti time\u2019, even if it is in Seattle, even if it is in my own apartment, but how can I do that?\u00a0 How can I make time slow again, how can I make it free of pressure, how can I make it that light again?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We hear the phrase \u201cTahiti-time\u201d quite often around here, usually as a justification for a delay in departure or in getting class started or something of the sort.\u00a0 I think it\u2019s rude, honestly.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot I can\u2019t do if I have to be ready for class to start at any minute.\u00a0 I can\u2019t go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":690,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[115],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/690"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1628,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388\/revisions\/1628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/chidint\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}