When junior Sam Bruni first had the opportunity to live in Honolulu, Hawaii, she was thrilled. Although it meant leaving behind her mother in St. Louis, this was the chance of a lifetime.

Her father is in the military, and after getting a job transfer, he asked Sam if she wanted to come live with him and Sam’s step-mom. She said yes.

Although Sam’s friends were excited for her, they weren’t as happy about her leaving.

“I was sad, because it was like I was losing one of my best friends,” junior Christina Woods said.

On July 5, 2008, after an eight-hour plane flight from Missouri to Texas, then finally from Texas to Hawaii, Sam had arrived at her new home, which was part of Navy housing. It was government-paid with two stories and four bedrooms. It was a mansion compared to the surrounding houses.

“[When I got off the plane], I was so tired and it was so hot,” Sam said. “I just wanted to go to sleep.”

Settling into her new life was anything but easy. The school systems were different; half of the school was outside. Instead of having snow days, the school would have “storm days”, when it rained so hard that school would get called off. The students at the high school played musical instruments everywhere they went, and on Tuesdays they would battle outside during lunch. But among weather and school differences, Sam had bigger problems.

“The Hawaiians and Filipinos there are very close,” Sam said. “They really didn’t like outsiders in their groups. I guess I pushed them too far.”

Although she was able to communicate with some of her old friends through MySpace and texting, this made it difficult for Sam to make new friends. To pass the time, she worked at McDonald’s at the food court in a navy exchange.

“It made me realize what great friends I had [in Missouri],” Sam said. “I wish I had spent more time with them before I left. Everyone in Hawaii was really close, and you could tell by my face that I wasn’t one of them.”

Because of the difficulties, she was faced with a difficult decision: telling her father that she wanted to move back home.

“He knew I wasn’t happy, but he wanted to wait until I said it,” Sam said. “He was truly hurt. He thought I should wait it out and stick through my problems.”

Her mother, on the other hand, had a very different reaction.

“When I decided I would leave, [for Hawaii], she had right away thought it wasn’t the right time,” Sam said. “When I came back, she had a look like ‘I told you so.'”

On Jan. 14, Sam returned home. And although she likes her life better here, she will always remember her time spent in Hawaii.