December through May Recap

It's funny. I had 60 posts and then I suddenly stopped posting on this blog. I even haven't been taking as many pictures as I should. It's been 5 months since I've written anything here. So I decided since I've actually been doing some interesting things I'd start posting again. My grandma keeps telling me I should keep a journal of the things I do. It's true. It makes me wonder how much of my Okinawan adventures I'll really remember years from now. So here's 5 months of my life recapped: Enjoy.

I spent Christmas here in Okinawa. Malta managed to get a small Christmas tree from the thrift shop. He ended up not liking it so I bought it from him, light bulbs and all. The family sent out gifts, but it was odd to not be around family. I even managed to get home after boot camp.

In late January my grandfather passed away and so I got a Red Cross message to go home for his funeral. He had complications with prostate cancer. I will miss his encouraging words. He always told me how important college was. I always tried to make him proud. Now I'm 7 classes away from an associates degree. My grandpa had always wanted to be a teacher, but couldn't because they didn't make enough to support my grandma and his 3 daughters. Now I want to become a teacher. I'm making his dream my reality. I was glad to see all my family together again, despite the circumstances.

College has been fun so far. I've taken an ancient history class, a writing class and a library research class. Next up is biology. Half of my degree is taken care of because of things I've done with the military. My whole goal is to get my associates by the time I leave the military. Extremely possible.

I've been getting more involved with church. One of the chaplin's on Kadena had a trip going to a place called Okuma. Okuma is a wonderful camp ground up north with beautiful beaches, a nice little restaurant and a lot of water activities along with go-karts, putt-putt golf and bicycles for rent. The group of us that went spent the night in these nice little log cabins.

I've been making a few Airmen friends around the dorm. One of them is a guy named High. High really likes photography and movies. He and a few other airmen from the dorm went out on a photography shoot at the same place my work had their Christmas party - the local botanical gardens. I ended up with a bunch of great pictures.

At work we've also also combined the production and news departments. That means every week I'm shooting news stories. I like the work. I've done shoots from elementary school children playing a recycling game for Earth Day to going up in the air with a KC-130 air refueling aircraft. I'd post pictures but my computer is being screwy and won't download pictures from my e-mail. One shoot I went on that I really liked was at the new general store they are building across the street from my barracks. We got the grand tour of the work in progress. It'll be massive. The 2nd largest as far as military bases go.

April 15th I had my 20th birthday. 20 is the legal age for drinking in Japan. Malta and I celebrated with cake and a bottle of wine at the local Italian restaurant on Kadena. Age is a funny thing. I'll be 21 by the time I get to my next duty station though. Good ol Okinawa. Too bad I'm not much of a drinker. Once in awhile is all. I don't get the falling down drunks. Too expensive. I guess I'm just cheap.

I was also recently reunited with my buddy AJ. He was the other guy from my school who joined the military same time I did. I convinced him to join. He went to boot camp before me because I wanted to go on my trip to England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland along with the trip to South Carolina and Florida. I ended up being counted as one of his sign ups or whatever it's called. He got a book bag for it. Haha. Anyways, he went reserve infantry and recently just went on an assignment which just so happened to have a stop in Okinawa for a couple weeks. I went up and saw him and got to see how the infantry Marines lived. I got to see him for about 2 hours before he was recalled because of some trouble. Too bad about it though. I wonder when the next time he and I will run into each other again? Seems to always lead to a good story!

Sorry for not keeping up with the blog. I've been having a lot of people ask me about why I stopped. This is one of the few ways people can know about how I am doing so far from home. Thanks for reading. I'll see if I can get some more frequent updates