Japan and Boyfriends

*Day 14* I'm blogging everyday till VidCon! What is VidCon? Check it out at www.VidCon2010.com

So I didn't know what to write about today. As I was sitting and thinking, I thought I might talk about the time I went to Japan for a month. I was going to tell you about the whole process of actually getting there. (I traveled there alone and I didn't speak any Japanese, so I ended up having some difficulties when I had to change planes). Anyway... I wasn't really sure if that was what I wanted to talk about.

Then I had the idea of maybe looking at an old diary or journal and re-reading what I did on this date several years ago and talking about that. Just out of curiosity, I picked up the nearest journal and flipped to June 22. The journal I happened to pick up was from 2005. I was in Japan in June of 2005. So, then I figured maybe that was a good sign that I should talk about Japan today.

June 2005: As I said, I was in Japan. I went there to visit my brother and his family. He and his wife were both in the Navy. They had a one year old son, my nephew Joeseph, and there were no 24 hour day care centers near their house, so they actually paid me to go to Japan for a month and babysit my nephew. They usually had a neighbor watch him, but she had just had a baby of her own and so they didn't want to impose on her while she was enjoying and taking care of her own baby. So that's why I was there. They paid for my tickets to go there, they paid for pretty much everything while I was there, and they paid me $500 before I went home for babysitting.

I had a lot of fun in Japan. I got there the day before my 20th birthday. 20 is the legal drinking age in Japan, so we went out to the clubs for my 20th birthday. My brother had set up a blind date for me. My date's name was Carlos. I really liked him. He liked me too. We found ways to hang out everyday for a whole week, and then he asked me to be his girlfriend. --This was a pretty significant moment for me, because, I'd never really had a boyfriend before. Technically I had my first boyfriend in the 8th grade when I was 13, but we were only "together" for about two weeks and then he was with someone else. So I never really liked to count that as a relationship.-- So anyway, I said yes and it was awesome. The whole time I was in Japan, I had a special someone to share every moment with. Also, I guess it's fitting that I'm writing this today because it was around 1:00am on June 22, 2005 that he asked me to be his girlfriend.

Anyway, I did a lot of fun things while I was there, but I think I was most excited that there was a military ball during the time I was there. My brother told me that we would be going to a ball during my stay, so I brought a dress with me. It was even better then that I had a boyfriend while I was there, because he was in the Navy too , so I went as his date. This was us on the night of the ball.



Eventually my stay in Japan ended and my relationship with Carlos also did soon after that. I came home in mid-July and he broke up with me sometime at the beginning of September I think. I was upset at the time, but it is easy to look back now and wonder why I even liked him at all. He didn't even like musicals! (Not even GREASE!)

I meant to talk more about Japan itself in this blog, but this is what you get. Some memories of my first 'real' boyfriend. There was another rather cool thing that happend to me while I was in Japan, but it has to do with the Star Wars films and I think I should save that little story to include in another blog about Star Wars. Maybe tomorrow. Ya, probably tomorrow.

Well, goodbye till then.