hour of internet time after my homework was done and such. Also during this period of my life I discovered my favorite ALL TIME anime/manga series Marmalade Boy which is by Wataru Yoshizumi. It is my go to anime series and never seizes to make me fall in love with it everytime I watch it. In the series however the main Character Miki Koishikawa was a high school tennis player, and this led me to believe that if she played tennis, then that was something that I needed to be doing as well. This led to a five year long tennis career and high school. I am not sporty in any way shape or form, but I loved every second of learning the art of the sport and I will forever thank Miki for inspiring me to play tennis. (Fun fact: The first website I ever created was in 2007 and it was a website completely dedicated to Marmalade Boy!)

Moving onto high school and my later teenaged years, I have been reading less and less manga and watching a lot more anime online. This was simply because 2008-2010 were the biggest years in smart phones begginging to reach everyone my age. Up to this point I had owned small flip phones that either had no internet access or tiny screen that wasn't approprite for watching videos on. However with much anticipation, I finally had my own iPhone 3 and a laptop with helped me watch whatever I wanted! On the downside, this evolution in technology really distracted me from my love for literature and since my days in middle school I don't really read that often. HOWEVER, I still loved anime and would watch it often. I also continued my studies into Japanese culture, and had gotten my hands on every learning material I could to understand and speak the language. I dedicated more nights to learning phrases and writing the Hiragana alphabet than I did on my homework. 

One lucky day, I came home from school to be surprised with some fantastic news from my father. I was going to be leaving the United States for the first time. Not only was I leaving the country but Colton, my dad, and I were going to be going to Okinawa, Japan for an entire week over Christmas break! (2011) We went to visit my step mother and her friend Joyce who we're stationed near the U.S. Marine base in Okinawa. I have never felt so at home in my life, and even to this day this experience in Japan was one of the best times in my life. To experience the culture, to be able to speak and read the language that I had spent so much time learning, eating authentic ramen at midnight and also eating so many benimo tartes that I am surprised I didn't return to the states a violet shade was the best experince I could have ever asked for. For years now I have always said I would easily return to Japan and never look back, and this is all thanks to my love for anime and manga. For years now it has defined a part of who I am.