This book is dedicated to all my future students. May you enjoy life, work hard, and go far.

I was born on an Island of Japan called Okinawa. Okinawa is a small Island in the Pacific Ocean.

You may be wondering why I was born in Japan. I am clearly not Japanese. However, my Dad was in the military. He worked for the Air Force and worked on planes similar to the planes in this photo.

I did not live in Okinawa long enough to remember it. A year after I was born we moved to the United States. I did not live in the United States terribly long either. We moved to three different states over the next four years.

Over the course of those four years, I would get to live in New Mexico, Mississippi and Virginia. In Virginia I got to live on the military base that the CIA is headquartered! Some of you might be thinking that moving around so often would be hard. I was always up for the adventure!

I was pretty young when I lived in New Mexico. We lived there until I was three. I don't have any true memories from living there, but I do have pictures of my family and me sledding down big mountains of sand.

We only lived in Mississippi for a short time before we were to head to Virginia. That happens in the military sometimes.

Mississippi was a lot different than New Mexico. New Mexico is hot and dry. Mississippi is hot and humid. The one thing I loved in Missississippi was a super neat playground my mom would take me to.

Virginia was a beautiful state. And since my family was the adventurous type, we explored Virginia quite a bit. My favorite thing to do in Virginia was to go up into the mountains. We would have picnics or go camping.

One time we went to an amusement park called Busch Gardens. I will never forget the first roller coaster I ever went on. It was called "The Lockness Monster".

Just before my sixth birthday I found out we were going to be moving to Japan. I was very excited. I could tell I was going to like it because both my parents were excited too.

I was very nervous about flying all the way to Japan. Did you know that Japan is a fifteen hour flight from the middle of the United States? I was worried that we would be flying over the giant Pacific Ocean, but we actually went north and flew over Alaska and then back south to Tokyo. It felt like a lifetime to get there!

When we first got to Japan, Misawa Air Force Base didn't have any housing for us yet. We had to live in an actual Japanese house in the country near a lot of farms. There were pig farms, rice farms, and cabbage farms.

I remember there always being so many dragon flies. I would ride my bike on the country roads and stop to catch dragon flies. In Japan they will land right on you!

In Japan many people are Buddhist. There are beautiful temples and statues scattered all over Japan. You will find them in towns and cities, but especially in mountains and in the countryside.