The Fighter Pilot's Wife

Konnichiwa!

I hope you all have had a great weekend. I know my smile is a little bigger here in Japan because the Gators seized a victory over the Kentucky Wildcats! Go Gators!! I'm sure the rest of the season might be a little bit rockier but as of right now it feels good to be undefeated. Now if only the Armed Forces TV Network (AFN) would of showed the games over here in Japan. I will have to write them a strong worded letter.

Two weekends ago we had a big event for the wives of the squadron. It is called a Head Count and it is suppose to somewhat mirror what the pilots of the squadron call a Roll Call. It's a party where all the wives of the squadron dress up in one of their husbands old flight suits, drink, and give some of the ladies "call signs".  When you are a spouse in the fighter squadron not only does your husband get named but you do as well. If you are confused about the naming thing think of Top Gun (maverick, goose, ice) but our fighter pilots don't end up with names that cool. They are usually something a little more embarrassing than macho.

Kendall wanted to come to the naming too. 

At this event we dress up in our husbands flight suits but we usually alter them to make them more "girly". I had mine made into a dress with custom patches that had my name with the 13th panther logo. The whole outfit turned out really quite adorable and I topped it off with some red toms since our squadron color is red. I do have to say though....I do not envy Dennis having to work in a flight suit everyday. It is so stinking hot even with the legs cut off and it being made into a skirt.  I can't go into all the details of the night but I can say that there are a lot of crazy stories told and a good amount of alcohol involved. It is a fun little tradition of the 13th spouses and I can't wait until I get to be named at a future head count.

Custom patches for my flight suit dress. I even have my name written in Japanese :) 

After the head count most of the ladies headed to the Officer's club to play a game called crud. Crud is played on a pool table with two balls and you use your hands instead of pool sticks. It's a little complicated to explain but the overall gist is that you want to get the colored ball in the pocket before the other team. But there are many rules in order to do this and you cannot let the ball stop moving on your turn. You have three lives and once your lives are up you are out of the game. The last team with a remaining member wins. I played for the first time this last weekend and had a blast. It was definitely a little intimidating at first and I broke a couple of rules but it's a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. I know that by the end of this year I will be pro. :)

I hope everyone has been enjoying their weekend. We are sadly starting to see the end of summer over here. We just hit our first couple days in a row in the low seventies. And we all know it will get even colder soon...until then I am going to enjoy these 70 degree days : )

Survival Japanese and Air Show

Konnichiwa! Hajimemashite. Breanna desu.

Air Show time! 

I thought since I will be living in Japan for the next three years it might be a smart idea to learn a little Japanese. So last week I started Survival Japanese classes on base. These free classes are every Wednesday morning and will run for a month long. If I wanted to extend my knowledge even further there is also Beyond Survival Japanese class and you can always pay for lessons off base. I know for right now I will take all the free lessons they will give me and then see how I feel about getting more intense with my studies after that. As you can see above I am already putting some of what I learned into good use. This phrase above means "Good Afternoon. Nice to meet you. My name is Breanna".

The Japanese language is very difficult to learn since there are three different written symbols; Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana have fifty symbols each which all are assigned a certain phonetic syllable. Not too bad, right? But then there is the Kanji. Kanji has over 2,000 characters and each character has it's own meaning. So with Kanji the only way to really learn it is to memorize all 2,000 plus symbols. With this class I am really just learning some basic phrases and little nuances about the Japanese language and people. One little thing that I found interesting is that the Japanese like to shorten everything. Our instructor told us that most of the time people will not use the subject at the beginning of the sentence. They also have some words that are very similar to each other and sometimes Americans confuse them. For example kawaii (pronounced like Hawaii with a k) means cute but if you pronounce it kowaii it means scary. So it wouldn't be good to go around and accidentally tell a Japanese child that he is kowaii instead of kawaii. That would actually be pretty funny.  I will keep you all updated with my lessons and maybe if you skype me I will speak a little in Japanese to you : )

F-22. This is what the real fighter pilots fly, right Dennis?!? LOL!  

Japanese F2. Their version of the F-16

This past weekend we had the Misawa Air Show on base. This event is put on by the American and Japanese Air Forces and is visited by thousands of Japanese nationals. I heard they mostly come for the cheap American pizza...haha! There are planes displayed everywhere and air demonstrations going on along with booths selling food and goods.  Dennis and I got to visit the show and work at his Squadron's booth to help make money for the 13th Fighter Squadron. I have never seen people so excited to meet and buy things from the pilots. They want to take pictures with all the guys, buy patches from their flight suits, and get their autographs on anything they buy. And I am not talking about the little kids this was mostly done by grown men. The pilots of the squadrons are celebrities for the day. People were coming up to the booth with pictures that they had taken from last years air show to get them signed and actually some of them with flight suits on. It was so nice to see such enthusiasm and appreciation for what our service men and women do day in and day out.

The Japanese also have some the biggest camera lenses that I have seen owned by amateur photographers. I think some of the lenses were almost 2 feet long. Here is a picture of a couple of the lenses I got a shot of and this isn't even the longest ones that I saw that day.

Taking Photos of the F-16

Huge Camera Lenses!! 

Well that's all I got this week. I am happy to announce that after many prayers my wonderful Grammy is feeling much better. Grammy, I love you so much and I can't wait until we have another skype date soon.  As for everyone else, I hope everyone has a great week!

I will leave you with some more Japanese. Soredewa mata which means See you later.