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I met Jeff in Wisconsin, U.S. in April 2007.
After graduated from 2 years college in Japan in March 2007, I flied to US and joined the program that I could take TOEFL class from April to Aug at UWRF and transfer to the school from Sep if I got enough score on TOEFL test.
Few days after I arrived in WI (Wisconsin), I went to a party for international students and met Jeff.
Many things happened before dating, but in short, 2 weeks after the party, he asked me out and we started dating:)
In a normal case, you could start your romantic relationship in US.
But in my case, Jeff almost finished his study at the school and already planned to go back to Taiwan in August…tears.
Therefore, we could be together only for 4 months in WI.
After that, we started our long distance relationship between US and Taiwan.
The time difference is 14 hours.
Although we were on break temporarily, we could continue our relationship for 2 years, until I graduated from UWRF and went back to Japan.
During the 2 years, we could see each other only 1 time!
(After I came back to Japan, we started another long distance relationship between Japan and Taiwan for 2 years.
We have so many stories…so I will write about this next time.)
Every time I talked about this with my friends, they say “It’s like a movie story! But I won’t be able to do it. I want my boyfriend to be with me all the time.
“Well, I also feel that 2 years sound very long, but actually time went by so fast.
Of course I felt lonely without him, but also had many fun things during the period.
Things we have done to keep a healthy long distance relationship are;
1. Talk on Skype when we have free time (every day if possible). Even better with Webcam!
Due to the long distance between us, it’s very important to hear each other’s voice and see each other’s face.
At that time, we both were students, so could talk at night in US/morning in Taiwan on Skype.
We didn’t have smart phones then. Therefore usually we talked through Skype on PC when we were relaxed in the room.
I uploaded the memorable Skype pics.
I wrote this sentence in my status one day…..
He wrote this to reply to my status!;)
(Sheng-Fu is his Taiwanese name)
2. Send e-mail when we don’t have time to talk.
When one of us was too busy or tired, we just didn’t try hard to talk.
We sent simple e-mail each other instead. Only receiving e-mail from Jeff made me relieved enough.
We added “miss you” or “love you” in the e-mail and tried to keep the feeling that we were always together.
Well, I don’t really use the phrases in email anymore though. haha
3. Mail a gift for each event like Christmas or birthday.
Even when we were in long distance relationship, we always sent gifts each other to celebrate together.
Moreover, I baked cookies or created a card to mail to Taiwan (I don’t do it anymore though)!
I found Christmas cards that I mailed to him for the 1st year and 2nd year.
The card on the right is hand-made:)
The best gift from Jeff was the video with our memorable pics in US and some music arranged by him.
Airmail takes about 1 week between US and Taiwan usually, but took more days when I got this gift.
Since I was expecting this one, I went to check the mail box many times in a day. haha
The pic below is lots of food from Taiwan!
I wanted to mail something special for him before the service starts.
Therefore, I contacted his friends, faculties, and professors to write a message on this book.
Thanks to their cooperation, I collected about 50 msgs.
Although he was in US only for 1 year and left there 1 year ago, everybody remembered him and gave a message very quickly.
It’s just because he has many wonderful friends there and famous for his good personality;)
I made the book cover like a T-shirt of Aeropostale which Jeff was wearing very often. lol
Glad he loved it!
He is my first boyfriend, so I didn’t know the difference between regular relationship and long distance relationship.
Therefore, I didn’t feel too hard or too lonely, which is very good.
He was very good at keeping in touch with me even during busy time and making me relieved always.
I really appreciated. A good romantic relationship will be built by 2 people, so it doesn’t work if only one person work really hard.
I believe we can be still together now because we have kept a good balance during long distance relationship.
After checking my old pics, I remembered lots of memories. Now I feel I should value spending time with him more!:D