As everything unfolded before my eyes on CNN I worried about my friends and their families. My heart went out to all those lost as well those they left behind. I really wanted to be on the next plane to Tokyo to go help out those who were not homeless and living in make shift shelters. But pushed in the back of my head was the most selfish of thoughts....
"What did this mean for my dream of moving to Japan to become an English teacher?"
Now we know what happened after; I got hired by Interac and ended up moving my departure to July 7th. I am now sitting in a seaside city(thankfully a city mostly high up so no worries so much) and I see damage from the earthquake everywhere; mainly in the appearance of tarps up on numerous roofs around the area and cracked stairs as well as severely damaged sidewalks.
I have been here about a month and half and the reason I am deciding to collect my thoughts so far is because the largest earthquake that has happened since I arrived happened today.
Earthquakes are a part of my life right now. There is not a day that goes by that one or two 3 to 5 pointers happen. The first night in Japan just before 4 am I experienced my first earthquake here this time. It even got to a point I could assume there would be a sizable quake sometime in the 3am hour. ^^; The one that worried me the most was a... 6.2 that happened when I was down in Yokohama for the weekend. Since I was away I worried about what had happen with things in my apartment. I thankfully only returned to this
A couple knocked over classes and picture frames. So yesterday I came to the conclusion that I am too numb to earthquakes now. I fear to the fault of not taking cover when I really would need to. Today opened my eyes to that more.
I was at training with 7 guys that are the first batch of fall intakes for Interac. One of them had never experienced earthquakes before landing in Japan. There were two quakes strong enough to notice during training today. The first happened and I didn't think much of it at all. I heard some slightly panic breathing next to me and realized to one who was not numb... perhaps used to is a better term.... to the earthquakes it would be a frightening thing. Especially this is someone who did not come early to be placed "most probably" in Tohoku and might have had worries of being so close to disaster area. These earthquakes would be very scary in your first week.
I might smile and laugh a little about the fear but if you were to put me in the middle of tornado alley and a F1 was touching down or a hurricane cat 1 was coming I would be really scared.
So that was my reason for talking about daily life and quakes! ^^
The ones that do worry me are the ones that epicenter is within a few km of here. The earthquake monitoring station near by is the first to read the quakes. They have been strong jolting quakes but they only last a couple seconds.
outside of all that....
Still waiting for my first payday but life is fine and I have one more week before I start teaching! I am looking forward to it but after today.... bombed my demo and had to take a moment for some tears and pull myself together... I am a little worried about my "AH!!! I CAN'T DO THIS!!!" phase but I got to get through that to get to what I'm looking forward to when it's second nature. ^_^ v
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