Me: Umm... are earthquakes supposed to last this long?
Teacher: No, this is really weird.
Me: (Starting to panic) Ya...weird.... (holding back tears and a breakdown)
I`m very grateful that I was still at work with people who are used to earthquakes and knew what to do in that kind of situation. And I`m somewhat proud to say that in the almost three years of having lived in Japan, that was my first real earthquake, but definitely not my last. After an emergency meeting with the entire school in the gym, it was decided that the after school clubs should be canceled and everyone sent home. All of the teachers crowded around the TV in the teachers room and waited for news from the rest of the country. The span of the earthquake was unbelievable, and we all watched horrified as coverage of the tsunami played in front of us. Which leads me to the next thing to be grateful about: living on the Japan Sea side and not the Pacific. We thankfully had no tsunami here.
Confused as to whether I should stay home or not, me and my ALT friends decided to go through the with Mexican food party..mainly because none of us wanted to be left alone. Aaron, Nicole, and Bryan had all invited various staff members to join in our little get together, but for obviously reasons many of them canceled. In the end about 10 people came, which turned out to the perfect number for Aaron`s apartment to hold. That night I stayed at Nicole`s but neither of us got much sleep due to the every-two-minute aftershocks, and the screaming warnings from our cell phones. We finally just turned them off at 4 am and decided that if another significant quake was going to happen, well, it`ll just wake us up now won`t it. The next morning brought a phone call from the police and my BOE supervisor, wanting to make sure that I was okay, and if I could please move my car. Nicole`s apartment parking is pretty much non-existant, and though I hadn`t had any problems with parking there in the past, the recent events were making the police much more active.
We were also supposed to be going to Niigata City that day for the first performance of the charity musical `Shamisen Hero`, but it was canceled. Actually, a lot of things were canceled within the next few weeks, including most, if not all, of my evening activities. With nothing to do in the evening, and encouraged to save electricity, most of my evenings were spent watching TV in the dark under my kotatsu. After that first week of intermittent aftershocks, the earth seemed to have calmed down; that is, until about two weeks ago when I was shook awake by 4.0 quake, centered yet again in the Fukushima/Miyagi part of the country. I`m actually very worried about another bad quake happening again because I don`t think that the nuclear reactors would be able to handle another tsunami. For now the situation seems to be somewhat under control, but I`m continuing to monitor the news. If it gets REALLY bad, then I`ll think about going someplace else, but for now I`m staying put.
Apart from that, the new school year started up again on April 7th with an entrance ceremony for the new 7th graders. I still can`t get over just how strict ceremonies are taken here. The graduation ceremony in March for example, the entire school spent two or three days practicing down to the minute how everything was supposed to run. Of course this meant a well executed ceremony, but I don`t know, it kind of takes the fun out of things. I guess it`s just my cultural background talking. But I would have thought that smiling at least would have been allowed at a graduation ceremony. Some of the kids were trying really hard not to smile, and ended up twisting their faces into a kind of painful smirk. Anyways, I`m just SUPER happy that classes have started up again. I had taken the last week of March off to laze around and do nothing, because I thought that if I had to be sitting around and be bored, then doing it in the comfort of my own home was the best option. Boy I was happy I did too! The first week of April, even though the students were there and classes had technically started, I still didn`t have anything to do, meaning really long days.
Last weekend the musical was held in Itoigawa, which just so happens to be in the southern part of Niigata...and I live in the most northern part. So, surprise! The drive took almost 4 hours one way for me..and that`s with speeding pretty much the entire way there and back...and minus the 45 minute wild goose chase I had set us on by going the wrong way at the Nagaoka Junction (oops :/ ), but it did mean that I was relieved of any directional supervision :P We were originally supposed to go to Hanami (Cherry Blossom viewing) with a bunch of other JETs at Takada Park (voted the 3rd best night-viewing spot for hanami in all of Japan!), but it was raining so we gave up on that idea. The rain did stop in the evening, so we went back then and I`m glad we did. Most of the sakura (cherry blossoms) were in bloom, and there were lines and lines of food stalls, which are probably my favourite part of Japanese festivals. And by probably, I mean that they are.
After performing for a quaint crowd of 10 people, team Murakami booted it for the highway and home. We left at 7:45 pm and made pretty good time, arriving in Murakami at around 10:45. Since it was Sunday the roads were pretty bare, so I made it home by 11:30. As tired as I was, I had a restless few nights after due to my most `favourite` rodent in the world, the mouse. As some of you know, I had a problem with mice in my res room last year in university, and at home too. I hate them. They totally disgust me. So far they haven`t made an appearance inside my house yet, but I can hear them running around the roof area and in the walls squeaking away and probably planning a full take over. Demise- a- la mouse. FML!!
