So lately I've been freaking out a little over earthquakes... and by a little, I kind of mean a lot. Every time I feel any sort of vibration in my apartment, I think "Is this it?" and then I wait for a few seconds to see if the rumbling will increase. Unfortunately, I live right next to an elevated highway, so my apartment vibrates every time a truck passes over, which means that I'm pretty much in constant anticipation of THE earthquake. For those of you who don't know, Tokyo is currently overdue for the Tokai Earthquake, aka Huge Freaking Earthquake, and I'm really not so happy about that fact. As I'm sure all of you are aware, a few days ago there was a terrible 7.8 magnitude earthquake in China. Thousands of people were killed and just thinking about it is really upsetting to me. I've actually been avoiding the news about it to some extent because it's just too scary. Until this point I wasn't really that bothered by the earthquakes, even though I knew about the prediction of the Tokai Earthquake, but just a few days before the quake in China there was also a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in the ocean off the east coast of Japan, which I felt here in Tokyo. It wasn't really that strong here, but just the fact that there were two big earthquakes within a week of each other is enough to make the possibility of one happening here seem real.
Now for those of you who may be concerned about me and how I'm going to cope, don't worry, this is not a debilitating phobia that will keep me from functioning and enjoying my time here, it's just a concept that I've become more aware of over the last week or so. I think it's perfectly okay to have fears, especially ones that have a completely rational basis. If anything, I'm more annoyed by my irrational fear of cockroaches. Last night I had a dream that I was a member of the Duggar Family and there were enormous cockroaches disguised as ugly brown birds invading our home. I'm not sure which part was more terrifying, living in a house with cockroach birds or living in a house with 16 siblings... I didn't make that up, by the way, my dreams really are that weird. I often wish that I was as creative in the real world as I am in my dream world.
Well, I know this was an insanely short post compared to most of my others, but it's almost 3 am and I really just don't feel like typing anymore. I miss comments, feel free to leave some. Thanks!
9 years ago
2 comments:
OK, so I must admit I've been sweating a little myself over the whole earthquake thing, and I feel so terrible for all of those thousands of Chinese parents whose children were lost because they were in schools that collapsed. HOWEVER, everyone on the news seems to be in agreement that the reason behind the building collapses is that the Chinese buildings were nowhere NEAR what would be considered to be earthquake-resistant building standards--these were mostly buildings built with big slabs of concrete and essentially NO rebar reinforcement to transfer the forces of movement.
Japan, on the other hand, is one of the most sophisticated countries in the world when it comes to buildings designed to withstand earthquakes, and this makes me able to sleep much better at night, especially since your apartment is in a brand-new building.
To hell with the earthquake, living with that Duggar Family is certainly the more scary of the two options.
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