Hi everyone. I just figured I'd pop in and post another "I'm still okay" note. I've been doing fine these last few days. None of the quakes since the first one have been nearly as bad (although a nearly-minute long aftershock did wake me up in the middle of the night). We spent most of Saturday lurking around our apartment (we were warned to stay inside after the news of the first explosion at the Fukushima reactor broke and no one was quite sure what kind of explosion it was.) Since then we've been trying to keep up a level of normalcy, which is not that hard despite the constant flow of more bad news. My area has been blessedly unaffected so far, and the only sign that something's wrong is that all the instant-food shelves in the grocery stores are completely empty, and the stores are all packed with people.
Yesterday we went to Yoyogi Park near Harajuku with the intent to walk around and kick a soccer ball for a while. We ended up engaged in the dirtiest, most fun game of soccer I've ever played. It was a trilingual game with me and my two friends teamed up with/versus a Spanish guy and his kids and and a bunch of bratty Japanese kids who kicked, grabbed, pulled, and did just about anything to win (and also complained about being put on the girls' team).
It was really reassuring to see everyone out having a normal day in the park, although the trains and stations were far emptier than usual.
They have scheduled blackouts to start soon to conserve power so it can be directed to areas that need it more. They were supposed to start today but they postponed them a day because people were mostly home and conserving energy anyway. We didn't have school today because of the blackouts and various train stoppages/reschedulings. (We don't have it tomorrow either.)
Today the weather was really nice, so I went out and sat in the parking lot of our apartment building (we don't have a yard) for the afternoon and caught up on some school and for-fun reading.
A lot of people in my building are trying to get the hell out of dodge. One girl with dual Austrian-American citizenship got the Austrian Embassy to help her get a flight out (or so I've heard). Another girl was forced to leave by her parents; some other people are going home too. A few guys from my dorm are going to Osaka to stay with friends for the week since it's much farther from both the Fukushima plant and the current earthquake warning area.
Right now I have no plans to go anywhere. It seems silly to me to fearmonger about things that may or may not happen, and over the happening of which I have absolutely zero control. I'm not saying that earthquakes and the threat of nuclear meltdown don't scare me, or that they absolutely can't happen. But all the news I've seen leads me to be cautiously optimistic rather than over-cautious. If I'm being a cock-eyed optimist then sue me. From what I know of radiation I'd be in more danger from a CT scan than the current emission levels in Fukushima. But I'm determined to stay until it's clear that not staying would be a very bad idea. I'm not so proud that I'll go down with the ship as it were, but right now in the face of such unclear news I'm not ready to go anywhere yet.
In fact, in lieu of skipping the country, I'm going to karaoke instead. >.>' No sense sitting around angsting when there's fun to be had. >.<
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