#NerdsUnite: Around the world with @HeatherReusz
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Heather. She's a nerd who is currently living in Japan by way of Chicago. Yep, talk about a culture shock. She's here today to talk about her life, love (which she is currently balancing long distance) and all things nerd. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT HEATHER!!! </editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @HeatherReusz
I was planning this week on writing a little bit more about me and how I came upon this job but then something happened this week that shook me to the core, literally. Last week, I experienced one of the scariest earthquakes I have felt. I knew that earthquakes came with the territory of living in Japan. In fact, I accepted my position with the company about 2 days before the Great Tohoku quake hit. I was confident though that since a large one had just hit the chances of another 9.0 magnitude quake happening during the year I’m here was pretty slim.
At first, they freaked me out a little bit. Coming from Illinois, earthquakes were not on the list of things I had experienced before. It’s almost like the earth knew that so the very first week I was here alone, I was woken up at 4:00 AM with a 6.3 magnitude quake. I woke up in a panic clinging to my bed just waiting for it to pass. Since this initial quake, I have been woken up by earthquakes probably about ten times. They are just a fact of life here. There is small earthquake literally every other day. They are so small though that your body barely registers them. For the first month I was here, I thought there was something wrong with me. I would feel dizzy and disoriented almost every day. I finally told my manager about it and she just chuckled at me saying that those were just passing 2.0 magnitude quakes. So basically I never know if there is a little earthquake going on or if I’m so dehydrated I’m about to pass out. The bigger ones just kind of make me feel like I’ve had a little too much to drink. I get really disoriented and stumble a bit and then just move on with my day. I felt so Japanese when I just taught my class through a 5.1 a couple of months ago. My kids barely reacted to it. I was in a room with four 5 year olds and all they did was pause for a second to watch my reaction. I was astonished. Good thing I didn’t panic!
So clearly I can handle earthquakes like a boss after 6 months of living here, what scared me so much about the one last week? It started as a typical morning being woken up by an earthquake. I awoke with a start gripping my bed. I know that that is something I will never get used to. Waking up to your apartment swaying is pretty terrifying. Luckily it was 7:45 AM so I was about to get up anyway. I sleepily walked over to my computer and started it up just to check what the magnitude was as I’m always curious to know. As I sat at my computer desk, I heard a strange noise almost like an approaching train only about 20X louder than what I’m used to. I later convinced myself that it was the sound of the ground moving under the pressure although I’m not sure you can actually hear that. My whole apartment started shaking. My poor lamp fell over as did a couple of other small things on my desk and dresser. I dove into my earthquake safety zone. It passed in about 30 seconds which is the longest one I have ever felt. I hopped online to check out what the deal was with this earthquake. I was certain it had to be at least a 6.8-7.0 magnitude quake. I was beyond surprised to see that it was only a 5.3. My first reaction was to be disappointed that I had overreacted to such a small earthquake. As I did more research I realized what had made it feel so terrifying for me. My apartment was about 7 miles from the epicenter of the quake. That means that it was much more violent and lasted longer in my city.
The main thing that freaked me out though was the aftershocks. I have never felt aftershocks before but since I was basically on the fault line I felt everything. We had earthquakes for about a good 45 minutes after the big one. They weren’t all too small either. There were about three in the 4.0 range before they started tapering off. My co-workers were more freaked out by the fact that there was a smaller 4.6 before the 5.3. Apparently, that almost never happens and is a bad omen. Yikes! Everything has been pretty clear so far though. Let’s just hope that this stays my most terrifying earthquake while I live here.