THE EARTHQUAKE AND I

Last May, I was attending the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention in Nashville when the devastating floods occurred. Less than one year later, I was in Japan when it's largest earthquake in recorded history struck off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. Recently, it has been said that natural disaster seems to follow me. Destruction Kramer, a college sobriquet that has fallen into disuse, seems to be more apt now than ever.

As I recall, March 11 felt like the first real day of spring. To call it gorgeous would not be an exercise at romanticizing the elements of this historic event - it really was beautiful. Jessica and I woke up early to meet with our future landlords about finalizing the rental agreement for our new home. We signed the contract and paid our up-front costs, walking away with a sense of accomplishment. We had only been living here for seven months at that point, and we were already upgrading to a house, and a beautiful one at that. To say the least, we were proud.

We took the remaining time before work to grab a bite at a chain family restaurant called Gusto. This is only important because I ate the most delicious cheeseburger I've had since living in this country, and you're talking to a guy who loves MOS Burger. After my juicy burger and mound of Mt. Fuji fries, it was time for work.

I walked into the Ryugasaki New Town branch of my school and exchanged the usual greetings with my manager. I sat down and made a quick lesson plan for the day, making small talk with the manager until my first students arrived. My first class of the day was a free conversation class with two high-level women. They walked into class promptly at 2:45. We were just into our usual startup questions - "How was your week?," "Did you do anything special?" - when, at 2:46, the rumbling began. It started like many small earthquakes I had experienced up to that point. Light swaying and a bit of shaking.

"Oh, earthquake," I said with a smirk.

We sat for a few seconds, waiting for it to die down. It didn't.

"This is much longer than they usually are," said one of my students.

About that time, some 30 seconds into the initial shaking, the earthquake ramped up. Books in the classroom began to rattle off of shelves, and looking out the windows, people could be seen running from buildings.

"We need to get under the table," I suggested.

The students quickly moved with me under the table as the temblor continued for what seemed like an eternity. Heavy items could be heard crashing against the floor in the lobby of the school, causing the women to scream in surprise. Through the rattling windows, I saw signposts and light poles swaying.

"What should we do? Should we go anywhere?" I asked, panicking.

The women did not have an answer. They were as unexperienced as I was in a quake like this. We waited anxiously for the quake to slow down or get worse, but after awhile (maybe three minutes, although it felt like five or six) the shaking began to let up. Relieved but completely shaken up (no pun), we all ran outside to assess the situation. My students quickly decided that they should go home. I immediately tried to call Jessica, but the cell phone network was down. I tried and tried again to no avail.

After a few minutes outdoors, the manager and I made our way back into the school to begin the clean up. About a half an hour after the initial quake, we had our first aftershock, a quake that still outmatched any tremor I had experience up to the 9.0 magnitude of 30 minutes prior. The small amount of cleaning that we had completed was immediately undone. After this, a series of aftershocks occurring anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes apart began and lasted through the rest of the evening. Every time one started, I would rush to the door and make my way outside, only to realize that it was over before I got away from the building. It was exhausting.

I continued to call Jess on my cell and even on the school's landline, but nothing was going through. The stress of not being able to reach her was arguably more intense than that brought on by the bevy of aftershocks I was enduring. A couple of hours of separation anxiety later, my dumb ass finally attempted to check the school computer for an internet connection. Sure enough, the web was a-okay. I jumped onto Facebook and saw that Jess had already been posting, telling our friends and loved ones back home that she was safe. I followed suit and began updating my status.

Now, with no available means of communication via phone service, my students could not call and say whether or not they were coming to class. As expected, most didn't show up. The managers had to find a way to discuss what course of action to take regarding the school branches. This day, it was Facebook to the rescue. Many of the other foreign teachers like myself had created a Facebook group to begin communication amidst the madness. We put our managers on with decision-makers at the school, and before I knew it, we were closing shop for the day. At this point I did not realize that it would be almost two full weeks before I returned to work.

Where I live was not very affected by the earthquake or tsunami, but we certainly experienced a few of the side-effects. Bottled water, gasoline, and certain types of food were pretty scarce for a couple of weeks, but no one ever went hungry. Yeah, we had to wait in line for gas, and yeah, we couldn't find a loaf of bread to save our lives, but there was plenty other sustenance to go around.

It's been almost two months since the events of that terrible day, and the only thing I'm still dealing with is the occasion minor aftershock, which happens once to three times daily. I don't want to minimize what's going on north of me with the post-tsunami cleanup and the dealings with the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, but my area is safe. So safe, in fact, that it is providing refugees with temporary homes while they get their lives back on track. The situation is still grave, but I'm proud to say that my second home is dealing with all of it with amazing dignity and grace.