(no subject)
Not sure if this image will embed or not, but here goes:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/13/article-1365569-0B27234100000578-226_964x639.jpg
If it doesn't, follow the link or follow this link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365569/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-10-000-people-missing-Minamisanriku-aftershocks-hamper-rescue-efforts.html , and look down to not quite half way down the page, to a picture of the bay in Miyako spilling over the banks. In the top right, poking above the blue roofs is a white building that used to house a consular office. That's where I got my reentry permit on my Visa when I was in Japan. There were other teachers on my program who lived in Miyako, and I made a couple other visits to Miyako, and some other places along the Japanese coast in Iwate.
I was about 1-2 hours from the coast, so I wouldn't have been impacted directly by the tsunami, but people I knew would have. The quake would have cracked some plaster (it did in a 6.0 while I was there), and I might have lost my aquarium (and subsequently the TV on the floor near the aquarium), and maybe some dishes.
It's been about 7 years since I moved back, and I haven't really kept up with anyone from there, but I can't help but be struck by the devastation and utter helplessness I feel about not being able to do anything about it. At least, not anything immediately useful or helpful that I can accomplish from half a world away.
So if I seem a bit distant, more so than usual over the next couple days, it's probably a bit of post-traumatic-stress-by-proxy...
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/03/13/article-1365569-0B27234100000578-226_964x639.jpg
If it doesn't, follow the link or follow this link http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365569/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-10-000-people-missing-Minamisanriku-aftershocks-hamper-rescue-efforts.html , and look down to not quite half way down the page, to a picture of the bay in Miyako spilling over the banks. In the top right, poking above the blue roofs is a white building that used to house a consular office. That's where I got my reentry permit on my Visa when I was in Japan. There were other teachers on my program who lived in Miyako, and I made a couple other visits to Miyako, and some other places along the Japanese coast in Iwate.
I was about 1-2 hours from the coast, so I wouldn't have been impacted directly by the tsunami, but people I knew would have. The quake would have cracked some plaster (it did in a 6.0 while I was there), and I might have lost my aquarium (and subsequently the TV on the floor near the aquarium), and maybe some dishes.
It's been about 7 years since I moved back, and I haven't really kept up with anyone from there, but I can't help but be struck by the devastation and utter helplessness I feel about not being able to do anything about it. At least, not anything immediately useful or helpful that I can accomplish from half a world away.
So if I seem a bit distant, more so than usual over the next couple days, it's probably a bit of post-traumatic-stress-by-proxy...