Earthquakes and aftershocks
We've had a shaky start this morning. 3.04am I found myself awake, though at the time I didn't realise it was that early. I was just thinking to myself that it must be around 6 and I should think about getting up to get the kids ready for school when the shaking started. I kind of groaned and buried my head in the pillow, thinking it would just go away (yeah, that's NOT actually the best response to quakes - those who leapt nimbly from their beds were more sensible). It sort of slowed for a moment and then the shaking started intensifying. By the time I actually thought getting up would be a good idea it was thankfully over, but that was basically it for sleep for the night. I got up to check on the kids and while Summer slept through it (or had gone back to sleep) the boys were both awake and terrified. So I found myself on a mattress with Seth while Taylor shared the bed with Anthony for the rest of the night. As per usual I headed to twitter (being all awake now and with little feet in my back and all) and it took aggggges for geonet to update. I don't blame them - they got woken up as much as we did because they get an alarm to check the site and put the numbers up. So just like us they were likely groggy and unhappy to be awake at that time of day. Anyway, after the usual amount of checking on each other (one guy's window shattered over his head which to be honest is a pretty brutal way to wake up) and making jokes about being awake at all hours etc the number came up: 5.3 at Rolleston so it was on the Greendale fault rather than the closer Port Hills one. That would explain why it felt big but not huge here. In comparison to the 5.3 on April 16th it didn't feel that scary. It was enough to wake us up but not really the heart pounding terror of that closer one. Still, it was hard to be woken at that time after so long without a nighttime shakeup and I lay awake for hours while everyone around me got back to sleep. Sometime around 4 the trucks must have started up heading out to the Bottle Lake Forest because every now and then I heard the rumble of one going past a few streets over and while I knew it wasn't a quake my body thought otherwise. So it's been a long day since then.
The paper today did have the story about the museum's education programme, and Anthony is really pleased they didn't use his photo. I notice the school's principal got a few words in about the state of the school, though. You've gotta love how everyone takes the opportunity to promote themselves to the newspaper :D It's good though, and it will be good that the museum will get the message out that they are keen to get out into schools and keep up the programmes they've been doing. The more work the education programme can do the better, really, especially so they can keep the contacts for when the museum reopens and schools start to feel better about going that close to the CBD.
Also, in stunningly obvious news, a survey shows that Christchurch residents are the most stressed in the country. Taken just 5 weeks after the February quake did we really expect anything else? However, interestingly, either the same survey or another one said that just prior to the quake Christchurch people were the happiest with their lifestyles and you know that doesn't surprise me. The quake in September was horrible but no-one died and I think it served as a wakeup call for a lot of people. Like me, people got out there and made the most of life and there really was a lot of positivity around the place (though I assume those who lost homes didn't feel the same, they were, proportionally, a much smaller segment than they are now). Here's to getting that back again some day real soon!
The paper today did have the story about the museum's education programme, and Anthony is really pleased they didn't use his photo. I notice the school's principal got a few words in about the state of the school, though. You've gotta love how everyone takes the opportunity to promote themselves to the newspaper :D It's good though, and it will be good that the museum will get the message out that they are keen to get out into schools and keep up the programmes they've been doing. The more work the education programme can do the better, really, especially so they can keep the contacts for when the museum reopens and schools start to feel better about going that close to the CBD.
Also, in stunningly obvious news, a survey shows that Christchurch residents are the most stressed in the country. Taken just 5 weeks after the February quake did we really expect anything else? However, interestingly, either the same survey or another one said that just prior to the quake Christchurch people were the happiest with their lifestyles and you know that doesn't surprise me. The quake in September was horrible but no-one died and I think it served as a wakeup call for a lot of people. Like me, people got out there and made the most of life and there really was a lot of positivity around the place (though I assume those who lost homes didn't feel the same, they were, proportionally, a much smaller segment than they are now). Here's to getting that back again some day real soon!