Today marks 1 year since The Great North-Eastern Japan Earthquake.  It's so hard to believe that it's been a year already!  My town is just now starting to rebuild and is actually still knocking down unstable buildings.  There is so much damage left to fix, yet, already, so much has been cleaned up and fixed.

A year ago today I thought my aparmtment was going to fall apart with me inside of it.  I gave ninja007 a heart attack and then she spent quite a bit of time talking with race_the_ace before calling my mom and waking her up to tell her that I was alright after the earthquake, but didn't know if I was alright due to the tsunami.

What I remember most from the earthquake was all my furniture moving across the rooms, not being able to stay on my feet, everything crashing around me and seeing parked cars in the parking lot bouncing like basket balls.  I also remember hearing explosions.   I had been vid chatting with ninja007 when the earthquake hit and I managed to get a text to her before my cell phone stopped working to let her know I was ok.

There was no running water in my town for 5 weeks.  The roads were so damaged that vehicles couldn't come into the city so food and gasoline became scarce.  After the meltdown at the plant and all the explosions around the city, it rained acid rain for one evening and night. We evacuated.  I went to stay with a friend in Tokyo for a week before going back to Canada for a month.

Fast forward one year and things are getting better.  I am very proud to announce that after a year of no running water and only being able to use part of the school, Yotsukura Junior High School is fully functional again!  Running water was restored to the 2nd and 3rd floors 3 days ago and 2 days ago water was restored to the 1st floor as well! The students will be returning to their own school, after having been sharing the elementary school for the past year, tomorrow!

All weekend there have been celebrations all across the city and , indeed, all across north eastern Japan!  Right now there are fire works going off that I can see clearly from my balcony! The beach is only a 5 minute walk from my aparmtment, after all.  So many people died, and many are still missing. However, so many people lived.  Life goes on, and that it worth celebrating. Live life in the moment. Live life like today could be your last day.  No one had expected what happened.  No one could have ever imagined it would happen. What happened was right out of a sci-fi/horror movie.

This is what my city looked like after the earthquake and tsunami.

each town in Iwaki is listed in the bottom right hand of the video.  At the time of the earthquake I was living near Onahama.  I now live and work in Yotsukura and Hisanohama. We have come so far in the year since the disaster. But we still have a long way to go.

I'm just glad to be alive.

It's been 1 year, to the day, that I arrived in Iwaki. And it's been one hell of a year, both good and bad.

So let's see. 

The GOOD!!

- I moved to Japan! Came to the town of Izumi in Iwaki City.
- I got my first apartment! and what a nice apartment it was!! 2 rooms, livingroom with kitchen on the back wall.
- BEACH PARTIES!!!!  Fireworks!! Fun in the Sun!
- Started teaching at Izumi Elementary School and Izumi North Elementary school.
- Got involved with the SGI group here and made 2 really good friends and another friend I didn't get to see all that often, but really helped me out a few times.
- Met another 30 ALTs in Iwaki from all over the world and made some really good friends in that group too!
- Did lots of travelling around Japan (all over Tokyo, Fukushima, Koriyama, Aizu Wakamatsu, Sapporo, Kyoto, etc)
- Had a great surprise visit home at Christmas!
and now I've moved to the town of Yotsukura in Iwaki City.

The BAD!!

-Was sick...ALOT. More than I was ever sick in Canada.
- Melted at work in 30C+ weather with no AC.
- Ended up in the hospital for 15 days in Feburary with a herniated disk in my lower back. ($100 a day, roughly) Thank god for national health insurance!!
- 3 days after getting out of the hospital...the sky fell
- shindo 6+ (M9.0) earthquake hit at 2:46pm Friday March 11th. I was at home alone...talking withninja007 on msn video chat. I have never been so scared in my life. 
- Then the tsunami came. I was ok in Izumi, but where I live now was hit pretty good, I'll have to get some pictures of how it looks 5 months later.
- Then we were told the power plant blew up...or something.  It's about 40km from where I live now... the stay clear zone is 30km radius.
- Then I got evacuated from my home. My town had no running water for 5 weeks and lost power a few times.
- Then I started fighting with my family and eventually gave in and went back to Canada for a month.
- Slight case of PTSD which is slowly getting better.  ninja007 has been helping with that :)  At least the nightmares have stopped.


The UNDECIDED!

- I have moved from Izumi to Yotsukura last week.  I will no longer be teaching elementary school, but will be teaching Junior High School. 2 of my schools were damaged by the tsunami and fires and are not safe to use yet.  One of the schools is inside the 30km zone as well as being damaged by tsunami and fire. So those students have been relocated to other schools. One of the schools will be fully usuable again by the end of March next year. I have no idea about the one inside the 30km zone. 

Yotsukura is a nice place. It's in the middle of nowhere. lol  The walk to the train station takes about 12 minutes and it's like something out of  a movie. Beautiful green everywhere you look and houses, of course.  It's peacefull.  Although, there is construction everywhere!  People fixing their homes, the roads, shops, etc.  But there isn't much to do here, except go to the beach...which is closed for the forseable future.  I'm a 10 minute walk from the beach now...so I need to watch for tsunamis...where I didn't before.  We had a 6.4 last Sunday morning at 4am. That freaked me out. But no tsunami, so I guess I won't have to worry too much about them if it's under a 7.  I'm hoping there aren't any more of those.

So I get introduced to my new school on the 19th of August.  I hope I like JHS.

one more bit of good news:  My uncle is coming to visit me next week.  He gets here on Sunday and will stay for 10 days. So we will stay in Iwaki for 5 days and then go to Tokyo for 5 days! I'm looking forward to this! It's going to be fun!

Today has been interesting.  I taught all 4 of my gr. 5 classes before lunch and they all went really well, except the last one. We reviewed the months and dates again and then did "When is your birthday?" and "My birthday is ... , ..."
Then we played Hot Potato with 2 balls - one being the question ball and the other being the answer ball. I played the song, Jumpstart by These Kids Wear Crowns, and the kids all seemed to really enjoy it.

Then 4th period I had a class of chatter boxes. Their teacher told them to be quiet at least 4 times. They were fine when the music was playing and they were passing the balls around, but they kept on talking and laughing when the 2 students who had to do the dialogue were trying to say their parts. Some of the kids had to repeat themselves 2 or 3 times to be heard.

Finally I yelled at them.  I told them to Stop talking when the music stops! Then the teacher told them that now both teachers were mad at them! lol  Things were better after they realized that I was mad and not just that their teacher was annoyed.

I decided not to give stickers that class and the teacher agreed with me.  The kids were dissapointed.

So, just as I came back to the teacher's room from eating lunch with some of the staff in the principal's room, ALL the kids from that class came into the teacher's room and formed a line at my desk, that went all the way to the door, and appologized to me one by one.  I'm talking formal appology: name and class introduction and what they were sorry for and that it wouldn't happen again and they will listen the first time I say something, etc. I just stood there and said ok, and thank you for each of them for their appologies.   Wow.

Later the teacher stopped by my desk to tell me that the kids had asked to come an appologise to me and that after they got back to class they were all relieved and happier.  :)  I've only gotten mad in class a few times (twice this year and different schools) and I've been appologized to before, but this was a bit different.  The kids always seem to realize they went too far when I get angry because I'm usually so happy and bubbly in class. I make the kids laugh alot....

DAMMIT!!!   BIG EARTHQUAKE!!!! so much for day 4!! shit.  ok...not sooo big, but big enough that if I had been sleeping I would have freaked out. again.  We were doing so well too!!!!  going to go turn on the tv to see what that one was.  .... and another one 45 seconds later.... M5.7 no Tsunami.  

Well, that was the end of my update so I guess I'll stop here and watch tv for a while.

I got to Peter's house ok.  I had a really nice taxi driver. I guess Kodama Sensei told him about my back issues because he asked me flat out about my back and wouldn't let me carry any of my bags! lol  He talked with me the entire drive and then when we got to Peter's I didn't know which apartment it was he came with me upstairs with my bags and helped me find the right door! lol   THen he went back downstairs to get the rest of my bags.  The trip cost me 50 bucks, but there is no tip invovled...I wish I could have tipped him.

There are 14 ALTs here.  We've divided into three groups for sleeping.  I'll be staying at Peter's for sleeping and 2 other people have offered their appartments for sleeping.  We will all gather back here for meals.  We all have assigned duties to help with while here.  I sorted all the food earlier into drinks, parishable, non parishable and snacks.

I have internet access while I'm here but not sure how often I'll be able to get online with 14 people here. 

We have LOTS of water here and quite a bit a food.  We are preparing to make dinner now by starting with a survey of everything we have.  I think I'm going to need a snack.

So things are good.  I have my e-reader with 104 books, my music, my cell phone and chargers and my laptop.  And I have company.  Sam and Kim are staying here with me and I'm friends with both of them!  So I'm happy with this arrangement! Since I won't be alone at night, I might feel safe enough to really sleep!    I will have to go back to work Thursday but I can stay here until Wednesday night. .

All is well!