Dinner

So it appears the 7.8 rict. earthquake killed thousands yesterday (also reported at 7.9 and 8.0).

In my apartment, the building swayed and I thought it was just me at first until I noticed my clothes that were hanging up were swaying left to right quite a bit. I was having a Chinese lesson at the time, and I told everyone to get out of the building, fast!

We got downstairs (6 flights, no elevator), and noticed we weren't the only ones who felt it. I had thoughts on the way down that it was caused by the nearby construction of a large apartment building, but I wasn't sure. I had a Mcgyvver moment, and decided to check the man-made river nearby to see if the water level had marked the stone wall of the channel, to help identify the nature of our experience. I couldn't see any water marks above the water level, so I was left to assume it was the nearby construction, but I still had doubts as the swaying of the building was very noticable, and it didn't seem possible that the construction had anything to do with it unless they hit our building with a wrecking ball, which also would have been loud and a much shorter physical experience (about 4-5 seconds of swaying vs. sudden impact).

None of it mattered because just after that, my Chinese teacher received a message on her cell, confirming it was an earthquake. Looking back, that's one of the remarkable things I noticed. Minutes after the event, millions (I assume) received the same text message. Whether it was a direct result of government panic control, or cellular service competativeness, we all knew what happened. Well, save for anyone who can't read Chinese ( ... like me. I get texts daily about the weather ...).

Today, I looked at my time and how I was spending it. Considering travel time and a few other things that consume time, I now realize just how booked my time is from Friday-Sunday. Considering all the things I need to take care of, I need to push my tasks back to Monday-Tuesday to stay on top of things.

I'm off to grab dinner.

Note 1: I have enabled comment posting, but pray I don't get random blog spams from strangers like "Nice post! Check out this porn site ...", etc.

Picture: NO PICTURE!!! ... I hate my ISP. So inconsistant, so unreliable.
Picture: Email me for a zip of photos from this day 13-05-2008.