I was just checking out my Fb profile and read a note that I wrote right before I graduated from college. I always say I need to keep a journal but never do. I need to keep a blog of everything but never do. I think I used to care too much whether or not anyone read my blog posts. After reading that note today I kind of realized that I don't care if anyone reads my post. I think it's just cool to keep a record of what I was thinking at certain points in my life.
It's been ages since I wrote in this... I was actually just now checking to see what was the last thing I wrote in this blog.
What have I done since then??? A lot actually...
For starters there was an Earthquake here in Miyagi, the prefecture I live in. It was massive and I remember it shaking the earth for over 5 minutes. Despite the scale of the thing, I don't remember being scared or thinking it was a big deal. At that time I didn't know a huge tsunami would be hitting the northeast coast of Japan. To be honest I was just taking a quick bathroom break when everything happened. I remember some the teachers were in a panic and one of them was screaming at me, "Where were you?" At that time I had just moved into Sendai from my Rifu apt. To save money I was cycling an hour each day to work. It was more exciting than you think, but I was quite the sweaty mess when I arrived at my school. Anyways I'm losing focus. This hour bike ride turned into an hour and a half ride back home. It still didn't dawn on me what was going on the coast side. I remember getting home and the advice one of the teachers gave me which was to go to the supermarket and buy what food I could. I honestly thought it was a silly idea and that power and whatever else I needed would be back later the next day. I was wrong. Sarah came over in the middle of the night and because she worked at Tohoku University, she heard everything that had happen that day.
The next day we went out to look for our friends and made sure they were ok. Pretty soon we were a bicycle gang of foreigners riding through Sendai. At the Prefecture Office the Self-Defense force was giving out bread to everyone. After that we all went to each other's house and got whatever frozen food we had and cooked it all that night. We didn't want to waste what little good food we had. We were able to cook all of it at the University thanks to Sarah.
Greg's place was the first place to get power back so we all stayed at his apartment. Some of us went to search for more friends while the others waited in line at grocery stores and convenience stores for food. We never starved or had to worry about food.
A few days later, Sarah told me about a interpreting job for Sky News. I thought it was a great chance for me to gain some experience and possibly help tell a story. Little did I know that these guys were a bunch of selfish assholes. We drove to Yamagata to get outside of the radiation zone as requested. Than they wanted me to find a hotel with six rooms. Not one or two but six. In my head all I could think was, "Why do we need six fucking rooms?" They had me on my phone all night looking for a place to stay. (They never paid me back for the cost of using my phone. Dicks!) After we found a hotel out in the middle of no where they were yelling at me to find them a place with internet. Found some places but they wanted a direct line and they were impatient and just a bunch of assholes. I don't even know if they were telling an honest story. To add salt to injury the driver who was Japanese and couldn't speak English got a call from his boss. He was ordered to take the van back to Tokyo. They had me up all night looking for a driver and a rental van. Which was near impossible, because A) all rental vehicles were being used for something much more important and B) it was midnight and car rental places close at like 8:00. Seriously, fuck those guys.
Next day, I couldn't take it anymore so I decided to go back to Sendai with driver. Really awesome guy by the way. Dropped me off and even bought me apples and bread for my friends and I.
When I got back to my place I finally had power and water. School wasn't going to start for a while so a bunch of us decided to volunteer and try to get the coastal area into better conditions. It was a shitty situation but it was actually a lot of fun. I built closer bonds with my friends. Good times!
