sarka

... I try this blogging thing again.

Every now and then, I think "that would make for a good LiveJournal entry" but I almost never do anything about it. I've been tired a lot, and depressed a lot, and at some point, I just got out of the habit. Until recently, there wasn't much to write about.

But today was the Monday-iest Monday that ever Mondayed and hell, I thought I'd give this a shot again.

It started with an email request that kind of boiled down to "...and if you could go back in time to 1998 and make them document this better, that would be awesome," which, #1, I'm good but nobody is that good, and #2, if I could, why would I want to go back to 1998 of all times? (Though a friend pointed out it was pre-Trump being a thing so there is at least one positive.)

However, because I am a solution-focused individual, I did the next best thing; I went upstairs and dug through the mountain of student files for anyone on that list from 1998, and ended up pulling about 30% of them; then went on to use statistics and probabilities to conclusively prove that students from that department in that year graduated, in fact, with a Bachelor's degree. 

I presented these findings to my department head, we discussed how to word it to make it work for all concerned, and then she asked me about the status of the case from 1973, which sent me down into the records room to search for school curricula from 1973-1979 - I found literally all of them except for the department pertaining to that particular case.

I got back to my desk with a fresh cup of coffee and thought about how to present my nonfindings, to find an email asking me about records from the correspondence school for countryside teachers in the 1980s of whose existance I was previously unaware.

After staring at the screen in mute horror for a moment, I grabbed the stuff I had from the records room - mostly there to show that I'd found stuff, just not the right stuff - and the handwritten grade book for the 1973 case, and went back up to see my department head, because again, I'm good, but I'm just NOT up to dealing with an entirely heretofore unknown department of the school by myself. 

My day ended up with me and the department head flailing at one another before we came up with a plan involved finding people in the building who had been there in 1973 and the 1980s (there are a few, believe it or not) and sort of sidling up to them and innocently asking "So, hey, do you remember, 38 YEARS AGO when you were taking classes in handcrafts..." and hoping all of them have steel trap memories and can tell us things. 

I'm supposed to be electronizing things, but today I basically did nothing but archaeology. Oh well, I did feed all of 1990 through the scanner, now I only need to index all 500 pages of documents. Maybe I'll get to it tomorrow.

The computer is the only electronic device I've got on at the moment. We've been kindly asked to save electricity for those who need it more, and so I'm sitting here in late afternoon light, in several layers, because I have turned off my heater.

I woke up to an earthquake warning on my phone, and barely a minute later, my house rocked gently, my glasses clinking together in the shelves in my kitchen unit.

I'm going to have to bike into school tomorrow, probably, because I doubt the trains will be running. There won't be any students, but the staff is still expected to come in, and while I could theoretically take some time off, I know the Japanese staff will all be there.

It's a strange, surreal existence, here in Saitama. We are so far removed from the events that the biggest impact will be the rolling blackouts and the lack of train service. And of course the inability to stay away from the news. Statistically speaking, I know some of my colleagues are probably grieving and anxious, but I know they're all going to be there tomorrow, because that is how this country works.

As we get more reports of death and devastation, the reports of incredible selflessness, unbelievable rescues and brilliant reunions have started trickling in, too. This country is, and has always been, incredibly community-minded. Even in Tokyo, where the devastation was minimal, people still experienced acts of kindness that would bring tears to anyone's eyes. There's a story on twitter about someone who couldn't make it home due to train stoppage, and was given cardboard to keep them warm by the same homeless people most Tokyoites pass without second thought every day.

What strikes a foreign guest like me the most is the unutterable dignity of the situation. There is no panic, there are no mobs, there are no unmanageable crowds. People may be buying things for the worst possible situation, but nobody is taking more than exactly what they need. I have been called by my coworkers to make sure I'm up on what's going on, and I have been stopped on the street by the people I nod at every morning, asking me if I'm okay or if I need any help to get through this.

Everyone is grieving, and anxious about the disaster we may still be facing. But the tenor of people's conversations doesn't seem somber; they seem determined - as if every disaster looming on the horizon is just another obstacle to traverse.

When the earthquake struck on Friday, I was in the gym. I didn't immediately realize what was happening; I thought someone was trying to open the door I was sticking posters to from the other side. And then the ceiling started creaking. I walked over to the other doors, which were open, snagging a frozen coworker along the way, and we stood under the doors, until everyone realized that this wasn't just a tremor. The sixth graders had been practicing for their graduation ceremony in the gym, and were crouched down in the middle of the room, and as the shaking intensified, we started hearing whimpers and screams of panic. "Out," one of my coworkers finally shouted, making the decision for all of us. I darted outside and set myself up at the edge of the courtyard, making sure the students stayed away from the windows as they ran for the playground. When everybody was out of the gym, we got over to the grounds to settle the students down, the earth still bucking and weaving around us, making our gait a little unsteady.

"Is it just my knees shaking, or are we still going?" I asked a coworker on the down low once the students were sitting down, and more people were evacuating the building in so orderly a fashion you'd have thought this was a drill.

"We're still going," he said, softly. "Look at the trees." They were swaying, back and forth, like they were being battered by strong winds.

We eventually settled the students back into the gym and made rounds of the school. Nothing was broken, nothing even really out of place. As we passed a second grade classroom, one of the second grade Japanese teachers asked us to help setting up some loose panels - what she had been doing before the first quake struck. In the middle of trying to figure out why the panels wouldn't cooperate, the biggest aftershock struck. We learned later that it was 7.4 on the Richter scale. My coworker cowered on the ground and I had to dart back in and tug her to the door - she told me later that she hadn't ever felt anything like the first tremor.

Once the shaking subsided, the intercom went, calling all of us to the office. Train services were suspended, and we did nothing for the rest of the afternoon except watch the news and wait to figure out what to do.

Thirty students couldn't make it home that night and slept at school with some of the teachers. To give you an idea of the level of preparedness in this country for this sort of thing, they did not have to make do with their jackets and some hastily procured blankets. In the event of a natural catastrophe, like this, the school has access to sleeping bags for every single student.

I've been home since then, mostly glued to the news services. The situation in Fukushima is frightening, particularly because nuclear reactors are an unknown quantity to me. However, the news reporting from Japan is quite different from the sensationalist stuff that seems to be reported elsewhere, and so I've banished the BBC forever from my reading list. (Not to mention CNN, what's with the Godzilla jokes?)

Tomorrow it's business as usual for this part of the country. I have no inkling what sort of thing we'll be supposed to do, but I imagine there will be long meetings in Japanese.

I am expecting a rolling blackout to start any minute now, so I suppose I better post this and turn the computer off - or try to write, since the internet won't be there to distract me.

For those of you with the funds... help_japan has an auction up with many nice things on offer. Please consider it.

Thank you for all the well wishes and all the concern. I'm touched so many people thought of me.

Stay safe.

Sárka.

It`s interesting how, when I spend quite a bit of time in the middle of the week missing my online friends,　wishing I could be irresponsible and spend the whole night chatting and trolling fandom for porn, that when I don`t have any choice except to do exactly that, what I really want is my bed.

I`m sitting in a manga cafe off Shinjuku, wearing a navy silk dress and a lot of makeup, waiting for the first train back home.

Got any fun internet timewasters?

There are days where things are brilliant.
There are days when things could be better.
There are days when things could be worse.
There are utter shit days.

And then there are days like today.

*breaks into the hard liquor*

Apparently, Mr. S is now up and walking around on his own, thank Christ. At the hospital, under the supervision of doctors, after being taken in the ambulance I called for him when he fell off the parallel bars during cleaning time.

Onto his face. At an angle that could easily have snapped his neck. And he couldn't move when I reached him - couldn't, in fact, feel anything below his neck.

It should be mentioned that Mr. S is my immediate superior. He's also 54 years old. Do not ask me what the hell he was doing on the parallel bars, I do not know. I suspect him of forgetting that he's 54 years old. He's that kind of guy.

*sigh*

And then I went and offered an extra pair of hands to M who was teaching a 6th grade English class on his own, with Mr. S in the hospital. 6th graders thought they could run the class. They were quite shocked when I made it clear to them that the English teacher runs the class, whoever the English teacher may be.

God, I'm glad I have tomorrow off.

*sniffle*

Don't you just hate it when something you REALLY wanted to do turns out to be just out of reach? And I mean just, by, like, ten minutes? Argh, why has nobody invented teleportation yet?

I need to　WRITE. But everything I've got in the pipelines are MASSIVE WiP's, which means that starting after a bit of not writing is an insurmountable obstacle.

I just need to get into the habit again, remind myself that I CAN knock out stories fairly easy.

Ergo; I need your help, dear friends. I want to write PORN. Basic, no-nonsense smut.

Give me two characters - they don't need to be from the same fandom for all I care - and a sexual act, and/or kink, and/or location, and/or position. Get as descriptive as you like, just NO PLOT PLEASE I CAN'T HANDLE IT.

Prompt me?

Thanks!

Okay.

*takes a deep breath*

*opens a bottle of wine*

*clicks*

Can I just say I'm ridiculously proud of my country today? We sent 35 specialists in disaster search and rescue to Haiti yesterday and were the second relief-squad in. I don't like our government all that much, but I'll give them kudos for this.

On that note, while I'm sleepy and tired and achy, I wanted to let everyone know that I've got three things up for bids in help_haiti:

Box of Random Icelandicness. - This is going to be epically fun to put together :D

Something knitted out of Icelandic wool. - Because I'm in practice right now, and I can't let my boyfriend churn out items faster than me!

Words, 1500 of them. - I've never done this before, so, eep :D

Now, gonna watch Castle and DIE from exhaustion.

I never post meme results. Ever. ( But this was just too good: )

In other news: I wasn't working this weekend. This does not mean I have the weekend off: I spent today baking - three types of cookies, an Icelandic layer cake, oatcakes and then I made candy, and I'm totally beat. Tomorrow I'm doing three or four loads of laundry and cleaning my room. Joy.

At least I had a lot of fun at yesterday's party, despite the exploding coke incident, and it's always nice to meet the Slash Girls. I'm thinking about having a party sometime before I leave for Japan - a sort of unbirthday, because I'm never in the freaking country on my birthday, seriously.

Now, going to go off and try to write. *pounds away at the keyboard*