{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

My subject? Little Pieces of Happiness. One hundred little things that put a smile on my face, give a little sunshine to my day, &, overall, keep me sane when my friends & family are so far away. & this is where I'll be organizing my entries. :)

Number 1: Rilakkuma Contact Case

My niece's published book. :)
I'm so proud of Tia! She worked on these book for years, & I'm so happy she was able to finish it.

I have a few choice words for her publisher, concerning the credentials I've seen online, but she seems to be happy with them so far, & that is what is important.

I wrote somewhat of a small... letter? Essay? Truthfully, it's not a big deal if you don't want to read it. Even though I (absolutely!) appreciate anyone who has offered kind words or support, I wrote this more for me. I still feel like I could write a book on my feelings concerning this, but I tried to keep this short.

Putting pen to paper felt pretty good, too.
( My thoughts on the past year )

3.11
LJ will get a longer post, but for right now, this.

In this entry, I mentioned I was going to be by myself this weekend & was thinking about going to visit the coast. Well, that kind of changed! After doing some research, I found out getting to either Minami Sanriku or Kesennuma would involve a lot of train switching & over 4 hours of travel, one-way. I kind of abandoned that & thought about going to Ishinomaki or Matsushima. Ishinomaki is a city (much closer!) partially destroyed in the tsunami, &, well, you should know Matsushima. :)

After more thinking, I decided to just stay in downtown Sendai, afterall. (Y agreed with me - turns out he was a little freaked out with me going to the coast by myself, in case another big earthquake struck.)

So I went with Yasutomo, & we parted ways at Sendai station. I decided to take the path I used to always take before we started dating: every Sunday, I would take the subway to Sendai station then walk through the shopping arcades to Kotoudai Kouen then take the subway back. :) I picked a pretty good day to do it, too! Parco is doing a special Jang Geun Suk "room" right now. (The line was massive!) They're going to do a temporary JUMP store next week, too, but I don't think I'll be able to go. :( When I reached Kotoudai, I saw a bunch of tents set up, so I went to take a look. They're going a Tohoku fair! Large booths were setting up for each prefecture in Tohoku (I couldn't find Aomori, though, LOL.), & then seperated again by major cities. They were selling famous foods, handmade goods, & giving some free stuff. A lot of it was to support the reconstruction effort. :) I got a "Kokoro - Hitotsu ni narou" bracelet. <3!

Now, now, now, in this post, I was asked to take some pictures, & I did, yay! I also took a bunch of pictures from today along with the things I bought. (Since Yasutomo is gone for the weekend, we didn't do our usual Friday night grocery shopping, so I had a little extra money. >;])

( Shashins )

Today is the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks & the 6th month anniversary of the 3/11 East Japan earthquake & tsunami - there's a lot of remembering going on in my head right now.

9/11 changed America in so many ways - both good & bad. I think there was a sense of security in our minds, like we were untouchable since we hadn't been attacked (especially on the mainland) in decades, & 9/11 showed us we were anything but. I was just starting my freshman year of high school. Almost every teacher in my classes had the TV turned on to watch the news. I remember my mom was clued to the TV for days after, trying to find out what had happened.

So many innocert people were killed on that day.


& on 3/11, even more innocent people were killed. As an American, 9/11 changed me, but as a person, 3/11 changed my life.

Even without looking back at pictures, I can remember everything clearly - grasping on to the doorframe so I wouldn't fall as the building shook, being held by one of the students as we escaped outside, & then those first few weeks not knowing if what would happen with the Fukushima power plant. I'd never been so scared.

Yasutomo found footage of where he had been when the earthquake struck when the tsunami had come. If hadn't taken the mountain road after the shaking instead of his usual route... I don't want to think about it.

People are still living in evacuation shelters.

I'm not the same person I was before the earthquake. The fear of not knowing if another big one will come keeps me on my toes - it's stressful, but I know I'm lucky. I was kept safe along with the people I know. I was able to have safe shelter as well as people around me. We had to work a bit for it, but we able to get water & food.

I feel like I could write a book with all my feelings from that day. I want to yell at people & tell them all the things I learned. Keep extra bottled water under your sink! Always have candles or a flashlight with extra batteries! If anything happens, immediately fill up your bathtub! I want people to learn from this.

I feel like the things I learned will stick with me for a long time.

YEAH.

I was at Tsurusu Shou yesterday, and the 6th grade teacher gave an interesting lecture to his students that I sat in on. Before class started, he gave a small speech about 節電 (power conservation). It's a big topic right now since the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant provided a lot of power to the Kanto region, & now that its gone, Kanto is suffering from a major electricity shortage.

Anyway! The Onnagawa Power Plant apparently is the main electricity supplier in Miyagi. Well, was. Onnagawa was damaged in the tsunamis & is out of commission, leaving Miyagi in a similar 節電 state.

What I really got from the talk yesterday was that while thankfully it didn't turn out the same, but if Onnagawa had turned into the same situation as Fukushima (they were able to control it before anything horrible happened), I would have had to leave Sendai. Looking at the map, I'm just around where the evacuation zone would be.

I don't know - I guess I just hadn't put the two together. I mean, I knew about Onnagawa (everyone was talking about it!), but I didn't realize it was so close.

On a somewhat related topic, I'm thinking about buying one of the photo 3/11 memorial books. Y put it really well when he said that it's not about wanting to remember but about not wanting to forget.

( A piece of an article my dad sent me )

Really? Honestly, I don't agree at all. Being dressed as a maiko gave me a very memorable experience. Especially as an American, 'traditional clothes' are foreign to me, so getting a chance to experience being dolled up in a way that's still very profound in Japanese culture was pretty cool.

& yeah, I'm going to guess those same "Wow! A real geisha!" tourists are the same ones who still believe samurai walk the streets. Unless you have Asian facial features already, it's pretty obvious that you're not a real geisha. (BTW, maiko! Not geisha!)

I just really hate it when people point out facial/body features as a reason cultures can't dress like each other. :[ People living in the same area may have different facial features - does that mean they can't dress alike or put on similar styles on make-up? Whatever you think is right for you IS RIGHT FOR YOU.

Geez, the article makes it sound like it's such a tourist trap. If you've never been to Kyoto before & you get the chance, do it! If I had the chance, I'd do it again. :)

Sorry for making another post so soon, but I found something I wanted to share.

While compared to the aftershocks we originally had, things have definitely quieted down, but Japan is still shaking. I usually feel about one or two small ones a day. Last night at about 1 Fukushima got a big one (a weak 5), & docomo (my phone service) sent out the earthquake alarm. Thankfully, it was only a 2 in Sendai, but that damn freaking alarm still gives me a heart attack every time I hear it!

SO! I found a video clip on youtube of the alert sound & warning mail docomo users get (usually) about 5-10 seconds before a big earthquake is expected.


This is why I jump everytime there's a loud noise now. >:[ While I am very thankful for the alert system & appreciate it, it's made me a lot more jumpier than I used to be.

Here's hoping it doesn't go off tonight!