Plans for next year, or even next week, seem quaint when you're worried if you're going to make it through the next five minutes. So it was at 3:06 am last night, being roughly awoken by three (though they say it was one long) earthquake(s) that shook everything in my apartment, and threatened to topple my computer and tv, the two of the highest value targets appliances I own. No apparent casualties reported so far, other than the beauty sleep of several million, and that is also in doubt, what with the pending 'anti-secession' (i.e., the right to invade) law soon to be passed by China's parliament.
If you've never lived through an earthquake, then doing so can quite instructive; the notion of man's supremacy over nature is revealed to be the sham that it is. I've been thinking recently of preparing a war-zone bag, a bag that contains all the things I find irreplaceable and positioning it in the path of my mad careen towards the door. I would have been ill-prepared last night, likely pounded to a pulp under all the rubble while searching for said items. Hmm. Better get to work on that bag now.
Update: The local news is reporting that it was nine consecutive earthquakes, the biggest being 5.9 on the Richter scale. I missed the other six.
Again, TVBS strikes, or is the Chinese language? Apparently there's no difference between the words 'earthquake' and 'aftershock' in Mandarin; it was two near simulataneous quakes, and seven aftershocks. Now they're asking 3/6 and 3:06, coincidence or not? Sheesh.
