Today, something of interest happened. The most interesting thing was that it was practically right under my nose, and I didn't notice at all.

The event in particular occurred around 10:09 am, Pacific Time. It was something caused by the Earth. By the tectonic plates beneath the Earth. The friction between two of them, which happened to be CONVENIENTLY located in California, must have built up again, because the event I am speaking of is an earthquake. Find more information about it here.

I didn't feel the earthquake, so I didn't hear about it until the afternoon, when I called my mother.
Mom: Did you feel the earthquake?
Me: No, when was it?
Mom: Around 10:09.
Me: Hmm...I didn't feel anything.
Mom: Really? But it was pretty close by. We had to evacuate the building.

When my parents came home, I double-checked with my dad. For him it was even worse since his company building is even closer to the earthquake's epicenter. My mother found it surprising that I didn't feel a thing. Someone she knows who lives in the neighboring town felt the earthquake (then again, that town is a bit closer to the epicenter than mine).

I guess we were safe from the earthquakes. Either we were far enough away, or the design of the classrooms is quite sturdy. At the time, I was in one of the "portable" classrooms (although I believe it can be moved around, and it looks kind of boxlike and the ceiling isn't as high nor are the windows as large as a "built into the ground" classroom) and I heard once that portables are more earthquake safe.

But then, if the other students had felt the earthquake, wouldn't they have mentioned it when talking at brunch or lunch? Perhaps it wasn't felt at all? Maybe it's not too bad to live where I do. (Though it is still certainly within the danger zone if an earthquake is in a different place. I mean, I was in an earthquake in late October - the day before Halloween or something close like that - a few years ago, and I definitely felt that one. But it had a slightly higher magnitude) But I still always feel like it's dangerous living in California, since in the movie 2012, the first place to go was California.

Some places are worse off when it comes to natural disasters, though. I keep email correspondence with an old friend of mine who moved to Taiwan years back. She said that not all that long ago they had a huge earthquake, but their building was fine, as buildings are designed to be earthquake-proof, even apartment buildings, which can reach high heights. There are also typhoons in Taiwan. Sounds like a pretty wild place; I guess the Earth's pretty excitable over there. I don't really understand why one of my friends says I should visit Taiwan sometime if it's so dangerous and it's pretty polluted. I don't even know where I would go there, besides Taipei 101, which was the tallest building in the world (is it still?). But if you know someplace cool to visit in Taiwan, let me know.

I've also wondered whether I should visit Korea. What I mean by Korea is South Korea, since I'm not sure whether North Korea is an ideal place to visit. Anyhow, though, I only know of one place in Korea, and that's the capital, Seoul. I'm afraid I'm not as well-versed in the world as I had previously thought.

Luckily, I had some good loot this year from Christmas. XD Although I am Santa, I have elves who give me gifts. One of the things was a world atlas, which is something I wanted (I already had one, but it was a thin one with not much information that I ordered through the "book orders"). If I were retired already, then I could spend more time looking at it...Sigh...

Ah, before I end this post, I wonder if you have noticed the new blog layout, which I put up just yesterday. (If you are new to visiting this blog, then you might not have known). I've made a few changes to the coding, because the original text size was rather small, which bothered me... And the layout is aligned to the right, so if you expand your screen it will still stick to the right of the Internet window. I hope that doesn't trouble you. I thought I'd try a different color this time.

Labels: 2012, atlas, black, blog, building, california, catalog, classroom, earthquake, font size, layout, location, natural disaster, portable, taipei 101, taiwan, typhoon, world

In my math class, a conflict arose over the single tissue box that is open in the classroom. There are more of them, since we turned them in for extra credit (along with the measurements of the tissue box and its volume on the bottom) at the beginning of the school year. But only one was open, and it was on the left side of the room. A guy walking over there to get a tissue said he wished there was one on the other side so he wouldn't have to walk so far. The teacher suggested we simply move the tissue box over, but that wouldn't work because then the people on the left side would have to walk far for tissues. It would have been best to put it in the middle. Or even better, open more tissue boxes and place them at strategic points in the room.

Tissues have been brought up in another class, too - history class. My teacher showed us a tissue box that he kept and doesn't plan to use because he received it from a student and it said some interesting things on it, like "Please don't leave me in your pocket in the laundry" (not specifically quoted since I can't quite recall), "I'm there when you need to pick up icky things", "I'm there when you're sad", and whatnot. What a talkative tissue box. (Though other tissue boxes do have words on them. Once I turned over a tissue box and there was a poem on the bottom)

By the way, when searching for the image of the tissue box (which I still haven't found) I noticed some other cool ones, like watermelon slice-shaped tissue boxes, and cat tissue boxes, and whatnot. (Probably it's just a cover put on a tissue box, but it's still nice.) CLICK HERE for an example of one that sort of matches my blog's layout, hehe.

Anyways, back to my history teacher. He apparently had a dream where he went to school as normal, but then his tissue box tower was a lot shorter. He has a tower of tissue boxes next to his desk which he collected from the students. The teacher seemed kind of emotional, since he said he had worked so hard to get the tissue boxes and it was saddening to see many of them gone suddenly.

I kind of understand the gist of it, I suppose. I had a similar experience recently except that I wasn't sad at all, like I had expected to be. I always used to visit a website called Nutrinopets, because of the forums, but it had gone down some time ago. I expected it to come back online, but it never did. I've always wondered how I was going to quit, and it looks like the work has been done for me. I guess I'm kind of sad because I won't get to really say goodbye to it, but I'm also pleased because I have somewhat more free time now.

Do you recall me complaining about the weirdness of the labels on Blogger? Well, it seems to be fixed now! And now I can put lots of labels at my will. Plus, the drop down/up menu shows up again when I start typing a label I have already used. I'm so glad it got changed back to normal. It's like there was someone listening to me.

That reminds me of Pita-Ten, a manga I finished recently. It's not that new, so the whole series was already out. The author is Koge-Donbo. (I always thought it was a two person team, like Peach-Pit, but it turned out it was one person) Pita-Ten is about a boy who meets a clueless, hyper angel, and also a demon. The story turns out differently in the manga and the anime. I'd say the manga is more serious. (Oh yeah, and Koge-Donbo also is the author of the mangas Kamichama Karin and Digi-Charat) Basically, I was thinking it was almost like I had an angel watching me and they found a way to fix my problem.

Labels: angel, blogger, box, designs, dream, guardian, koge-donbo, label, location, manga, miracle, nutrinopets, pita-ten, problem, reliable, solution, tissues, website, words

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