After being on my death bed with a cold/flu and not sleeping for two days, I have finally recovered. Last night, as I re-entered the world of current events, to my dismay, a 8.9 magnitude earthquake, followed by a tsunami, struck Japan, making it the headline on all of my news apps. Of course this is a tragedy on so many levels and I'm sending my positive thoughts to everyone over there, but still, I was immediately concerned for my own safety. Besides the fact that I'm just a tad paranoid about these types of things, you might be wondering how this could effect little ole me in San Diego, California. Well, thanks to the life science credit USD requires us to have before graduation, I took a natural disasters class two years back, mostly to try and ease my fear of tornados and hurricanes, which I previously dealt with on a monthly basis living in Texas and Florida.
I was never really concerned with earthquakes, probably because I hadn't experienced one, and I had DEFINITELY never thought about tsunamis (my only knowledge of tsunamis was through Disney's not-so-famous TV movie, Johnny Tsunami, ignorant, I know, but that's why I go to college, right?) Thanks to Dr. Cathcart (still one of my favorite professors), I learned that even if an earthquake occurred halfway around the world, there would still be a chance of a tsunami in any coastal city, depending on the positioning and techtonic plates and all that jazz. Of course living in Mission Beach, which will likely be under water in 100 years, isn't the best place to be during a situation like this.
So of course I stayed up until 3 a.m., researching online, reading every weather channel site and forcing my fellow late-night-Facebookers to calm my anxieties about being whisked away in a giant wave. When I finally fell asleep, I awoke only three hours later to a text and three missed calls from my parents, shouldn't they know me by now? I'm the queen of paranoia, of course I was aware of the situation. So I woke myself up (another sleepless night, whoa is me), headed to the couch and proceeded to watch the news for an hour. What I've come to learn about the news is that most of the time, they really don't know what they're talking about. Their reporting was so contradicting I had to just give up and go back to sleep, hoping USD would text/call/email me if an evacuation was necessary.
San Diego's ETT (estimated time of tsunami, that is) was at 8:41 a.m., and I have yet to see any major changes in the ocean from my bedroom window (knock on wood). Sometimes, I wish the only tsunami knowledge I had was from Disney Channel, but I guess it's better to be prepared and aware rather than under water. Until then, I'm ready for this dreary fog to burn off and the tsunami advisories to go away and for our beautiful Mission Beach to be back in commission.
I was never really concerned with earthquakes, probably because I hadn't experienced one, and I had DEFINITELY never thought about tsunamis (my only knowledge of tsunamis was through Disney's not-so-famous TV movie, Johnny Tsunami, ignorant, I know, but that's why I go to college, right?) Thanks to Dr. Cathcart (still one of my favorite professors), I learned that even if an earthquake occurred halfway around the world, there would still be a chance of a tsunami in any coastal city, depending on the positioning and techtonic plates and all that jazz. Of course living in Mission Beach, which will likely be under water in 100 years, isn't the best place to be during a situation like this.
So of course I stayed up until 3 a.m., researching online, reading every weather channel site and forcing my fellow late-night-Facebookers to calm my anxieties about being whisked away in a giant wave. When I finally fell asleep, I awoke only three hours later to a text and three missed calls from my parents, shouldn't they know me by now? I'm the queen of paranoia, of course I was aware of the situation. So I woke myself up (another sleepless night, whoa is me), headed to the couch and proceeded to watch the news for an hour. What I've come to learn about the news is that most of the time, they really don't know what they're talking about. Their reporting was so contradicting I had to just give up and go back to sleep, hoping USD would text/call/email me if an evacuation was necessary.
San Diego's ETT (estimated time of tsunami, that is) was at 8:41 a.m., and I have yet to see any major changes in the ocean from my bedroom window (knock on wood). Sometimes, I wish the only tsunami knowledge I had was from Disney Channel, but I guess it's better to be prepared and aware rather than under water. Until then, I'm ready for this dreary fog to burn off and the tsunami advisories to go away and for our beautiful Mission Beach to be back in commission.
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