Earthquake!

...drill, that is. Yes, I do feel a small shaker every couple of weeks, but it's nothing to fear really. Even still, in this earthquake prone area, we have earthquake drills, along with fire drills, in the schools.

I knew we'd be having a drill a while ago, so I didn't have to waste time preping for a class that wouldn't happen. The alarm was set to go off in the first 10 minutes of my second ninensei (grade 2) class of the day, so we just did our morning greeting, said our morning prayer, starting singing "Jesus Love Me", and the earthquake alarm went off.

If you've never been in a Japanese earthquake drill before, this is what happens: the alarm goes off, and you immediately hide under your desk and cover your head. This is to protect yourself from any falling objects. Following the earthquake alarm, the fire alarm went off. The idea was that the earthquake caused a fire. In the classrooms, there are large head covers (which are basically replective large oven mitts). The students, as well as the teachers, are to put these on. This keeps the heat off I guess. The students also seemed to have some clothes to cover their mouths with, in order to keep out the smoke. Well, it's better than nothing I guess. Following this, we were to go to a meeting spot outside. Since it was raining, outside ended up being the gym.

I really do hope that if we ever have a fire, that it's not in the gym on a rainy day. That just might be the end of me.