Aftermath: English news is slow

It's very frustrating that, although I live here, I have to receive my news at the same time as my friends and family in California and Texas via online [and mostly foreign] news sources. I flick through the TV channels, which still largely display disaster information, but it is useless to me. Thus, I doubt I have anything to tell that you, my friends, don't already know. I'm hoping to hear more tomorrow from the teachers at work.

It's Sunday night now, and even as I write this, I can feel an aftershock shaking the floor. I've continued to feel aftershocks all weekend but with much less frequency and intensity. It is possible that the general intensity of the aftershocks have lowered to a degree that I don't even know they are happening; laying silently on my couch with my computer, the only indicator I had of the last few aftershocks before this one was the quiet humming rattle of the sliding doors in my apartment. None were strong enough to wake me during the night.

Although I feel quite removed from the disasters of the quake and tsunami, I read on The Japan Times that Gunma will soon also be feeling its effects. Tepco (Tokyo Electric Power Co.), whom is my electricity provider, is planning to enact rolling blackouts throughout the Kanto area, including Gunma, in order to save on electricity. There don't seem to be a ton of details available yet, but the article says to expect 3 hour periods of blackout for at least a week, starting Monday. I really wonder what affect this will have at work; tomorrow should be interesting.

There is also a fledgling effort on Facebook among the Gunma JETs to organize volunteer relief workers. I have responded with tentative interest, as have many people I know. Everything is still so unknown that no one seems sure what needs to be done just yet. I must admit that I am a little concerned about going to an area that might be getting increasingly radioactive, despite government approved assurances that there are "no signs of a Chernobyl-type catastrophe". Let's hope not, but be cautious, eh?

Cheers,

loopless Baer