Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

[DakAttack]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

But five seconds is the amount of time for all the bad stuff to get on your food. If you pick it up before five seconds passes, your food is still clean. What does it matter where it landed if you pick it up in five seconds?

[Aksannyi]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

It's the squick factor. It doesn't have to be logical.

Plus, if I drop food in any sort of mud, it's staying there.

[Raydeus]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

I don't care if you eat the stuff after it fell to the ground or not, but you better pick up your trash regardless!

[Taskmage]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

Actually, Mythbusters did this one and the window is more like a minute for dry food and 30 seconds for moist things. If you pick it up in that window, no germs will have had time to migrate from the floor to your food, provided you blow off any debris that might have stuck on.

On the other hand, there are types of proteins and such that stick fast. If you dropped your food into some raw egg for example that stuff is just not going to come off. So if you drop your sandwich in a public park and it happens to hit that used condom, I think it would be fair to assume your lunch is contaminated and leave it for a passing raccoon.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

I don't care if you eat the stuff after it fell to the ground or not, but you better pick up your trash regardless!

This I will do, unless it's all food and no wrapper. If it's a wrapper or container along with the food, of course I'm going to pick that up. But a couple pieces of bread crust or something? Something will eat it. And if it doesn't, it's not harming the environment, it's just not keeping it as pretty as it could be.

[Malacite]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

Eh, ever since we got a Cat I've sworn off the 5 second rule in my own home

and LOL @ Gaijin powers omg XD. Has anyone actually called you a Gaijin over there?

[Feba]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

and LOL @ Gaijin powers omg XD. Has anyone actually called you a Gaijin over there?

Probably. I've had a few times when I'm sitting in an empty classroom, and some Japanese student will walk in, walk out and check, walk back in, and then be like "why is there a foreigner here...?". Sometimes passing groups of people will be like "blah blah foreigner blah blah blah". I generally don't have people call me gaijin-san or anything, although I think a few kids have.

[Raydeus]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

According to the title of this thread you, along with your Tsunami and Earthquake friends devastated Japan. So I was expecting them to just run away from you.

Well, that probably happened before the natural disasters anyway...

[Feba]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

So at my school, there were 4 or 5 students from California State University. They have all been ordered home.

There were six students from the University of Kansas. As of 22:26 local time, I was informed by my housemate that he, and the rest of the students from KU, were being ordered home.

I was also informed of two students leaving at the demands of their parents, and told by the person telling me about them that they would leave too if things continued. A third student, the only person on my phone who is living in the dorms, told me that "alot of people have left".

My school informed me yesterday that I would likely be requested to return home if a Travel Warning were issued. One was. Luckily for me, I'm not on direct exchange, so they can request and implore 'till they're blue in the face, and frankly because that school has done very little for me I have all the freedom in the world to tell them to shove it. That email will probably be coming in the hour; I'm going to bed.

So there's basically three issues:

1- Lots of classmates I know well, if not people I'd call friends, leaving. This is kinda depressing, but it's even worse when you realize that many, many of this people are at best having plans hugely interrupted (like my housemate, who previously was planning to barely squeeze into a four year degree, who now has basically no option but bureaucratic tricks or spending an extra year, and thus extra money, which also won't be supported by his parents), and at worst probably having dreams shattered
2- I'm probably going to have to sour relations with my school at home by a LOT; and potentially lose about $1500 in scholarships toward next semester. I doubt they'd be able to withhold transcript over this, but I don't know.
3- There were around 120 students in the program; the dozen I know of leaving alone cuts out %10 of that. I don't have any idea how many people will be left, but I have no problem imagining it at 30 or less. I have no idea how few participants it would take before the school decided to shut the program down. The class sizes were already very small-- I had a grammar class with five people in it, one of whom left partway through the semester. My core language class was 15 people or so, as were most of my other classes. The largest was a class which included Japanese students, which managed to have an incredible size of 20 students. If the school decides the program can't support itself (I have no idea how much that would take, or if it's possible-- there are some schools that run international programs as a money sink, purely for the benefits it brings in to the college) and needs to be closed down, I'd have to scramble to find a new institution, and probably housing as my current homestay is arranged through them.

So yeah, I now know people who have been personally and deeply (as in, not just a random power outage or a hard time finding lunch) affected by the earthquake. I may become one of them.

---

Earlier this evening, I went out to buy, amongst other things, a Super Famicom from a man who is leaving on Tuesday. We didn't ask each other much, beyond "So you're leaving?" and "Did you just get here?", and made no real comment on the situation beyond "take care". I didn't tell anyone anything beyond that I was going to Sangenjaya to buy something from someone on CL.

I came back, and still hadn't mentioned anything, beyond "let me know when the TV is free". When that happened, my housemate had gotten the call. He was so enraged that he couldn't speak in anything but a whisper. I fully understood, and in fact probably would be even angrier if I were being forced home (the only person who can do this to me is my mother, who while of course worried and wishing I would come home, is fully willing to support me.) . I brought out the shoebox with the Super Famicom inside it, and let him have the first stab at Fatal Fury Special, and then SMW (which apparently is one of his favorite games of all time; he just went through it hitting tons of 'secret' spots while reminiscing about his childhood). Worth every yen I paid for it for that alone.

[DakAttack]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk9TFRmWCH0]YouTube - Huey Lewis and the News - Trouble in paradise[/ame]

[Raydeus]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

Man that just sucks.

[NightShayde]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

I keep thinking of you (and worrying about you), Feba. Whether you get to stay there or you're forced to make other arrangements, please stay safe.

[DakAttack]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

wtf?

[Feba]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

apparently my school's insurance company is not giving a single fuck at the moment, which means my school is fine with it as long as I am. So that's good. Still no idea about the local school-- rolling blackout scheduled from 8 minutes off until the afternoon. Consumption seems to have gone up, so they're getting longer.

[Aeni]

Re: Japan devastated by earthquakes, tsunami, Feba

How is the mass panic with the nuclear power plant debacle? Personally, those people have it way better than the residents of Nevada during the 50s, 60s and 70s, but I digress.