From an email from April:
_However, I did want to let everyone know that I am
safe and perfectly whole after this morning’s earthquake. For those of you
who have no idea what I’m talking about, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit
Japan at 11:46 this morning and I was a mere 60 some-odd kilometers south of
its center of its origin. It’s on the front page of BBC, CNN, MSN-NBC, etc.
if you feel like reading more on it._
_I had actually taken this morning off and was sleeping (go figure 
when
it hit. It jolted me awake and I was just frozen to my bed for those
seemingly endless 2 minutes. (Yeah – those school drills that I practiced
all of my life about diving under the nearest table definitely did not come
in handy. I couldn’t make myself move for anything.) My apartment is on
the 2nd story of a really small, wooden 2-story building. So the entire
thing was shaking like crazy. All of the furniture in my apartment was
swaying back and forth and the pictures on the wall and the loose things on
shelves crashed down to the floor. And I, for some unknown reason, was just
laughing and wondering whether I would be make some flashy and really
painful entrance into my neighbor’s apartment below me if my floor caved in.
(Yeah, I know Mom – that certainly calms your nerves, eh?! Don’t worry,
don’t worry! 
Anyhow, no aftershocks felt as of yet, and I am perfectly
AOK. I just like to think of it as my very first free amusement park
ride…_