Friday, December 6, 2024

Unremarkable

Health. Seventh period. The Friday before Thanksgiving break. 

It had been a fairly uneventful week. I was struggling to come up with blog topics. I was blog writing and reading and doing other things to keep myself awake all day. 

I mean, the health class had a test, but they first had a Kahoot as a review, so it wasn't quite testing time. I kept an eye on the fifteen students in class as I read this blog post. That's when I got a sudden feeling of movement, like I had been transported to a boat in calm seas. It was just a general unease, but I knew the feeling immediately.

I paused. Looked up. Took a breath. Was I swaying? Yup, earthquake.

A couple students reacted with laughs. The room had been pretty quiet, and once the laughs stopped, the room was again quiet. And just like that, it was over.

I finished reading the blog post. Then I pulled up my earthquake app to check. Yup. 3.5. Epicenter near Thousand Oaks. That sounded about right.

About ten minutes later I asked the kiddos to put away their cell phones and log into the test. (It was online.) They finished fairly quickly and then got back onto their cell phones. (I watched to make sure they were done before allowing the phones. No one tried to cheat.) 

The earthquake wasn't even mentioned. (I could have said something, but I didn't really have anything to say. No one else brought it up.)

Just another day in Southern California.

25 comments:

  1. Yup Liz ... another one 'today' ... hope all well - and it's a one off - cheers Hilary

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  2. Jamie: We play Kahoot at my work for things like holiday trivia and of course, mental health. It's quite fun. I never knew about Kahoot until the boss introduced us to it.

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    1. Yeah, someone had to introduce me to it as well. It works great in the classroom.

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  3. We adjust to our environments, don't we. Your earthquake would be my moment of panic. Some Northern school districts rarely close for snow while in milder climes schools might close if snow flurries are even in the forecast.

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    1. Yeah, we've gotten rather used to them. And lately there have been so many more.

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  4. When we had a small quake in NY last year it was a major news story. But in California not so much.

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    1. We barely even felt it. For news, us getting snow is comparable.

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  5. We got the tsunami alert here, from the 7.0 quake in Petrolia *I had never heart of that city before. It's interesting how they can feel so different. The "rolling" ones upset me the most.

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    1. I saw that tsunami alert. Glad it didn't happen. 7.0s are scary. That's a different quake entirely.

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  6. Adjusting and adapting to nature. In the meantime, it must be pretty impressive!

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  7. Yeah, quakes are usually just par for the course. Yesterday's biggie up in Eureka plus the additional ones out in the ocean were kinda freaky as it disrupted train service in my area.

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    1. That was a big one. Yikes. I'm glad it didn't cause too much damage (that I've heard of), but disruptions aren't great.

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  8. As your readers mention (above), N CA & Oregon got a big surprise yesterday! So thankful it was centered off the coast and there were no major injuries.

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  9. Wow! Amazing how Californians get used to earthquakes as if nothing happened …

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    1. Ours was barely a rumble. The one in northern California this week? That was a scary one.

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  10. I wonder how much health class change over the years.

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  11. I love how everyone just rolled with the earthquake like it was no big deal!

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  12. There was a big one off the coast last week as well. Funny how it doesn't bother some people. I remember growing up in California and never feeling an earthquake but all through school we had to be prepared for one.

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  13. I'm glad the severity was low. Be well!

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  14. I can't imagine just staying calm like that through an earthquake. I've never experienced one, but I don't think I'd be so calm. Was yours part of the big one or a separate event?

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    1. This one was two weeks prior to the one in northern California. Just strange luck that I would have a post about an earthquake when there was a big one up north.

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  15. I have only felt one earthquake here in Michigan. It wasn't much. I believe I would have been laughing if I experienced one there.

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