This morning at 7:30, I arrived at school to meet up with the music club to practice before we would play at the ceremony. The ceremony started promptly at 9:30 am and the newly graduating students all walked in orderly to the graduation theme song. The ceremony itself included the students receiving their diplomas, speeches from the Principal, a head person from the Board of Education, and the head of the PTA. There were also speeches from one of the students and a performance by the whole 3rd grade class. It was all very serious as I expected. But it was very different from an American graduation ceremony. Usually, there is a more positive tone to American graduations saying "You did it!" and "Congratulations!" and "Good luck!" and other sayings of the like. But today's was very sappy and the kids were extremely sad to be graduating. It was a very somber tone and I did start to feel tears well up in my eyes, but I didn't actually cry...
But where I did feel the most emotional was when the teacher would call out the students name to receive the diploma...and after that the students responds with a "Hai!" which in Japanese means, "Yes, ok, present!" or something of the like. I don't know why, but that response in that setting is just an emotional thing to watch, and kind of shows the end result of all the hard work that the student had put in these past 3 years in the junior high school. The actual ceremony lasted for a total of about 1.5 hours and concluded with the students marching out in normal fashion as well.
And then I caught a lot of the students to take pictures and say one final farewell before they begin their new journey!
I'll miss them! They're good kids!
Congratulations to the class of Heisei 22!
Then in the midst of the happiness and celebrating...there came the biggest earthquake in Japan's history...Richter Scale of 8.9 at the epicenter...up in the Tohoku area by Miyagi, Aomori, and Sendai City...for the 2nd time this week!
Luckily this happened after the ceremony was well finished and didn't affect the students, but it's still scary. See the events unfold below.
Earthquake:
2:40ish pm - Felt an earthquake start...and it didn't stop. The building was shaking and I saw pictures on the walls shaking back and forth! We made a mad dash outside!
2:55 pm - Came back inside after having been outside and continued to feel the earthquake.
3:00 pm - Watched the news in the office and saw that the major earthquake was coming from up in Iwate and Miyagi prefecture, about 200-300 miles north. This is the 2nd major earthquake in a week!
Monday's earthquake measured at 7.2 up there. Today's was 7.9 and even up to 8.4!!
3:15 pm - Felt a major earthquake coming again and grabbed all my stuff and made a mad dash outside again!
3:20 pm - Came back inside and we all kept watching the news. There were tsunami warnings all over and coming down to even Chiba prefecture!
3:20-4:00 pm - Continued watching the news and continued to feel aftershocks from the earthquake. This is by far the longest lasting and largest earthquake that I have ever been in!
4:05 pm - Came home.
4:44 pm - Writing this blog and just felt another aftershock coming through!
The only means of communication to everyone out there to make sure they are ok is through facebook and skype! All the phone lines are jammed up and you can't make a phone call at all! Stay safe, Japan!
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