In which she wakes

Haven't blogged much for the last while because "We had another aftershock" gets boring after a hundred iterations.

Actually Sunday night was largely devoid of aftershocks. I mean, there were lots of 3s but who wakes for anything less than a mid-4 nowadays? I slept through a bunch of 4s too, though one around 5am I think woke me up. But between the 3-hour nap in the evening prior, and that 6-hour sleep, I felt pretty good.

I spent most of Monday on Twitter etc, and watching Covert Affairs. I sat on our library's online chat service all day and actually got one taker. (There was an aftershock while I helped them; we commiserated with each other.) I did laundry! (Did I mention we're also allowed to flush again? I approve of flushing toilets.) I boiled water for drinking, washing teeth, doing dishes, and giving to the cat. (The cat came back again in the evening, and disappeared again during a 3.7 just after I went to bed.)

Monday night graced us with a 5.2 and a couple of 5.4s, which sensitised me to the high 3s again so this morning I'm a bit sleepy and inclined to be grouchy to the Someone Wrong on the Internet who's railing that the library stack should have been better secured. (It was braced to delay the domino effect while hypothetical people scramble out. Anyway the books are heavier than the stack and they'd fall whatever you did.) I had an actual shower again and even washed my grungy hair (though of course I had it before Twitter informed us that one should boil water meant for washing the face too. Well, I'd instinctively avoided getting too much water on my face anyway).

Uni is still closed; all libraries are closed. Buses are running again. Mail and garbage collection is going. Domestic flights are going through the international terminal. The Central Business District cordon expanded when aftershocks brought down more buildings, then contracted again. Most malls are open. Rumours that Westfield Riccarton's roof collapsed are greatly exaggerated. Uni students are flashmobbing via Facebook to help residents cleanup. The city's own helpline for volunteers is saying, "Thanks for the offers but actually we've got enough help and resources now." (I heard the US was a bit put out when we declined their help? It's nothing personal, it's just we don't actually need it.) All public buildings including schools are closed until Wednesday. The Christchurch Writer's Festival has been cancelled. One of the welfare centres has been damaged and the people there moved to another one. People are cracking awesome jokes at #eqnz.

Some jerk at #eqnz also says uninsured people shouldn't get bailed out because it's unfair to people who paid for insurance. I. Argh. Trying not to think about him. But dude, seriously, you'd rather that people who couldn't afford insurance now be allowed to starve or turn to crime? You seriously think that "fairness" is worth that cost to society?

But anyway. Sample jokes:

New smoking packet warning: Smoking can cause you to stand outside and get crushed by bricks during earthquakes

Trying not to let the aftershocks get to me. I imagine I'm on the Enterprise and the inertial dampeners are failing.

"One, two, three o'clock, four o'clock rock! Five, six, seven o'clock, eight o'clock rock."

As if the poor people of #Christchurch haven't suffered enough. Apparently #Metallica are definitely still coming

It's a good time to move ugly/unwanted wedding/birthday/xmas gifts from Gran/Nana/MIL to the edge of your shelves, it's an ill wind...

It rained last night but the sun is shining again; plums and peaches are blooming and I think my tiny blueberry bush is putting up shoots from runners. I didn't know blueberries did that.

In which the mind works in mysterious ways

I could probably avoid all these effects if I stayed off Twitter and GeoNet and just read books or something, but that's not my coping strategy, and besides it's interesting.

1) If I'm awake, a 4 will still startle me, and a high 4 or a 5 will have me moving swiftly towards a safe corner. I know some people are rather more blasé by now (when I said in a previous post 100+ aftershocks I wasn't exaggerating in the slightest; there's an awesome timelapse mashup showing all the quakes to date) but uncool as it might be, this is at least a functional reaction and is Officially Approved by the Red Cross et al who point out that when the quake starts you don't know how big it's going to get.

If I'm asleep, what wakes me depends entirely on how tired I am - sometimes a 3 will wake me, sometimes I'll sleep through a 4 - but a 5 will have me leaping for cover. OTOH I've discovered today that the Official Recommendation from the Red Cross, FEMA et al if you're in bed is to just stay there and stick a pillow over your head, on the grounds that most injuries come from people moving about. If we get any big ones tonight I'll see whether my body or my mind wins out on that one.

2) I seem newly unable to go (and certainly not settle) anywhere without working out where I'll leap to if an aftershock strikes. This is also temporarily functional so I'm humouring myself on the matter. Plus it's just part of how my mind randomly wanders from time to time into working out exactly how I'd cope if I found I had to warn fellow bus passengers in Mandarin about an incoming tsunami, or stop a war if I was the president of the United States, or whatever.

I may also have spent a portion of the afternoon belatedly putting together the beginnings of an emergency kit, though further ingredients are required from the store and I won't start pouring water into empty bottles until maybe they've assured us our water is no longer at risk of sewerage contamination.... But I have completed a necessary stocktake of batteries in the house, thrown away the dead ones, and commenced recharging the rechargeable ones.

3) I've come down with what Wikipedia charmingly calls Dock Rock: when you've been on a boat for a while (or alternatively, in a hundred earthquakes over three days) and then you come at last to terra firma and you still feel as if the earth is moving but GeoNet insists that there haven't been any quakes for hours.

(Speaking of which, it's distinctly unnerving to go for hours without any aftershocks. One starts to wonder if the earth is saving up for something special.)

It feels like a whole lot of little 3s. This isn't just me; there've been a few people on Twitter wondering if they're going crazy, which is quite reassuring, so I've been reassuring people in turn with that Wikipedia link. (Under another name if you're wondering why @zeborah has been so silent.) This is probably why today I'm no longer noticing the (increasingly rarer) occasions when we actually are getting a 3. --Oh, except for that last one just then. 3.9, really? It didn't feel that big, but I guess that's why I noticed it.

And speaking of Twitter and such - if anyone ever thought Twitter chatter is all inane - there's just nothing more comforting, when you're sitting alone in a cold dark corner while the house shakes around you, than taking part in inane chatter and a rousing game of #GuessTheMagnitude with a bunch of complete strangers in the exact same situation.

--
Didn't go to choir practice tonight because the hall it's in has been damaged.

Seven libraries are opening tomorrow though not my local one - not sure whether there's damage/mess there I didn't see, or they just don't have enough staff.

I still don't get to go back to work tomorrow, but from the timetable I've seen, and talking to a colleague who knows a bit more, I suspect it'll probably be Thursday. It sounds like we'll be dumping books back on shelves without worrying about what order they're in....

In which she learns a new word (not an earthquake post!!!)

Okay, so I learned it from someone on the #eqnz Twitter feed, but that's not the point.

The point is this: I'm clearly behind the linguistic times, because this has been around for at least two years, and the word is this:

roflnui

New Zealanders may be able to parse it without aid. (I only had trouble the first time I saw it today because it was ROFLNUI so I thought it was all an acronym.) It's apparently pronounced "roffle-nui". It's derived from the acronym for "rolling on the floor laughing" plus the Māori word "nui" = "big" and thus means something like "this is hilarious!"

I really love New Zealand English.

I forgot to mention something earthquake-related but I've forgotten what it was again and anyway I said this wasn't an earthquake post, so I'll just go to bed instead.