Author Topic: Good Morning 2011: Wherein the emo comes to roost (Read 95781 times)

Bardiche · « **Reply #300 on:** March 10, 2011, 08:05:22 PM »

Quote from: Idun on March 10, 2011, 04:57:05 PM

"Anti-Islam?"

I'm shaking my head right now.

We have that Geert Wilders' party, which became famous and popular mostly because of its solely singular agenda of "get rid of the invading islam" (not my words). It's a big part of how the Netherlands work at present: everyone's shivering in their boots over those weird people from a non-European country that have different habits and customs from them. The government is taking really bizarre steps to single out a religion, going so far as to suggest that islam people should be disallowed from ever becoming a minister because "the Netherlands is not an islamic country".

So far that has been rejected, but you never know when even the First Chamber falls to this ridiculous stupidity that has half the nation in its grip.

Given the Dutch tolerance policy mostly involves "we're going to pretend you don't exist and just do our thing", I suppose it's only natural that when you can no longer practise that policy you'll feel endanger... but I read the newspaper this morning about Americans protesting against some anti-muslim measures, even though they're not even muslims...? The sense of unity must be far stronger in America.

Here, it's always "us", the Netherlands, and "them", the ones who are not. Naturally I'm one of "them", but I've not yet felt the hatred of the community too much, aside from the standard occassional name calling and so. ;d

Cmdr_King · « **Reply #301 on:** March 10, 2011, 08:27:48 PM »

The US tends to have three broad groups. "Us", which is your fucktarded Fox News types, "Everyone", which is your more hippy-like liberal types, and "Me", which is the majority.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #302 on:** March 11, 2011, 02:57:18 AM »

So much cynicism in the GM topic today.

Let's talk about how awesome it is that my students are graduating and everyone's crying tears of bittersweet joy.

I'm mostly happy because it means I get to re-use my old curriculum for next year and don't have to keep coming up with new games for every single elementary school class. Also, my annoying 6th-graders are going to Middle School where I don't have to put up with their shit anymore! YES!

The rest of the classes I'm genuinely happy that they all passed and that the 9th graders all got into High School or Trade School.

Also, today is the start of a Tokyo Weekend! Whee, drinking, dancing, and cheap hotels~
I might even get to speak English to someone who understands what I'm saying for a few hours! Oh what fun! Maybe I'll call in sick Monday and stay an extra day?

Anthony Edward Stark · « **Reply #303 on:** March 11, 2011, 04:02:59 AM »

Got my term paper back.

A, of course.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #304 on:** March 11, 2011, 04:30:08 AM »

Update on "Last Day of Classes":
During Lunch, the students played the last like 7 minutes of the EVA TV series over the intercom. Normally they play music or something, but today I got to eat lunch listening to Shinji have revelations followed by a stream of congratulations~

Kind of amusing, but the best part was when they finished, one of the students gave a "Next Episode preview" for the coming semester in the style of Misato. Service, service!

Shale · « **Reply #305 on:** March 11, 2011, 04:34:49 AM »

Given that Eva was made before most or all of them were born, that's pretty damn awesome.

NotMiki · « **Reply #306 on:** March 11, 2011, 06:54:14 AM »

That's great, Djinn! The graduating, I mean. And the Eva too, come to think of it. Graduating and going to a different school is exactly the right time to be thinking, "hey, I don't have to be a loser if I don't want to be!"

Clear Tranquil · « **Reply #307 on:** March 11, 2011, 10:48:29 AM »

* Clear Tranquil hugs Djinn

Glad you're ok man. I was worried until I checked Facebook >_> Dunno if there's still going to be singing and dancing but yeah (drinking in a block out the sorrows sense probably still applies <_<) You DL peeps and your living in dangerous places!

* Clear Tranquil drags Djinn off some place safe

Bardiche · « **Reply #308 on:** March 11, 2011, 05:27:26 PM »

Glad you're having fun, Djinn. :-) One of the kids I teach sang a song in class all by herself~ it was so cute~

Edit: and then I read the news and feel like a dick.

Idun · « **Reply #309 on:** March 11, 2011, 05:46:44 PM »

Djinn, are you okay?

Lady Door · « **Reply #310 on:** March 11, 2011, 05:52:34 PM »

From DJ's Facebook:

DJ
For those who are worried, the big earthquake/flooding combo that's going on in Japan is in Sendai, which is significantly North of Tokyo on the East coast of Japan. I'm in Gifu, which is very much the middle, and I'm pretty safe as far as I can tell. ;)

DJ
According to the Japanese news, the Quake was Magnitude 8.8, though most of the sources I'm seeing online say 8.9... either way, this is the strongest quake to hit Japan in recorded history. Despite that... I didn't even actually feel the big tremor up in the mountains. My co-workers were kind of shocked when I said I didn't notice it until they turned on the TV to follow the reports.

Idun · « **Reply #311 on:** March 11, 2011, 05:57:58 PM »

Ah, I should have checked his FB. Glad he's okay (: Just heard something of it via Twitter this afternoon.

Jo'ou Ranbu · « **Reply #312 on:** March 11, 2011, 11:38:08 PM »

Yeah I was going to ask if he was buried underground when I got home from work. Good to know you're safe, hope you people recover fast and that the armageddon world tour doesn't decide to replay the performance.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #313 on:** March 13, 2011, 01:55:51 AM »

Well, Japan is, shock, well-prepared for Earthquakes. More things were destroyed by the Tsunami than the quake itself. And a lot of people were saved thanks to the Early Warning system. This could have been much much worse, and they are honestly expecting to have most things up and running within a month, lost housing aside.

Looked at from another angle though... the last big Earthquake in Japan was in 1995, and Japan is... well-known for being overly cautious about them. Essentially, Japan has had over 15 years to prepare for this Earthquake, and it -still- did this much damage.

Yoshiken · « **Reply #314 on:** March 17, 2011, 02:31:56 PM »

Phew, good to know you're okay. That was actually my first thought, and my lack of net made it somewhat difficult to check. ><;

On that note: I've started at work! It's surprisingly fun, and I've been pretty busy working on, if nothing else, a newsletter for the place. I'm gonna be doing database management (when staff are working on 3 different systems here, so also some way of accessing said database) and website design/production once I get access to the main system here. I've already been given a set of keys, opened up the office this morning, and I've had meetings regarding the newsletter production. It's only a 6-month contract, but I'm earning over 3x what I was from benefits and it gives me something to do with my time. On the whole, yay!

Lady Door · « **Reply #315 on:** March 17, 2011, 07:27:56 PM »

*flails*

Fenrir · « **Reply #316 on:** March 17, 2011, 07:51:15 PM »

People have probably already said that to you Djinn, but don't underestimate the nuclear threat too much.
The Japanese authority / media wants to avoid too much panic, like the European authorities did with Tchernobyl back in the day.

Luther Lansfeld · « **Reply #317 on:** March 18, 2011, 01:11:43 AM »

There have been days and days of evacuation and not too radiation has actually been released into the air. If there is a more serious problem, there will have been several days in advance to get everyone out. Likening the two feels a little extreme; the levels of radiation released are much closer to the thing that happened over here in the U.S. in the 70's.

Fenrir · « **Reply #318 on:** March 18, 2011, 01:47:25 AM »

Yeah, its definitely not the same scale. There have just been reports from ministers during Tchernobyl that the nuclear cloud was everywhere except in your country and this was only 25 years ago.
The incident is far, far less dramatic and the japanese governement more reliable (There's no other way anymore because of the Internet) but the explosion threat (dangerous because of the groundwater underneath the plant) was seriously minimized. "Don't stay less than 20 km/13 miles from Fukushima"? Not enough.
There's been a lot done to contain it and the air (And water btw) radiation is not -too- bad. But you might as well stay as far away as possible for a while.

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #319 on:** March 18, 2011, 03:49:36 AM »

But if I don't drink irradiated groundwater, how will I ever develop superhero powers?

Anthony Edward Stark · « **Reply #320 on:** March 18, 2011, 05:41:17 AM »

Ghoulification isn't so much a superpower.

Dark Holy Elf · « **Reply #321 on:** March 18, 2011, 06:44:55 AM »

To be fair, it's not hard for a government to be more open about things than the old USSR. That Chernobyl was as bad as it was is can mostly be laid at the feet of (a) gross incompetence "hi guys let's shut off all our security measures while we run some tests, this can not possibly go wrong", and (b) lying to their own people outright "oh man let's send firefighters in and not tell them they are dealing with radiation because then people would know we screwed up". They also clearly intended to cover the whole thing up but couldn't because radiation levels reached Europe (not enough to hurt people, but easily enough to be detected). EDIT: That is non-Soviet Europe obviously.

It doesn't hurt to be safe even so, but at the same time, I'm not sure I fully agree that the media is trying to diminish things to keep everybody calm (probably depends on the media; I've seen more than a few outlets doing their best to whip people into a frenzy).

DjinnAndTonic · « **Reply #322 on:** March 18, 2011, 06:48:11 AM »

Just from casually watching the Japanese news, I'm honestly surprised that my crazy-paranoid neighbors haven't started lead-plating their windows.

Shale · « **Reply #323 on:** March 18, 2011, 04:46:30 PM »

Speaking of which, I'm honestly wondering when "cover the reactor in a giant lead box" becomes a reasonable solution.

Grefter · « **Reply #324 on:** March 18, 2011, 09:24:32 PM »

Got to get a sheet of lead under it as well and getting all that stuff in there without sacrificing people is hard. You can't work remotely super easy around radiation because of how it fucks with electronics.

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Author Topic: Good Morning 2011: Wherein the emo comes to roost (Read 95781 times)

Bardiche

Bardiche

Idun

Idun