Now I’m working for an awesome company where I have the honor to work with inspiring people every single day. Not to mention I can start my mornings with an hour of working in bed with a kitten snuggled up behind my laptop! Okay, I admit it isn’t the best habit to be in, but with a winter chill finally settling in here and a fluffy kitten or two for company who could resist! (The photo below is from when Aslan was recovering from the vet visit that left him less one testicle. Yes, you read that right. Even though they cut in to his belly, they couldn’t find #2 to complete the pair. But that’s another story)

The transition to working from home has been an interesting one. Of course there are pros and cons to the remote working model. One con is of course the loneliness factor. Some of my colleagues live in big cities, and can work socially. The nearest colleague I have is a three hour drive away. There are also very few wifi hotspots in this town, so it is a challenge to work out of the house for the simple purpose of getting out.

That being said, in addition to having the option of getting cozy in bed or on the couch during part of your day (don’t you love laptops?), it can be quite a luxury to work from home. I have set up my office to my exact desired specifications. When I’m not one the phone taking calls I can listen to my favorite podcasts or music while I answer user’s email questions. I’m not gonna lie, it can be pretty awesome most days. It doesn’t hurt that my company does a particularly good job of maintaining our “office” culture across state and national lines too.

More on my tactics and lessons learned about remote working later. Until next time!

I haven’t paid enough attention to this blog since crunch time with my thesis. During the interim period between now and my official start date I thought I would revamp my blog and portfolio. I was greeted by the unhappy realization that my image hosting service, TinyGrab, has yet again failed. After the security breach earlier this year, the urls for all of the (non-flickr) images I used here on wordpress were changed. I went through one by one relinking them and updating their locations. TinyGrab has had a tumultuous year, any while none of my images were lost I’m not sure I have the stamina to go through that whole process again. I cannot trust that further problems won’t arise. If you have a reliable free service, feel free to share your recommendation. In the meantime I’m going to slowly start moving images to WordPress and flickr.

Instead of prattling on, here’s some photos of cute kittens!

Did I mention that we got a second kitten? Oh yeah, we did.

Over a year ago, an old friend of mine  suggested that I check it out. At the time I was packing up my life in boxes before I headed back to Japan for my final year of my Master’s studies. A year and two dozen swaps later I am a total junkie for this service! It is so great! Instead of donating unwanted books to the thrift store, my previously preferred disposal method, I can make sure I’m sending the book to someone who actually wants it! Whenever you send a book, you pay shipping and receive a credit in return. You can then turn around and use that credit to order books you want to read from other users, or even apply the credits for a discount off of amazon! If you have books you want to get rid of, or a collection you want to round off, or something you need to read for school, check out Paper Back Swap! (And you can even check out what I’m offering on my bookshelf now – my username is sylviaplath!)

Thank you very much again for your efforts to raise money for our disaster relief. Your support will make a difference in lives of those in most need now. Thank you very much. Please let us know if you have any questions. Second Harvest Japan greatly appreciates your support.

Check out Second Harvest Japan, and their blog.

Our thesis deadline is barely more than a week away, and while I am pretty frustrated with the lack of updates I am probably not going to be able to write or post anything substantial until after that time. In the meantime, here is an quick snapshot I took from my window this morning. (In case you are wondering, the snow is not gone yet, though it melts more and more every day)

For much more, check out the entry at the Pink Tentacle. There is also a burgeoning candle light youth movement in Japan, where young people hang out with all of their electronics off & read, talk or jam by candlelight. Awesome. I hope we can take some of this to heart and change our daily lifestyle to reduce our electricity consumption on a regular basis and not only in extreme situations

During the break, two students loaded up a car with donations of warm clothing, non-perishable food, and other basic supplies. Apparently one of the students in particular funded the majority of the donations – this news was one of the most heart warming events of the break for me. With the addition of some donations assembled by the community here, they drove all the way to the affected region, and delivered the clothing to a centralized disaster management center located in Kamaishi City, Iwate Prefecture, and being run by a coalition of NGOs, prefectural and federal government and the Japanese Self Defense Force. The food and drinks were then delivered to the city hall in Kasennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture. Apparently, the city hall is one of the few structures left standing in the city. Here is a message from one of the students who delivered these donations:

The government officials in tandem with other agencies are taking good care of the citizens. The citizens are living either in the shelters or come to these shelters from their houses to collect daily necessities like food, clothing etc. Bit by bit the destroyed cities are being cleaned up and in some parts electricity has already been restored. The authorities and citizens have expressed their heart felt gratitude for all the things.

Professor Watanabe gave a seminar last Friday titled “The Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident and its implications for the long-term strategic choices of Japan.” He discussed the details regarding the disaster at the nuclear power plant, as well as what this entails for Japan’s future both in terms of domestic struggles with lives and livelihoods at risk, economic losses, and international relations implications.

It is not clear how Japan will come out of this disaster and find a way to manage the risks to the human security of its people in the future. But its history will depend heavily on whether it can significantly strengthen its capacity to manage both natural and manmade risks.

After the success of our previous donation drive, and because donations are still needed in Tohoku for all of those displaced, GCF is relaunching a monetary donation drive! We have placed donation boxes out around campus again, and have already received generous donations from various IUJ alumni groups! Let’s keep up this momentum!

PS. For those of you with my mailing address, it has changed recently! Please email me for the new information if you are interested.

First of all, I would like to extend a hearty thank you to everyone who contributed to our fundraiser for the Tohoku/Sendai Earthquake and Tsunami relief effort. With your help, over the course of merely one week we raised a grand total of 120,000 yen (almost $1500 USD by current exchange rates). Nearly $300 of that was from online donations alone, and the generosity of the IUJ community both here in Uonuma and throughout the ‘diaspora’ has left myself and fellow GCF members touched and heartened. Again, thank you.

Secondly I must personally thank my wonderful boss, Mrs. Kojima, whose assistance was indispensable. She is an amazing, efficient and kind woman, who immediately responded to my request for help and went above and beyond even what we asked of her. Also, I want to thank Louis for his dogged hard work on this fundraiser’s behalf – and for lending his time, language ability and patience to this endeavor.

Where our donations went

Our donations were sent to Second Harvest Japan, a food bank style organization. Normally, they provide food to orphanages, battered women’s shelters and other organizations in need. They are currently collecting donations of money as well as of food and other basic supplies in order to assist disaster victims. According to the Second Harvest Japan website, “for every 1,000 yen donated, we deliver 10,000 yen worth of food to the needy.” Therefore our donation of 120,000 yen translates to 1,200,000 yen worth of food relief. You can see details about their operations from the Second Harvest blog or from their english twitter feed.

Sendai, March 19, 2011 - from the Second Harvest Japan blog

We know these donations are urgently needed:

Search-and-relief efforts in the prefecture of Miyagi, where the police chief believes the final quake-tsunami death toll could reach 15,000, have been delayed by driving rain.

“We basically cannot operate helicopters in the rain,” Miyagi official Kiyohiro Tokairin said.

“We have been using helicopters to deliver relief goods to some places but for today we have to switch the delivery to places that we can reach by road,” he said.

More than 350,000 people are still living in evacuation centres in northern and eastern Japan.

There are shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine in the shelters, officials say.

(emphasis added)

Source: BBC

Donations are still very much needed. While our GCF donation drive is now closed, there are still many ways you can contribute if you so desire. As I mentioned in my previous post, you can donate money through the following reputable organizations (this list is most certainly not exhaustive):

• Google’s emergency response page – Red Cross Japan
• Mercy Corps
• Second Harvest Japan

GCF Donations for Earthquake Victims

Radiation Concerns

I want to very briefly touch on remaining concerns about radiation here in Japan. Please refer to this widely circulated and easy to understand radiation chart from xkcd- it really helps to put things in perspective. Bear in mind that it is not written by an expert but rather compiled from multiple sources. As mentioned in the previous post, I would recommend referring to MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub for the most accurate information about nuclear risk.

As a friend of mine pointed out, American news has tended to sensationalize these issues more than the Japanese news. She linked to this article, saying “I don’t necessarily agree with this article 100.1%, but it makes a good point.” I feel the same – this commentator seems to put the japanese news media on an unduly high pedestal, but I agree with their point about the hyperbolic nature of most western news coverage of the ongoing disasters in Japan.

As the president of our university Mr. Mori said recently in an internal statement to the students, IUJ buildings are safe, as the Niigata prefectural government is well prepared for any new crisis that may unfold. We are located more than 300 kilometers away from the epicenter of the most serious quake, and 189.18 kilometers away from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. We are following both Japanese and international news sources very closely here, and our emergency evacuation plan is well practiced. We each have our own personal evacuation kit including a hard hat because Japan is very earthquake prone and Niigata itself suffered a large earthquake in 2005 (at that time there was little damage and no casualties here at IUJ). Outside of the very hard hit Tohoku region, the trains are running again. TEPCO has planned power outages which do not affect us here, but we are contributing to a nationwide effort to conserve electricity.

Of course, I do not mean to say that everything is okay everywhere in Japan. As anyone who has caught a few moments of any major news program lately will know that there has been a terrible disaster off of the north eastern coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island. There was an absolutely massive (8.9) earthquake off of the coast of Sendai followed by a series of powerful aftershocks and a huge 10 meter tsunami which has destroyed people’s lives and wiped entire villages off of the map.

Update: If there is any doubt in your mind about the scale of the disaster here in Japan, please take a look at these satellite before and after images of the post tsunami and earthquake’s impact. Move your mouse across the image to reveal the before and after comparison. Especially look at Fujutseka, Noriaga, and the absolute devastation of Minami Sanriku. (Thank you Donna for sharing this link.)

We are still reeling from the shock of the images on tv and weeping with the interviews of survivors and people who are still looking for their loved ones in northern Japan. If you have the means to help, please consider donating. Global Concerns Forum at IUJ is running a donation drive on campus and you can donate to us through Pay Pal as well (see the button below). We are also collecting goods needed by those in the most seriously affected prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima. All donations will go directly to relief efforts here in Japan.

Alternatively, Mercy Corps is accepting donations for Japan, and Google’s emergency response page includes an easy to use Red Cross Japan donation box. Please keep your thoughts and prayers with those still in need. Only today my boss received news of her sister in law’s family who live in Sendai and had been unaccounted for, and many others across the world are still waiting to hear from their loved ones.

For those who are looking for information about the status and safety of affairs in Japan, please refer to the US Embassy website. Here is an excerpt from the latest message from the American Ambassador in Tokyo (March 13, 2011 at 16:30):

This warden message is to inform U.S. citizens residing or traveling in Japan that they should notify family and friends of their status.  This information is also being posted on the Embassy website to help family members learn the status of the person they are looking for. The U.S. Government is communicating closely with the Japanese Government on events as they unfold.  We have and will continue to mobilize all appropriate resources.  The U.S. Government and all necessary experts are fully engaged in analyzing the issues, including the Fukushima reactor issues, in close consultation with the Japanese Government.  We are committed to providing you with all necessary information as we receive it.  There is no double standard – what we advise our Embassy personnel will be provided to all U.S. citizens.

Please understand that there will continue to be substantial misinformation in the public domain. We urge U.S. citizens in Japan to follow the instructions of Japanese civil defense authorities.  The Japan Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) has recommended that people who live within 20 kilometers of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Okumacho evacuate the area immediately.  No other measures have been recommended by Japanese authorities at this time.

U.S. citizens in need of emergency consular assistance should send an e-mail to JapanEmergencyUSC@state.gov with detailed information about their location and contact information.  We also recommend U.S. citizens in Japan make contact with loved ones in the United States. Please continue to monitor the Embassy’s website for updated information and the U.S. Department of State’s website at http://travel.state.gov.

U.S. Embassy Tokyo

Also, flights have mostly resumed:

Flights have resumed at all airports that were closed by the earthquake, except Sendai, Sado, Iwate-Hanamaki, and Misawa Airports.  In Tokyo, most public transportation including trains and subways are operating.  Many roads have been damaged in the Tokyo area and in northern Japan, particularly in the Miyagi prefecture where government checkpoints have been established on damaged roadways.  In Iwate Prefecture, toll road highways are restricted to emergency vehicles only. (Source)

General Information:

• Official Statements from NHK and the Japanese Government (live and in English)
• Volunteer to be a Translator to assist in rescue and relief operations if you have the necessary language skills
• Japan’s Strict Building Codes Saved Lives
• American Embassy in Japan
• NASA has released the following image of Tohoku Earthquake Shaking Intensity

Nuclear Power Plant Situation:

• Offical Reports about the Nuclear Reactors
• MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub
• Q&A About the Nuclear Plant

Please stay safe, and stay calm. Much love!

Edit: Here is an enlightening website maintained by MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering that thoroughly and clearly explains about the Fukushima Nuclear Plant situation. MIT NSE Nuclear Information Hub (information is available in English, Japanese, German and Spanish)

Edit: The recent episode of NPR’s Talk of the Nation discusses the state of things in Japan: Search and Rescue Continues in Japan Disaster