Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Kevin putting it out there

  • Earthquake update Day 6

    Six days since the earthquake, and things are looking very uncertain. Last night Julia and I stayed up until about 2 AM watching TV, and then some House and Glee we got off the web.

    Julia as Tigger keeping warm
    Julia as Tigger keeping warm

    We had a much cooler day today, dipping to about 35 degrees (F) at 6 AM when we had our power cut for the first time. Maki had made coffee by then so we had a little warmth as I got up at 7, and as the day progressed. Power on at about 10 AM. We watched in the morning news with the baptism of the reactors by helicopter. It looked very ineffective. It was also just in time for Julia to get up. Maki cleaned and then I took her to the closest shopping center. Shopping here in Tokyo is usually more vertical than horizontal. You get free parking for 2 hours if you spend at least $20 in the stores. The roads were eerily quiet, and for the first time ever, I got a parking place on the bottom of the 8 floors. The bank was having problems with their computers, so I could only deposit the $2,400 in coins (they have a $6 coin in Japan, and Maki has been collecting them for 5 years) to spend on the trip in Hawaii. Have to look forward.

    Kevin in reading gear
    Kevin in reading gear

    I bought cheese from Europe, and we got a wonderful nice warm baguette, as bread has reappeared for the first time since the earthquake. We got back home to turn on the TV to get the announcement that because of the cold weather, people were using too much electricity, and a second black-out was due at 2. I finished off the book “Reality is Broken” by Jane McGonigal, while bundled up and at the window with the most daylight. I reminded Maki that we had lived just like this in China 20 years ago, when volunteer teaching in Nanjing. After the lights came back on at 5 we sat down with a nice bottle of wine, some soup, and the cheese and bread for dinner, and hung around in the kitchen, with the gas heating, to avoid using electricity.

    The temblors continued throughout the day, a little wiggle right now, but with 3 significan shakes in the afternoon, all of which were mercifully short, not enough time to get to the door. The electric company guy said that we are still using too much electricity, and they may have to shut off all the power across the area later tonight. Let’s hope people go to sleep early,as Maki has done.

    Maki Day 6 with Dexter
    Maki Day 6 with Dexter

    Now starting the new book by David Brooks about brain, physiology, emotions, and society, called “The Social Animal”. Will curl up under the covers and get up early tomorrow to get stuff done before our blackout from dinner time to 9PM tomorrow. We get blacked out at different times each day. I may ride the bike into my office, which doesn’t have any blackouts (the capital is exempt) to get some work done there.

  • More worries, but still distant

    We got our electricity back in the middle of the night last night. I went to work today. When I returned, I finally was able to see the devastation.

    A new worry comes today, but it is still at a significant distance, about 300 miles away.

    Radiation in Japan
    One of the six power plants next to each other in Fukushima exploded at 4 PM this afternoon. The authorities are still “measuring”, but have expanded the area of evacuation from 10 km to 20 km radius.

    Currently the radiation emitting is about 1,000 microseiverts, or 1 seivert, per HOUR. Normally there is about 1 seivert per YEAR. Each Seivert is equal to 100 rems. That is about 10,000 xrays. (1 chest xray = 10 mrem, or .01 rem)

    There is a long history of the authorities massaging the data and outright lying to the public in cases like this. We are all watching carefully.

    They may have to cut our electricity about 3 hours each day because they have closed most power plants. Nuclear accounts for about a third of electric power in Japan. Gas and water are also rumored to be under discussion for rationing, but those are only rumors.

  • Everybody OK here in Tokyo

    It is just past midnight, about 10 hours after the earthquake. We just got our electricity back, so are able to make phone calls and send emails. It is still wobbling every once in a while.

    This was the scariest earthquake of my 26 years here in Tokyo. I had just finished skyping with Anri. It started off like any other earthquake (we get about one a month), but then didn’t stop. It started building and the lamps in the front hall started swinging from the rafters. Whoops…another wobble…maybe things aren’t done yet. We have had at least a dozen smaller aftershocks.

    But no real damage. We had a mirror and a couple of pictures fall off the walls, the computer walk toward the edge of the desk (and later back in the other direction), and lots of stuff knocked from tables onto the floor. The electricity went out, but I had daylight enough to get things in order.

    Julia was in Nagoya visiting her grandmother. No problems there. Anri is safe in Loveland. Maki was in the basement of a 40-storey building downtown Tokyo. The quake swayed the whole building and made her seasick. Whoops…another wobble…. She took the bus to the nearest big station, and the aftershock make all the cars tilt and whirl. The trains were all stopped, and tens of thousands of people were waiting for a half dozen busses. Maki and her friend walked about 4 miles to the river border between Tokyo and Kawasaki.

    I finally found her phone number on a telephone bill. I went to the local store to call on the pay phone. I rendezvoused with her in the car, and took her friend home. Huge traffic jam, took us 2 hours to go about 8 miles. We returned to a cold dark house, lit some candles and read books (well, kindle for me). Maki was tired but not sleepy, and nodded off about 10. The electricity came back on at 11:45.

    What did I learn? I will go out and get a cell phone tomorrow. Update the backpack with the survival stuff in it. Check for cracks in the new old house.

  • Komaba Cafeteria

    Here is another look at the Cafeteria in Komaba for the University of Tokyo.

    pod22cafeteriaZ from TokyoKevin on Vimeo.

  • Digital Storytelling begins

    I am so excited to learn about Digital Storytelling, a way to express myself on the web using all of its capabilities. Since I teach English in Tokyo with technology, I am looking forward to integrating this into my seminar class with my best students in our new academic year starting in April.

    Just a quick note, I have two other sites where student work is regularly posted. ShowaELC is for news about our university (Showa Women’s) and our English Department (ELC, or English Language and Communication). LanguageJapan is for student input from my (and my friend’s) classes. These are mostly audio and video podcasts, with the focus on explaining things about Japan to people who speak English, from the point of view of a university student.

    The Digital Storytelling MOOC (Massively Online Open Course) is my third in a row. I collaborated with 1,300 other teachers online last fall in a great course on building a Personal Learning Network (PLE) called PLENK. As that ended, I started a much smaller, simpler collaboration (most would not call it a MOOC, but an online book discussion) centering around Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. The Rose in Winter has been a bit of a disappointment as the interactivity level could be more robust, but it did allow me to bounce my thoughts off others, and for me to learn other viewpoints. Still, with such a rich book for discussion, it has been a whole new way for me to read fiction.