Sequoia Wild

(response to a friend’s email) Thanks for checking in and letting me know what you’ve heard. I don’t have a computer right now as it broke a couple days before the EQ, so I haven’t updated my blog. Obviously I am a bit nervous about the radiation- I would rather not be exosed, and given all the movies I’ve seen about radiation exposure, if I think about it, it is a horrible thing to imagine laying dormant until it affects me later. But really, those images are from movies where some hero sacrfices themselves by walking into a reactor or after a nuclear bomb drop– hardly the situation here. So even though I am being exposed to more raditaion than I would like right now all the sources i’ve consulted say it will be fine for me to stay until July as planned. Your info about suspected  ”withholding information from the public” scares the crap out of my me on some level since it brings up my ancient paranoia of authority, but I don’t want to ignore the possibility because of course it happens. Can you send me some references to a reputable source that has suggestded that, or what info they said was being altered or suppressed? Everything I have seem with those claims looked like doomsayers or conspiracy theorists, sometimes with an anti-Japanese racism bent, so I would need something more objective to go on. Thanks if you can send them my way, and I will ask around here, too. The other foreingers have news sources they trust outside japan.   

From my experience, things are largely back to normal here except for a lack of bottled water, as they have said that developing infants should not drink the tap water. I wish my Brita filter removed the radioactive idodide- that would go a long way to making me feel better. I’ve cut back on my tea just in case. 

I haven’t seriously considered leaving Japan yet. The main 2 reasons are that I need this job to save up money for starting music school in sept, and getting a new job that pays this well in time would be near impossible. The other reason is that I have a good system going (after 10 years of experimentation) with losing weight (down 27 pounds) and don’t want to risk disturbing it by upheaving my life. Obviously if the threat becomes more severe I will leave, but for now I feel like this is a good enough situation. 

You may know that I still have an aversion to the news so I’m not being bombarded daily with s thousand opinions and editorials in the events here so I’m not feeling the level of concern you seem to be picking up from the US news. My friends and boss are keeping me in the loop in addition to my own fact checking so I think I am taking care of myself in a good enough way by staying here. My sister and I have been talking daily as she is my check in person with the program I designed for myself. My brother and I talked a long time last weekend. I’m not sure what they’ve heard or if they’re very concerned because I expressed my experience to them which was exciting and scary for a few days, weirdly surreal for the week after that, and then I was back to work and my person projects with few differences. I suppose it’s possible we all have simial aversion to the news and feel safer in ignorance, but I also think the situation is not so bad. It probably just feels worse with me being far from home for you guys, but as I have a life here, it’s not really disturbing me as much. A lot of teachers at my company have left and are leaving, but to each their own. I have to pay the deposit on my music school next month so unless I can randomly get a pile of cash for that, I need to be practical. 
So that’s everything, I think! I hope this allays your fears, and if not please let me know! I am typing on my iPhone with one finger so thus took forever, but I’m sorry I wasn’t more communicative and let you worry! 

Thanks for thinking of me!