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<editorsnote> Hi, I'm Jen Friel, and we here at TNTML examine the lives of nerds outside of the basements and into the social media, and dating world.  We have over 75 peeps that write about their life in real time. (Real nerds, real time, real deal.) Sit back, relax, and enjoy some of the stories!! </editorsnote>

 

 

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Entries in heather reusz (17)

Tuesday
Feb072012

#NerdsUnite: Around the world with @HeatherReusz

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Heather. She's a nerd who is currently living in Japan by way of Chicago. Yep, talk about a culture shock. She's here today to talk about her life, love (which she is currently balancing long distance) and all things nerd. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT HEATHER!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @HeatherReusz

I was planning this week on writing a little bit more about me and how I came upon this job but then something happened this week that shook me to the core, literally. Last week, I experienced one of the scariest earthquakes I have felt. I knew that earthquakes came with the territory of living in Japan. In fact, I accepted my position with the company about 2 days before the Great Tohoku quake hit. I was confident though that since a large one had just hit the chances of another 9.0 magnitude quake happening during the year I’m here was pretty slim.

At first, they freaked me out a little bit. Coming from Illinois, earthquakes were not on the list of things I had experienced before. It’s almost like the earth knew that so the very first week I was here alone, I was woken up at 4:00 AM with a 6.3 magnitude quake. I woke up in a panic clinging to my bed just waiting for it to pass. Since this initial quake, I have been woken up by earthquakes probably about ten times. They are just a fact of life here. There is small earthquake literally every other day. They are so small though that your body barely registers them. For the first month I was here, I thought there was something wrong with me. I would feel dizzy and disoriented almost every day. I finally told my manager about it and she just chuckled at me saying that those were just passing 2.0 magnitude quakes. So basically I never know if there is a little earthquake going on or if I’m so dehydrated I’m about to pass out. The bigger ones just kind of make me feel like I’ve had a little too much to drink. I get really disoriented and stumble a bit and then just move on with my day. I felt so Japanese when I just taught my class through a 5.1 a couple of months ago. My kids barely reacted to it. I was in a room with four 5 year olds and all they did was pause for a second to watch my reaction. I was astonished. Good thing I didn’t panic!

So clearly I can handle earthquakes like a boss after 6 months of living here, what scared me so much about the one last week? It started as a typical morning being woken up by an earthquake. I awoke with a start gripping my bed. I know that that is something I will never get used to. Waking up to your apartment swaying is pretty terrifying. Luckily it was 7:45 AM so I was about to get up anyway. I sleepily walked over to my computer and started it up just to check what the magnitude was as I’m always curious to know. As I sat at my computer desk, I heard a strange noise almost like an approaching train only about 20X louder than what I’m used to. I later convinced myself that it was the sound of the ground moving under the pressure although I’m not sure you can actually hear that. My whole apartment started shaking. My poor lamp fell over as did a couple of other small things on my desk and dresser. I dove into my earthquake safety zone. It passed in about 30 seconds which is the longest one I have ever felt. I hopped online to check out what the deal was with this earthquake. I was certain it had to be at least a 6.8-7.0 magnitude quake. I was beyond surprised to see that it was only a 5.3. My first reaction was to be disappointed that I had overreacted to such a small earthquake. As I did more research I realized what had made it feel so terrifying for me. My apartment was about 7 miles from the epicenter of the quake. That means that it was much more violent and lasted longer in my city.

The main thing that freaked me out though was the aftershocks. I have never felt aftershocks before but since I was basically on the fault line I felt everything. We had earthquakes for about a good 45 minutes after the big one. They weren’t all too small either. There were about three in the 4.0 range before they started tapering off. My co-workers were more freaked out by the fact that there was a smaller 4.6 before the 5.3. Apparently, that almost never happens and is a bad omen. Yikes! Everything has been pretty clear so far though. Let’s just hope that this stays my most terrifying earthquake while I live here.

#nerdsunite

click here to follow Heather on Twitter!

Monday
Jan302012

#NerdsUnite: Around the world with @HeatherReusz

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Heather. She's a nerd who is currently living in Japan by way of Chicago. Yep, talk about a culture shock. She's here today to talk about her life, love (which she is currently balancing long distance) and all things nerd. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT HEATHER!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @HeatherReusz

Konichiwa! Yoroshiku onegaishimasu! In Japanese: "Hello! Nice to meet you!" My name is Heather. I'm an adventurous nerd who is living and working in Atsugi, Japan for a year.

I’m originally from the wonderful city known as Chicago which already makes me a bit of a sports nerd. I love the Cubs and Blackhawks by the way.  I'm actually a very stereotypical nerd. I love all things comic books, video games, technology, and anime. It was my nerdiness that helped lead me to this exciting life adventure. I grew up watching animes like Sailor Moon, Pokemon, and Cardcaptors. If I could get my hands on them, I would read the manga versions of the shows as well. My local library was really hardcore and had a large selection of mangas. This kindled my interest in Japanese culture. The spark that really set me off though was one of my best friends in middle school. Her family was Japanese and saw how much I took an interest in the culture. Her mom was thrilled that I wanted to learn more about her home country. She taught me some classical Japanese arts such as playing the koto (it's like a floor harp), tea ceremony, and flower arranging. From there, I was hooked! I stared just gobbling up all the anime, video games, and comic books from Japan that I could find. I started going to anime conventions which introduced me to a whole new level of subcultures that intrigued me. It was like jumping into the rabbit hole. Nerds were the coolest people I had ever met and 12 year old little Heather wanted to be THAT awesome.

So, I dug deeper into subcultures. I started to read American comic books. I’m a DC girl all the way in case you were wondering. I bought my own gaming computer, set up a Steam account, and started making gaming a regular part of my week. All of this came together to one simple dream: I HAD to visit Japan sometime before I died! Then I got thinking…why should I just visit there? I started looking into job opportunities and BAM! Here I am teaching English to the cutest and most adorable Japanese children ever. Now, I don’t actually speak Japanese. Introducing myself is about all I know. Well that and some simple survival phrases. Nor did I know anyone when I first moved here. I’m pretty much just feeling my way through the dark and having a blast! Like this one time, I got stuck in Tokyo for the night and had to just wander until 5AM or this other time in Yokohama...Oh!  Did I mention that I’m trying to maintain a long distance relationship? So, yeah, there’s that too. Things can get pretty interesting when you’re forced to be away from each other for a year… Clearly, I’ve got a lot of learning and growing to do! Enjoy being a part of the ride fellow nerds! It’ll be a blast! 

#nerdsunite

click here to follow Heather on Twitter!

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