Earthquake!

Not again.   

One of my freshmen students lived through it.  She's in my speech class and wrote her speech about how precious life is, contrasting the recent suicides at a neighboring university with her experience helping in a hospital after the quake and meeting a man who cut off his own leg in order to free himself and crawl from the rubble.  I spent some 1-1 time with this girl and she spoke quite freely of her mixed emotions.  She said she didn't think anything else in her life would bother her after the experience of last year.  She also said she's not sure how she should feel as the 1-year anniversary approaches.  She's thankful and relieved that she and her family are alive, but there's also sorrow and regret for those who are lost.

Yeah, definite mixed emotions about the 1-year anniversary here in Chengdu, grateful that we survived and also a bit reluctant to remember if you can understand that, would be easier to forget all about it, except we can't. Tomorrow the Chengdu Bookworm is doing a commeration evening and, if you want to help the rebuilding effort at all, check out this and go buy it:

Abigail Washburn is an amazing bluegrass singer and banjo player from the US.  Abigail came over last year and went to an old University where some of the Wenchuan middle school students were being housed because their school was destroyed by the earthquake.  Abigail used to live in Chengdu, so she is fluent in Chinese and sings many Chinese folk songs.  She entertained the kids that evening and became inspired.  A few months ago Abigail and David Liang from Shanghai Restoration project came back to Sichuan with an idea.  They created an album that would raise money for Earthquake victims.  The album is called "Afterquake" and it will be released this Tuesday.  It is on sale on I-tunes and Amazon for download for $5.99 or if you live in Chengdu it will be available to purchase at The Bookworm.  It is 18 minutes long, but it is well worth the money, I heard a preview last month and it was fab.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103906236&sc=emaf

Suzhou Bookworm is involved.  Charity event coming up.

We held a minutes silence at the time of the earthquake.

And at that time I also thought of the 150,000 (and counting) fatalities from Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar a week earlier.

Yes, I agree with avoiding Panzhihua. Nothing much to do there. Very very hot in summer and the pay there is not much either.