A Much-Needed Day Off
Yesterday, as indicated in my Silent Witness post, I didn’t go the National Christchurch Memorial ceremony in Hagley Park. But in the end I did give myself the day off. March 18 was declared a special public holiday so everyone here in Christchurch had the day off, including most/all of the people doing infrastructure and service restoration work around the city. Very well-deserved, too, in their case; no question about that.
In the end I decided that calling time out for one day at least was a really good idea: no tidy up work, no books, no workshop prep. Just time out to sit in the sun and recharge the batteries—and of course as soon as I did I felt absolutely knackered, as you always do when you’ve been running simply to stand still—and then do, finally, stop. So in terms of calling a city-wide “time-out”, maybe yesterday was absolutely the right thing to do.
Another question people have been asking me is whether I’ll be staying in town for Sunday 20th, given so-called “moon man” Ken Ring’s prediction that with the moon at perigee Christchurch is in line for another/even more massive quake. So I’m nailing my colours to the mast and saying that absolutely I will be here. I wouldn’t dream of leaving, in fact. Firstly, because I don’t believe the moon being at perigee has an equatorial snowball’s chance of causing a major earthquake. A major earthquake may happen, but that certainly won’t be why. (Massive tectonic forces at play is my pick on that one.) Secondly, because I regard predictions of this kind as being in the realm of scaremongering, given we’ve only just suffered a second major earthquake, and scaremongering makes me very cross. It’s really not what we need right now. Thirdly, because every single millenial-style prophecy of doom that I have ever heard has come to absolutely nothing. So there you go. I may yet have to eat humble pie on this one, but I’ll certainly be right here in Christchurch on March 20. After all, you should never pass up an opportunity to put yourself in a position where you may have to eat humble pie! 😉
So what did I do while I was sitting in the sun, doing that serious relaxing? (Or ‘re-raxing’ as one of my Japanese aikido instrcutors used to say. And yes, I did feel sad just writing the word ‘Japan’.) I read Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Dragonfly Falling, the second in his Shadows of the Apt series. I liked the first book, The Empire of Black and Gold well enough, but my sister—a keen reader—has assured me that they go from strength to strength and I’ll admit that I did enjoy Dragonfly Falling a lot, so am looking forward to getting hold of the third-in-series soon.
What a year it has been–and we are only still in March! I think that the day off is a good idea as long as we remember that we still need to keep giving to Christchurch. It’s by no means over. I’m frustrated too by the ‘moon man’ who is literally a lunatic. Where’s the science to support his claim?
No science at all, Harvey. I believe he reads the modern-day equivalent of chickens’ entrails or some such thing. And his predictions prey upon the fears of the gullible, as has been the way since time immemorial …
And you’re right, with a significant proportion of the city’s sewage pumping stations still out of action and some roads still impassable as opposed to simply ‘hard to navigate’, Christchurch’s need is still far from over. Current predictions say ‘at least 10 years’ before the city returns to anything approaching ‘normal’, but I think it’ll be a lot longer than that when you think about the damage to infrastructure, loss of business and jobs, loss of buildings … I think that reality is starting to really kick in just about now.
Have you seen the supermarkets today, Helen? People are panic buying. It’s ridiculous! Even here, they’ve got cues outside since they can only let a certain number of people into the stores at a time.
Apparently people think can openers are a huge necessity too. We broke ours yesterday and needed a new one so we could get into the cat’s jellymeat (she’s very old and can’t eat kibble), and everywhere was sold out. We had to resort to a $20 one from Farmers.
It’s crazy. It hasn’t been like this since the days right after the quake. I’m no good at predictions, but I can say for sure the place seems to have lost it’s collective common sense.
Wen, sometimes I shake my head over the human race. As if we don’t have enough that’s ‘real’ to worry about. I hope that can opener lasts you 20 years! 🙂
LOL, me too! At $20 it better! At least the cat is fed because food is her top priority in life 🙂
I think a lot of this is down to magical thinking — the human tendency to apply meaning to coincidence. I remember reading in my psychology books that we use magical thinking to help us cope with the unknowable or uncontrollable. Makes sense to me. There’s a lot of stressed people wanting someone to give them certainty, some sort of control over something completely uncontrollable. They’re likely to hang that belief on anyone who sounds even vaguely confident about their theory.
I’ve always tried to keep an open mind about things, but it’s beginning to seem like that’s not a very good idea at times like this. The way I see it, big tremors are always going to be possible anywhere in New Zealand. The best you can do is be as prepared as you possibly can and then forget about it, and get on with life.
I try and keep an open mind as well, but even though a speculative fiction author the most relevant word in that phrase is “fiction” and so I always try and separate “fantasy” from “reality.”:)
Wen, it’s even crazier here in Germany. People are buying iodine tablets and dosimeters because of the increased radioactivity at Fukushima. Which is pretty much as far away from us as it can get on this globe. And they want to switch off all nuclear plants line NOW – maybe they should switch off the sun as well; it’s by far the biggest of the lot. 😉
I feel for the people who are close to Fukushima and who’d deserve a news coverage about their plight, not about what effects a nuclear meltdown may have for us (which according to experts is pretty much zero). Just well I can get some non-German news channels.
Gabriele, it’s weird what panic will do to people! Christchurch had a mass exodus because of the predictions, and many of those left were buying up everything that wasn’t nailed down! It got totally out of hand. It’s difficult to tell (with the news contradicting itself at every turn) but it certainly doesn’t seem like anyone outside of Japan has anything to fear from Fukushima right now.
It is like a big social experiment in fear world wide. People are scared, and scared people do some very odd things, apparently!
Where did the people go to feel safe? From what I understand those continental plates can get hiccuppy anywhere along their borders and that would include a large part of New Zealand, I suppose.
I think the internet has made things worse. We get pretty much the same amount of panic now than we got during the Tchernobyl (or however that’s spelled in English) explosion, and that time we were close enough to get a whiff of radioactivity, though not in a dangerous amount. Yet no one except the Green Party talked about abandoning the nuclear energy concept for good back then like they do now – and even Merkel budged to the pressure from what she fears may be a majority though she’s a physicist and should know better.
I think it would be fair to say that in NZ there would be nowhere that could be regarded as free of earthquake risk, since like Japan it is located on the Pacific ‘rim of fire.’ I have to say though, that I am deeply thankful, watching the situation at Fukushima unfold, that NZ does not have nuclear power stations, given that we, too, are so quaky and shaky. and given that long term safe disposal of the nuclear waste such stations generate is still an issue.
Helen, yes, I can understand that people in NZ won’t want any nuclear power stations after the experience of Fukushima.
But Germany isn’t exactly earthquake prone (the worst we may get is a 4 in the Rhine valley) and we have places to deposit the nuclear waste. Moreover, other European countries have nuclear plants as well, and we’re taking their risk, too. Germany won’t be safe from a nuclear fallout by closing off all power stations. It will only make the prices for energy soar even worse than they already do. I just got my electricity bill and I’m a bit grumpy. 😉