Hi to everyone who’s stopped by courtesy of a very kind compliment and subsequent link from the LiveJournal JETjapan community! I doubt most of you will be back, but if you do check in again, feel free to say hi and tell me a bit about yourself, if you’d like. ;o) It’s cool to get an idea of what other JETs are like who come across this.
So I’ve said repeatedly that the distance becomes particularly keen when something not good is going on at home. Adam’s death triggered a lot of homesickness in waves over the past month, though I rationally knew that there wasn’t anything I could have done had I been there. However, something new has come up–inclement weather.
Atlanta is one of those areas in the US that’s prone to those nasty buggers called tornadoes. Some unseasonably nasty storms have already started coming through this early in the season (and tornado season technically only runs from May to September, if I remember correctly), including a bad storm that came through metro Atlanta and spawned several tornadoes, TWO of which hit my city. Though I knew that nothing had happened to my family because the news reports specified exactly where the tornadoes hit and because I called home and got the answering machine, it was a bit nerve-wracking, just not knowing.
I finally talked to my mom tonight, though. It turns out that there were multiple touchdowns within a 15-minute radius of our house (meaning that if you drove up to the highest points in our neighborhood, you would have had a shockingly clear view of them), but my family sustained no damage, which is a huge relief. Mom said that “there were about 10 to 15 minutes that were really scary, because the wind was really, really strong,” but that’s all. It’s just rare that they get so close–the last time I can remember was when I was in high school.
Another byproduct of Mom’s call, though, is that if I do fly back to the US in late June/early July, I may now be flying into and out of Boston. A second-cousin is getting married and my family is planning on being in Boston during the first few days of my trip home…so we’ll see what happens with that. I also didn’t realize that our semester goes until mid-July, so I would totally be missing class to take this trip, which I was hoping to avoid. But to go during vacation time means that I miss seeing a lot of my JET friends off, and that I miss a lot of the orientation stuff that I’m kind of obliged to attend. I have to decide soon.
I should write more topical posts…Michelle asked me ages ago to talk about my kids and I don’t think I have, but due to the nature of my schedule, I really don’t know any of them well enough to be able to say a lot, and I know very, very few names. Got any other suggestions?