a definite trend has developed over the past few weeks. i notice that when there is an earthquake the night before between 11:00-3:00 there are a lot less students in class the next morning. i suppose that is because it's difficult to get back to sleep for a while and people are pretty exhausted when it is time to get up. for the first couple of weeks, when an aftershock would wake me up i would go to my laptop "command center" and check all the meteorological sites for data on size, epicenter location and tsunami warnings. now, i just wake up for a few minutes and go back to sleep when my apartment stops swaying. i never experienced and earthquake before i came to live in japan. now suddenly a 3 or 4 on the scale is like a belch. perspective, ne.