My 3.11 Experience

I was in seventh grade on the day the 3-11 earthquake hit Japan. I distinctly remember being in English class––we were sharing the poems we had written over the course of the semester. The class was laughing at somebody's humorous poem, when suddenly the quiet girl in the class uttered, "earthquake." I didn't hear her say it, but within the next few moments her table friends had repeated it for the teacher to hear. "QUIET!" he yelled, with a serious stern expression that made as stop speaking immediately. Then we heard the rumbles. The shaking. Growing up in Japan, an earthquake-prone zone, those two stimuli connect quickly even in our 13-year-old heads. We all scramble to hide our bodies under our desks. We could tell it wasn't like the usual small shakes. Books were falling to the ground, and the projector screen swung violently left to right. I remember looking around me; a boy to the left of me had tears welling up in his eyes, while the girl who crouched down in front of me was struggling to hold in her giggles. No one knew how big this earthquake would be: how disastrous of a memory this day would be remembered as. Fortunately, most students lived within walking distance of our school. That day, we sat under our desks till our names were called––a signal of our parent's arrival. My mom and little sister came to pick me up an hour later. We were safe, and our house perfectly intact. Had I known of the disasters that were occurring elsewhere at that time, I don't know how I would've reacted. I simply remember feeling grounded by my house and family that continued to stand solidly, when I came home from school that day.