Earthquake!!!

We huddled in the lounge near the door, wrapped in our blankets. “If it shakes like that again, go outside the building,” one of the locals told us. She proceeded to say how little tremors are good, because they release the pressure in the earth, which prevents having a big earthquake.

After chilling in the lounge for a bit, us girls we returned to our classroom to finish our movie.
We were having a “girl’s night” complete with popcorn, Oreos, and of course, chic flicks. At one point the guys had interrupted to beg for popcorn. Later, when the tremor had started, at first I had thought it was just the guys pounding on the wall, but how could it be so loud, and make the cement floor shake? One of our staff dove under a table, and then I realized I was experiencing my first earthquake.

Over the course of the last 2 months I had heard people comment on the little tremors they had felt. I had felt nothing, because these tremors had taken place during break/snack time, when everyone was moving around and Scott was making lots of noise. How could we notice a little tremor?

Last night’s “little tremor” was impossible to miss. One of the locals estimated it to be a 4.5, being from around her, she knows what she's talking about. For me, that raises up lots of questions about earthquakes. Was what we felt a 4.5? Or was the epicenter was 4.5...wouldn’t what we felt vary depending on how far away we were from the epicenter?

I looked it up today – it was a 4.6 earthquake in San Jose, and the epicenter was not that far from us. Apparently it was no big deal, because life is continuing as usual...