It's not looking so good...

Soo...

Japan's not looking so good right about now. EIL was super awesome and called my mom and had a long discussion with her about the situation. What's going to happen is for the next 10-14 days, the program is still on. If the conditions are deemed unsafe for students after that time, than the program will be cancelled. :(

But it's not a total loss! If my program is cancelled, which I'm sad to say that it probably will be, than I get to choose any other program that they offer and I automatically go to the top of the list. I'm actually starting to lean more towards Korea than Thailand or China.

But let's not think about that now! I will get back to you about this topic in around 2 weeks and I'll tell you my plan.

See you!

じゃね！

당신을 보십시오!

Bad News: 2, Good News: 0

So.. I bet everybody who has a blog is making a post with this topic. So, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do. I mean, the earthquake and tsunami were bad, but not bad enough to stop an exchange. But then the nuclear power plant decides to go and explode...

Well, I know that there were some Rotary clubs that cancelled their exchanges, and AFS severely postponed the yearlong exchange, turning it into a semester exchange. Too bad you can't really do that with a summer exchange. Hopefully, I will still be able to go to Japan, but at this point, I really don't know. I emailed EIL a couple hours ago, and I am impatiently waiting for them to respond.

So, for all of you that haven't had their faces glued to msnbc.com, earlier today, the wind started to blow the leaking radioactive particles out to sea where they would dissipate before they reached California. But now the wind started to blow south. Right towards Tokyo. There are some scientists who say that the particles will dissipate before they reach Tokyo, but I personally think that is a load of crap.

According to an article I read (I'll link it at the bottom), the radiation levels around Tokyo have risen 40 times their normal level. Even though this level is "no threat to human health," it is still enough to cause a panic. Foreign embassies are encouraging foreign citizens to evacuate Japan and to avoid traveling near Japan.

I hope this clears up, I really do. But the sad thing is, it may not. And I'll just have to deal with that. The really bad thing is, if Japan doesn't pull through, I don't know if I'll get to choose a different country to go to this summer, or if I'll have to wait until next summer. But I have a couple countries as my backups. My first is Thailand and my second is China, both of which will probably not get any of the radiation from Japan.

And just so you know, I haven't forgotten about the Philippines!! I have about 1000 pictures and I'm still looking through them because I can only post so many. So a post about that will be up soon. And I'll update you about this summer as soon as I can. And in case anybody was wondering, I heard from my friends in Davao. It turns out that the tsunami had weakened by the time it hit them, so the beach waves were just a little bigger than normal.

So,

See ya!

じゃね！

再见!

แล้วพบกัน!

Article

Interesting Video

Earthquake in Japan

This is just so surreal. It's the kind of thing that I never would've imagined would have ever happened. I was in Japan only 3 weeks ago. And then, everything was fine. Everybody was living their normal lives, doing whatever. And now, everything is destroyed.

When I went to the Philippines, we visited Davao. I've heard recently that the tsunami hit Davao, but I have no idea how bad it was. I haven't hear back from anybody yet, but I hope to soon. For all of you that have friends in Japan or any of these costal areas, or if you are there yourselves, I wish the best for you. This is a hard time, but I know that we will pull through not as Japanese or any one nationality, but a species as a whole.