Yes, it’s already December.
I do not like winter. I do not like being cold. The ironic part is that winter here is not even that cold (rarely below 0°C) especially these days (yes, winter is less and less cold here, in the 10 years I’ve lived here, there has been a noticeable difference). The problem with winter in that part of Japan is not the cold outside. It’s the cold inside. See, in France, regardless of the temperature outside, I pretty much wear a T-shirt most days when I’m indoors (sometimes a long sleeve one). Not in Japan. Japan doesn’t seem to have discovered insulation when they build houses. Ok, they know about it, but most houses just don’t have any. So, in winter, it’s cold outside, but it’s also cold inside. And that, I will never get used to.
Apart from that, it was a pretty uneventful week which started with me catching not one, but three students cheating at a midterm test. I was not happy. It’s not even the cheating that aggravates me. It’s the thinking that I won’t notice. Maybe, they’re used to gullible teachers. Dudes, I’m French. Anything a Japanese student will try, most French students have done, and even worse. Oh well.
And the week ended with an earthquake on Friday morning. It was biggish. No damage was recorded, but it was scary. Maybe because it was the first time I was on the 4th floor during an earthquake, but it shook more than usual. Still, the actual scary part was that there was another earthquake of a similar intensity more to the east a few hours earlier. So, that second earthquake, the one I felt, could have been big. When it started to be felt for more than a couple of seconds, I really thought that there was a very big one (2011 style) happening more to the east and that it was so big, we could feel it here.
Realizing - after the fact - that it was actually of the same size as the first one, but much closer gave a little relief, but not as much. The Nankai Trough is due for a very big earthquake soon. These two earthquakes are definitely linked to it.
The “funny” thing about earthquakes is that you never know what they mean. Do these two earthquakes back to back mean that the tectonic plates are releasing some energy, and as such, weakening the chances of a big one? Or the opposite? That they are the “pre shocks” (like there are “aftershocks” there are also “pre shocks”) of the big one. Could be either. No one knows.
Fun fact: Mount Fuji is also due for an eruption, it will probably happen in our lifetime. I’m mentioning this because the first quake of Friday morning was located close by. Mount Fuji’s next eruption is definitely linked to the Nankai Trough.
Apart from that, what happened on my blogs this past week?
Not much on Setouchi Explorer. Actually, no update at all. However, I’m pretty a lot of goodies for the coming weeks.
Oh and I posted this video on Youtube. It is a part of a series of three (or four?) videos recorded on the same day. There will also be a blog post.
In Liminal Web, only one tiny post, of Montignac, a village in the French South West that I really like. Not only because it’s very cute, but also because it is the home of the Lascaux Caves (you may have heard of them).
I didn’t write anything in Swamp Media. Not much time to write this week (well, I did some in French, you should learn French). However, the good thing about having several authors for the same blog is that we can take turns. And this week, Big Kamo had a very important announcement to make.
He’s one of the winners of the Sony Vlog Challenge 2021!!!!
In case you didn’t know, he’s an awesome video maker (not like me) and you really should follow him (all of his relevant links are in the link above).
Last but not least, do you know the TV show Survivor? Well, it’s one of my favorite shows, it has been for 21 years. Back in the days, I used to have a blog about it, but not anymore (the available time thing again). However, I recently realized that Substack was the perfect support for talking about it more or less regularly. So, if you’re reading this from your inbox, go to the Newsletter webpage, and you’ll notice two tabs under the title. They are two categories. “Soliloquies” is this newsletter that you’re already subscribed to (if you’re not, please do) and “Surviving Survivor” is the companion newsletter, entirely devoted to Survivor. You need to subscribe separately if you’re interested (on the webpage, on the top-right menu, go to “my account” and from there you can subscribe to it).
And even if you don’t know or don’t care about the show, I advise you to read my latest entry (titled “Do or Die”) where I explain why I love the show, and why it’s important to me among other things.
Ok, I guess that is all for today.
I wish you all a great week and talk to you soon.
Best,
DavidB
P.S. Oh, by the way, there’s a giant space cat in my city.