Aftershocks, aftermath and life in general

Come to think of it, the earthquake hit at the best possible time. At 4.36am, no one (or not many) people would have been up and about. Night shift generally finishes at 6am, and partiers are home by 4am. Even people that may have been in the library are usually home by 3am - this compounded with the fact that it was the holidays meant no one was hurt. So far we've had more than 300 aftershocks. Apparently 1 out of 10 (read it in the papers, but don't quote me on this!) houses have sustained damage.

The following is a picture of our library (possible the 4th floor).

Absolutely insane eh? Thank God it happened during the holidays and at night. I imagine people would have been seriously injured, or crushed to death being caught in it. We are not able to borrow books in the central library for this semester...unfortunately. Poor lib.

Here's another one of the library staircase. Minimal tiling damage.

I promised some quake photos, but the ones I took are a bit poor, and I have not yet uploaded them...so here's some of the devastation the Garden City has suffered - estimated to be 4 billion in damage - this figure seems very likely to rise...

 There's blue and red writing on the white wall where you can just make out the words 'Fish & Chips'. Unfortunately that was my friend's parent's shop. His shop is featured in Yahoo! News...for all the wrong reasons =/.

Fire broke out on Worchester St soon after the earthquake.

The dude in the background taking photos looks strangely like my friend.....similar leather jackets I guess?

Personally I've found this to be quite surreal. The suburb I live in was not touched, not even a jot! The cherry blossom trees are still growing, their buds becoming delicate pink blooms. But it is really really heartwarming to see student volunteers helping clean up the mess in the suburbs (the inner city is still cordoned off) - a couple hundred students giving up their time and energy to clear the silt, water and broken masonry from houses and streets. A couple are helping by baking scones, muffins etc for the volunteers and for the residents who may not be having the best time finding food. Real heartwarming! Shining example pulling together as a community :).

The opening date for term 4 has been pushed forward 2 weeks, 1 week more than the 1 week that was originally planned). That means another extension for my essays, and less material for the exams! I feel sluggish though, =/ I better get my butt back into work.

Aftershocks have decreased dramatically! Good news for people who are still afraid of the aftershocks. As for me I'm pretty much over the novelty of the constantly tremoring ground.

Some clever fish at Canty U wrote a webpage recording the timeline of all the earthquakes - this includes depth, intensity and radius. Check it out!

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Thanks to SL and L, I will be watching 500 Days of Summer. Significant other (lets call him D) thinks Joseph Gordon-Levitt is hot! :D so I've got the all clear to watch it with him. *cough*

Watched a short clip of JGL playing an electric guitar and singing Lady Gaga's Bad Romance....I'm sorry JGL, but you can't sing that well :(.

Oh, and here I compare JGL with D.

• They both play the electric guitar (woohoo!)
• Both studied French (though D dropped it ages ago. Heh.)
• Both look greattt in suits. (Invest in a fitted suit guys!)

Ok, I'm done writing for the night. Writing an email for the club, then I'll be off. Night to all :)