Furniture Delivery in the Morning and Earthquake Tonight.

This morning my shipment arrived from Korea. Clothes, books, furniture... the residue of the last eight years. Thirty-two boxes, ranging from the manageable to the unmanageable and I have now unpacked all but four - and that's quite enough for one day. Hyundae Shipping were expensive and the almost four months' wait was not short but the job was really well done. The boxes arrived looking as fresh as when they were packed in my apartment in Korea. And one of the Chinese employees spoke enough English that we were able to sort things out quickly, efficiently and quite amicably.

The Taiwan company was just as efficient as the Korean companies. They called in advance to set up the time - I had specified that it must be a Saturday - and said they would be here between 10:30 am and 11:30 am. They arrived early at 10:15 and had finished and gone in an hour.

And this evening, after a day's unpacking, we had an earthquake. http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/19/taiwan-earthquake.html. This is the third quake here in the almost four months I've been here. It's disconcerting to be sitting at my desk marking student essays watching my desk move! And wondering... Would it be a good idea to go outside now? And should I use the stairs rather than the elevator?

Then my neighbor, the French teacher, came barging in through my front door - I leave my front door unlocked in case he wants to barge in - and said: "Let's go. We should get out of here. The aftershock will be worse". I was a touch skeptical because by now my apartment was no longer rocking and things looked normal again and I could go into the kitchen and start picking up the things from the floor. So I asked him if our Chinese neighbors had already gone out. He banged on their door and they opened with puzzled looks on their faces as he explained to them the necessity of immediate evacuation.

The daughter, our neighbors are a mother and her two grown daughters, smiled at him and explained that there was no problem. I convinced him that they had lived here all their lives and were better judges of the situation than we so he settled for coming into my place, watching part of an old Laurel and Hardy movie and having a glass of Glenlivet to calm his nerves.

These earthquakes are unsettling - and there's no pun intended there.