Tsunamis and Techno-Elves

Today started out rather interesting: as I was on my way to work (on my bike, at 5:00 am; yes I am crazy) Mom called me on my cellphone to let me know that there had been a magnitude 7.9 earthquake near Tonga, and that Fiji and New Zealand were on tsunami alert. I work on the 7th floor of a building about 200m from the waterfront, so this was a slight concern. The 'alert' had not yet escalated to a 'warning' though, so I continued my journey, got to work, and began cleaning. It was interesting to meditate (while scrubbing sinks and emptying waste bins) on what could occur. Caught up in that was the thought that it would only take a series of unfortunate (but not too unlikely) events and I wouldn't get to enjoy the sunrise that morning, or any other. In my defense, I'll say right now that I'm not morbid or melodramatic; I was not frightened or even concerned. I knew that while a tsunami (even one large enough cause major damage to the building) was possible, I didn't really believe that it would happen. Nevertheless it was absorbing to speculate. Needless to say, nothing came of the whole thing except for a lot of people evacuating their homes unnecessarily though not unwisely.

 

The rest of the day has been a little more mundane. I've been preparing my programme (Fern Hill; a monologue by Rosencrantz from 'Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead'; and an extract from 'The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy) for the Performing Arts Comps in July, and reading a very interesting (for LoTR fans and science geeks) book called 'The Science of Middle-Earth'. Its goal was to show how many of the phenomenon of Tolkien's famous writings could indeed have been possible, and have a scientific explanation. This was not the killjoy that it seems; it enhances rather than detracts from the wonder of these works, and is written by an author who knows when to admit that he is out of his depth. My favourite section was when he attempted to find a substance/substances that Feanor could actually have made the palantiri from. He made quite a good show of it in the end, and was very convincing. Perhaps the bit that made me laugh the most though was when he proposed the theory that all orcs were females. No, he's not sexist and neither am I, but I did get a good kick out of that section. My sister didn't find it so amusing.