We don't know when it's over. It's not that every time we relax there's another significant aftershock, it's that we're not relaxing. This is the thing that we weren't expecting, that we weren't mentally prepared for. Five days, and it hasn't stopped.

You summarise so well what I'm hearing from?

Houses and possessions mean very much obviously, they're about a place?

What seems interesting is that I'm not aware of a rush of Chch people just packing up and leaving the city for a week – Dunedin, Nelson, Wellington etc.

We've had offers, and I just had a call from my mother offering again. But we'd not be able to relax,?

What seems interesting is that I'm not aware of a rush of Chch people just packing up and leaving the city for a week – Dunedin, Nelson, Wellington etc.

Except for this lot, who aren't being given a choice.

My father described the fault as one "pissed off?

I also reflected that this continuous jaw-grinding, nerve-wearing stress is likely how people with anxiety disorders feel all the time.

I just had a call from my daughter's MinEdu Advisor, who's a very lovely person. Halfway through someone nearby slammed a door and she freaked out.

It lit up Twitter ... We shared our shock, our laughter, our shout-outs to John Campbell like he was a real person ...

After the aftershock this morning, I texted my mum, and she didn't reply for 90 minutes. Most of which time I spent checking Stuff, to make sure there wasn't suddenly?

Oh, and a little belatedly Emma, your column in the current Metro is fucking great.

Thank you. (I've been working on learning to take compliments like a grown-up.) It'll also be part of an exhibition on Outrageous Fortune at the Auckland Museum this summer. I'm quite chuffed.

ETA: Wait, um, not like that. I apparently have a case of terminal suggestiveness today.)

I read it in bed last night, Emma. (Your Metro column.) Honestly, it kind of felt like you were in the room with me. It was nice.

ETA: Wait, um, not like that. I apparently have a case of terminal suggestiveness today.)

This would be the room you suggested I?

Seriously, Oh My God, escape the aftershocks, come to the Great Blend, and sleep on the couch. It'll be just the kind of therapy Paula Bennett thinks you can have.

(Except, not really, but,?

Also, being a very scary person, maybe I could come down there and make it all stop?

Please!

Am so sick of the aftershocks (particularly the big ones-yikes). It would help if I could sleep more I think, but my ability to rationalize has gone out for a stiff drink.?

Lilith – apparently it's "Mr Tulip"

One of the best things about the updates he's posting is that they sort out the truth from the rumours. Rumours and misunderstandings are propagating like crazy. I just had a worried call from my Mum who'd been told by a neighbour that?

A burning need to do something?

this continuous jaw-grinding, nerve-wearing stress is likely how people with anxiety disorders feel all the time.

Yes — a bit like having your own personal Alpine fault, plus a few dozen lateral ones you didn't know were there until they randomly act up. Exhausting. I cannot imagine a city full?

Yesterday you tweeted a map showing all the aftershocks after the big one with a time schedule since the quake, and just watching that made my hair stand on end. Being from Bay of Plenty we had some experience of?

Yesterday you tweeted a map showing all the aftershocks after the big one with a time schedule since the quake, and just watching that made my hair stand on end.

I honestly can't remember who I got that link from on Twitter, but I think it conveys the experience in?

I think it conveys the experience in a really scarily tangible way.

Yes, by the end of it, I was shuddering uncontrollably every time a sizeable jolt registered. Whatever you have to calm your nerves, I suggest you take more. Well, within known safety limits of course.

Experiencing it all from a distance is strangely odd and unsettling also. It still seems curiously surreal somehow. I thought that would?

Our building is Green Stickered, we're next to and opposite two Reds.

I had wondered at the Ghost town analogy, but it is apt. As I walked to clear the PO Box past the?

People are noticeably much much more stressed and strung out and tired than they were when I left. This morning's 5.1 disturbed a lot of people.

I went straight into work at 11,?

However, there is an asymmetry in that self-employed people are eligible for only the unemployment benefit at most – 240 ish.

This affects a colleague who like me works part-time
(in his case only casually) and runs a business part-time in the central?

I've been out helping with the uni student crew and that's been great for giving all this free-floating adrenaline something to do.

A spot of work therapy might be just the thing for people (some people, those who can and want to do it): something helpful to do, in company,?

Hmmm. After watching JC tonight down by the Avon.....No wonder we haven't heard from the Rocket Man.

Its not so much "Up Front".

It's what "Out Back" we ain't seeing.

Keep?

I've realised that for my own mental health, I'm best to avoid the TV news and disaster porn.

I was actually thinking that all this media, including social, isn't very good for people as it acts as a feedback loop. Maybe earthquake advice should involve switching off radios, televisons and?

Whatever you have to calm your nerves, I suggest you take more.

I'm drinking tonight. I don't do that terribly often but I think it's both needed and deserved at the moment.

We're all in this horrible, shaky limbo and just when you think things are returning to normal (I?

I was actually thinking that all this media, including social, isn't very good for people as it acts as a feedback loop.

Social media has been a big help to me in the last few days, not so much the TV and newspaper coverage which scares the crap out of?

Yesterday you tweeted a map showing all the aftershocks after the big one with a time schedule since the quake, and just watching that made my hair stand on end.

You know, for extra effect you can go to that page and hold down your F11 key.

Now, why dont we have roving blood donor depots for this kind of event? Flying ones?

I'm really really serious about this: I have no intention of donating blood on a regular basis (aside from anything else I have the kind of veins that you can view swimming out of?

something to ground me and I thought Tai chi would be perfect

Tai chi makes a big thing about feeling connected to the earth, lowering the body's centre of gravity, and relaxing the body to feel the strength of the ground firm beneath you.

To all of which on Saturday?

Or it's been good for mine, anyhow. Also helpful has been distracting myself with DVDs, books, short walks, tai chi on the lawn, anything that changes the focus, even for a little while.

Yes, folks, be aware that different people deal with shock in different ways, and if someone isn't?

I get dragged in as soon as the three months is up from the last time, and they're always desperate for new donors, particularly people who will consider platelet donation at the moment.

Interesting – I've never been asked to come in if I leave it longer than three months,?

Interesting – I've never been asked to come in if I leave it longer than three months, even though I do donate quite regularly.

I'm O-, so it's practically like clockwork.

I like donating blood (well, not so much like as think it is a good thing to do) but remain stymied as we were living in the UK in the 1980s, and it is feared our blood might turn everyone into mad cows. Surely this is being over-cautious!?

One suddenly?

we were living in the UK in the 1980s, and it is feared our blood might turn everyone into mad cows.

Or Grey Teddy Bears apparently.
;-)

Some things in don't make sense to me at a glance – different standards for males and females having anal sex for example – but maybe that's backed up by risk percentages.

I remember how furious I was that I couldn't give blood for a year because I'd slept with?

Well, it's not so much a matter of 'allowed'; you sign a declaration that you meet all the standards and you're sure your blood's OK

Admittedly it was a good nine years ago or so, but I'm pretty certain that I definitely wasn't allowed. Of course, once I was finally?

Admittedly it was a good nine years ago or so, but I'm pretty certain that I definitely wasn't allowed.

Internet Language Deficiency; no, you're not allowed, but they have no way to definitively tell whether you're telling the truth or not (or, as you say, whether you accurately know your?

I remember how furious I was that I couldn't give blood for a year because I'd slept with a boy who'd slept with a boy.

I was pretty irate when the Red Cross guy at a school blood drive wouldn't let me give blood because "people from Europe aren't eligible?

I appear to be disbarred on four or five grounds.

It's like a public-health-sponsored Purity Test.

Would not believe that New Zealand isn't in Europe.

"It's near Iceland, right?" (Actual quote from actual Ivy League undergrad).

Could be worse; a friend of mine was repeatedly asked for her TOEFL results.?

Just like when you have to register on a site and click the dropdown for "where do?

Wifey works for an American based company. She is forever getting calls at 3am. They just don't get it. Seem to have no idea the world is round and the sun never sets.

I have one client in the States and they used to do that constantly. So I changed?

you'd think they would have worked out the concept of time zones

They have time zones *in their own country*, FFS! That's what gets me. (Plus – and you'll love this, Gio – they all have iPhones now and could use that multi-clock feature. :) )

a really surprisingly high number of times correctly identified as a Kiwi

Are we thanking Jemaine, Bret and Rhys for that? I feel like we should be.

those same sites refuse to accept that someone could be living in the US and ordering items to be delivered to them in?

Are we thanking Jemaine, Bret and Rhys for that? I feel like we should be

At least one person referenced them as the source of their understanding, so thanks are being mentally sent.

usa.com
usa.org
usa.net

If the educators in that country had used their brain they could have introduced the "Rest of the World" concept to their fellow citizens the day the URL was invented.

What annoyed me even more was NZ companies desperate to?