7 aftershocks last night

I hardly slept last night but I don't remember feeling the earthquakes so I was surprised to hear that there were *7* quakes in the night. I felt two of them... It was coming up for 11pm and I said to Dom "any minute now we will have a quake because they always seem to hit at about 10 to 11, or 11pm" and then voila, we had 2 in a row. I also told him that we would have some at 3am and at 5am, and I was right. How does the earth know???

The other night I was in bed reading (Dominic was at ice hockey) and I was so engrossed in my book (about a woman from Afgahastan) that I didn't notice the time and then we had an aftershock that made me really jump. Usually our roof creaks and then a second or two later the cupboards start clacking and the house shakes. This one though just went BOOM (and it was an upward thrust), shake shake shake shake shake. The earthquakes themselves do not scare me at all. It is like the kids jumping on the bed in the morning... I've felt it hundreds of times before but I didn't expect this one so my whole stomach clenched up so hard it felt like I had been hit by lightening. I actually thought "heck, I've been electrocuted???" and then realized it just a fright. How weird is that?!? I also broke out in a sweat and my heart was racing - all in about 1/2 a second. Needless to say the kids slept thru it. Megane however groans in her sleep when we have an earthquake. After about 5 seconds of shaking she always groans or moans so I know she has felt it but hasn't woken up. Seb sleeps thru the girls getting ready in the morning... he wakes for nothing!

Dom said at the ice rink the building is very rigid so it clangs and rattles - he notices that but not the ice moving up and down. I guess that is because he is so speedy :)

At my school, Jayne in Yr 9 went under her table during an earthquake and the rest of us just looked at each other. She didnt' want to come out so I told her I was fine for her staying under there for the rest of the period. When we did partner work Saskia went under the table with her. How sweet and caring is that :)

So, beside me is Sweet Dom. He is working on a computer programme for me to use at school. Because I teach at a school for Exclusive Brethren children they can't use the internet or anything like that... so Dom is making me a pile of French language games they can play to practice their homework (verbs, vocab, demonstrative adjectives etc) that runs on Excel. I told the kids about it the other day and they were really excited. With any luck Dom will finish it this weekend and then I will submit it to the CEO of the school to get it approved then we will load it onto the library computers for them to play in their spare time. I can't wait. While he is working on that I am planning my French Carnival. As an incentive for studying we are going to have a day at school where they get to do a ton of fun activities (in small groups that rotate) that all involve answering or doing things in French. They will have a big French foods lunch (from around the world, not just French from France foods) and I hope it will be a great day. It is going to require a lot of parent help but none of the mothers work so... I am not too worried about that. It is very important for their community to assure the children have a joyful childhood - I love that! So if anyone that reads this has any ideas for fun games, let me know.