We hadn't been able to reach Aya, who I mentioned in this post, for more than a week. We breathed a big sigh of relief when she finally tweeted for the first time after the earthquake.
A few months later, she told me about that day.
Immediately after seeing our tweets about the tsunami alert, she got in her car with her parents and dog and "just in case" headed for the hills. Shortly after, the roads became filled with cars, and they witnessed a lot of the cars behind them being devoured by the tsunami. I can't imagine the horror they felt, but anyway, they survived. If they'd left their house just a few minutes later, they wouldn't have. She lost practically everything she had and had to live in temporary accommodation for a long time. It was a difficult period for her, but a couple of years later, she got married and moved into a new house. She seems to be happy now.
I didn't use photos of that earthquake in this series of posts because they were too brutal and different from what I experienced. A lot of people in Tohoku had quite a horrible experience around that time, so I don't bring it up or casually ask them what they went through. However, we Japanese must draw lessons from every disaster lest we forget.
This was an excellent series and so well written! I think it's important to write about unpleasant things in your target language. Language resources and Journaly posts tend to be all unicorns and rainbows, and then when the shit hits the fan, you don't have the words to talk about it. Great job!
@CocoPop Thank you so much, Uly. I learned a lot from you while writing this series, as I usually do. I sometimes want to hit the like button ten times to your feedback. The most recent thing I learned is the phrase "the shit hits the fan"! It has such an impact that I can't forget it!
hahahaha I'm so humbled to have been able to help you and I'm glad you found my edits useful. I love that you actually edit your posts and implement corrections because it makes it so easy to review your posts in layers and make further recommendations when needed. I believe the edit feature is underutilized on Journaly. Great job!
@CocoPop For me, reviewing my posts after applying feedback is just as important as writing them, yet Japanese learners rarely do so these days as well. I'm guessing they're using cellphones instead of laptops, which makes it difficult to do so.
Naturally, incorrect Japanese doesn't affect me, but incorrect English does, so I try not to read posts in English before being corrected.
Ah, I see. That makes sense. It's just difficult when they don't implement corrections because the mistakes don't seem to go away and it's hard to review. But you do it beautifully. Keep up the good work!
Akiko, this is just a suggestion. When I edit my posts, I signal the corrected parts by underlining them. This makes it easier to associate the underlined parts with their corresponding outdated corrections.
For example, I would've underlined lest we forget to make it clear that this is actually a correction or suggestion that I've implemented.
@Simone- That's actually a really good strategy. That never occurred to me. I hate it when corrections disappear like that.
I learned this from Linda.
Ah!
Thank you, @Simone- ! Moving forward, I'll underline the significant corrections.