#Earthquake?

I was sitting at my desk working on something for Mooney On Theatre when I first felt the tremors. Growing up in India I had experienced a few earthquakes, usually not much more than a very short faint sensation of the ground shaking beneath my feet. Often I thought I had dreamed it.

However, today was different. Besides the obvious, that I am in Toronto and not in New Delhi India, the tremors were more powerful than I’d ever felt before, and seemed to last a lifetime. Also that tightening of my throat, that feeling of panic tends to be slightly more intense when you’re alone in your 20th floor condo than when you’re on the second floor of a family home.

I froze, sat down and opened my Twitter page. All was silent, it seemed like the world had paused to take in what had just happened. Then one by one reports starting coming in, it had a hash tag, and I learned that people in Ottawa, Montreal and the US had felt it too.

When I googled “earthquake” it took some time for anything to pop up. By the time The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail had preliminary reports up I pretty much knew the entire story.

By the time mainstream media started to break the story I had tired of it. My best friend had just told me she’s pregnant with her second child, I was starving and still had a ton of work to do.

The Twitter feed was starting to calm down, ease back into normalcy. People were over it. There is already a list of the top seven funniest tweets about #earthquake. My personal favorite was about a tsunami in the #FAKELAKE.

Now that I better understand this Twitter thing, it never fails to amaze me with it’s power as a medium. News travels so fast and effectively. Granted people could make anything up and put it out there, but it’s still impressive.

The point is, I think I’m finally starting to “get” it.