I awoke to the news that our region had a 3.6 magnitude earthquake at 5:04 this morning. I slept through it, as did another local blogger. Dean was awake and said he felt the house shake and walked outside to see if an airplane was flying overhead.

This is the second time I’ve been in an earthquake and have not felt it. The first time I was not asleep. It took place on a Saturday — I want to say it was in the morning, but it may have been later. Anyway the reason I didn’t feel it was because I was in a BLOODY BOWLING ALLEY! Of all the places not to be if you want to experience a rare Illinois earthquake is in a bowling alley.

Although I’ve never been in an earthquake I do have an earthquake story:

I was teaching students with learning disabilities in a small self-contained classrroom (10 students or so) in  a public school in Northern Virginia. It was near the end of the day and I was reading to the students when I felt the floor shake. The students also felt the shaking. I stopped reading and went to the doorway and looked out into the hall to see if anyone else felt the shaking. No one was in the hall and I heard normal teaching sounds coming from the classroom across from mine.  Still the rumbling continued, so I told the kids to get under their desks while I checked on the situation with the senior teacher next door. I was about to knock on her door when I noticed that her entire class of 30 students were running in place. Then they stopped. So did the shaking.

I went back to the class and told the students that the earthquake was over and they could get out from under their desks.