I went to college here in Olympia, at the scenic Evergreen State College. I was in our poorly-designed dorms when the Nisqually quake hit.

since then, I've become very, very good at explaining plate tectonics to out-of-state students, especially ones from (in the case of one of my friends) Minnesota. unfortunately, I can't deliver the speech to full effect here, because I use my hands to symbolize the plates.

long story short, the Juan de Fuca plate is slowly disappearing under the North American plate. my geology teacher seemed pretty sure it would never completely go under, but that's what's causing the majority of seismic activity around here.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"