Geneva grad happy to be home after Japan earthquake

Christine Zedonis’ passion for drawing and animation led her to Tokyo — a place in which she figured much of that type of work could unfold in her future.

What the 22-year-old Geneva resident had no way of knowing was that her year at a language institution in Japan would be cut four months short by one of the worst disasters of this or any other decade.

Zedonis, a 2006 Geneva High School graduate, has had an interest in drawing cartoons since age 12, turning it into a degree in animation from Columbia College in Chicago.

When she realized that much of the work in animation was being outsourced to Japan and Korea, she figured it would be wise to learn those languages. To that end, she entered KCP International School in Tokyo last summer to undertake extensive language education.

It was the first time Zedonis had ever been out of the United States and it started a rewarding and interesting adventure that suddenly became stressful and harrowing at 2:46 p.m. Friday, March 11, when the most powerful earthquake in 100 years struck Japan.

With the deadly tsunami following less than an hour after the quake, and the resulting nuclear crisis, life in Japan changed quickly for Zedonis, who returned home safely Tuesday.

“I was just sitting in class when everything started shaking, and at first it just seemed like a normal earthquake,” Zedonis said. “But it just got longer and stronger.

“There was a big aftershock, and all of the students were hiding under their desks for about 20 minutes. After that, they told us to get outside in the streets, where there were no buildings overhead.”

The magnitude of the earthquake and tsunami were not clear a first for residents of Tokyo, but the first task at hand for Zedonis was to get back to her apartment in the Edogawa district, about an hour train ride from the school.

“There were a lot of aftershocks, and all of the trains were down,” Zedonis said. “So I walked with a friend for two hours to a nearby district that had a large station, and we waited six hours for the trains to start.”

Zedonis said there was no panic in the streets of Tokyo, which is 231 miles from the epicenter off the coast of Japan and suffered damage, but no devastation.

“The Japanese people are very prepared for disasters like this, and they are very coolheaded in tough situations,” Zedonis said.

Her own ability to stay calm in tough situations would be tested for the next four days, starting with her first look at her apartment.

“It was completely trashed, with broken glass everywhere,” Zedonis said. “The walls were cracked and the elevator was not working.”

Because she had an international cell phone, Zedonis considered herself lucky to be able to get text messages to family and friends. Inside Japan, she said, no one could call in or out.

Back in Geneva, Dianne and Jeff Zedonis had gone through a typical day — except for some reason, they decided to turn on the news late at night.

“We never have the news on at that time, and all of the sudden Christine texted us just as we were watching what was happening,” Dianne Zedonis said. “It was very nerve-racking because we didn’t know where Tokyo was in relation to the serious damage, and we didn’t know if she was texting us just as it was happening.”

The next step for Zedonis was to figure out if classes were going to continue at her school. With aftershocks coming at an incredible pace — more than 600 in all, by some accounts — and the threat of the nuclear plant meltdowns, it was becoming clear that her education in Japan was coming to an end.

“At first, I was going to stay, because we had a lot of money invested in this, but the radiation threat hit and some of the aftershocks were very strong,” Zedonis said.

The school was closed for three days, and Zedonis went back on the fourth day for classes. But by the following Friday, a week after the earthquake, most of the students had gone. With U.S. officials urging Americans to get out of Japan, she decided to go home.

That was good news to her parents.

“We would be talking to her through Skype and could see things in her apartment shaking when there was an aftershock,” Dianne Zedonis said. “If the screen would have gone dark, we wouldn’t have known what that meant. Did it mean her building crumbled down on her, or what? It was just crazy.”

Everything at the Tokyo airport was well organized, Zedonis said, when she was ready to depart Tuesday.

“We had to wait a few hours for the plane, but it was nothing really horrible,” said Zedonis, who returned home to family and friends Tuesday afternoon.

For now, it’s a wait-and-see on whether she returns to Japan.

“The people there are very nice and very considerate,” she said. “If things are better there in a year, then maybe I would go back.”