All I need to know I learned from a once-in-a-millennium magnitute 9 earthquake

Have an emergency communication plan with your family.

Keep an extra cell phone recharger at your office desk.

Don't keep waiting to give your dad the 3-day earthquake survival kit that you bought him 6 months ago.

If your train stops running right before Friday evening rush hour, have a drink with friends at the local standing bar to think things through.

You may need to cancel your wedding. And your engagement party, rehearsal dinner, ladies' bridal tea, family reunion, and wedding dinner. You may end up with a living room full of unused daisies, daffodils and chrysanthemums that you got for a great wholesale price, and your two dogs may eat them. You may not get to wear your wedding dress and recite vows in front of family and friends. You may need to replace a honeymoon with a panicked nuclear evacuation at your uncle's house. You may need to get your sister's coworker to be a witness for the marriage papers and go to city hall on a Tuesday morning in jeans and a hay fever mask instead of to a church on Sunday afternoon in a white dress and tux. But you can still be happily married if you like and love and respect each other, keep a sense of humor, and get the down payment back from the priest.

If you're jogging, you don't feel aftershocks less than magnitude 5.

Aftershocks are a great alarm clock.

Donate to a trustworthy charity.

Don't watch CNN.

Watch NHK World.

Life goes on.