Friday, September 11, 2009

Remembering 9/11


It was cool that morning in Boone, NC. I was walking to my 9am Chemistry class when I walked by the TV in the downstairs lounge area between Gardner and Coltrane. It’s a big TV and hard to miss. It was on a news channel and I remember seeing a tall building on it burning, but I didn’t really have time to stop and look.

The classroom atmosphere was fairly normal when I made it to Chemistry. Apparently, not a lot of people really knew what had happened at that point. We made it through chemistry fairly normally that day.

It wasn’t until I made my way to Spanish at 10am that I realized that there was not only one building burning in NY, but two and that one had collapsed. Spanish class was basically canceled as we all piled into a dim room on the same floor where CNN was projecting on the screen in the front. I was horrified. What had happened? What was going on?

My eyes were flooded with tears as I watched the images projected on the screen. I watched as couples holding hands jumped out of the building on screen. They were trapped and figured death was upon them anyways. I covered my mouth in shock and held my breath as I watched the second building collapse.

After the 10am hour, classes were an afterthought for the rest of the day. I can’t remember if I skipped them or if I even went, or if they were canceled. All I remember is that I sat in my dorm room watching the tele as the events unfolded on that fateful day.

What were you doing, where were you on that fateful day?