story134.xml

story134.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-03-05

I woke up early in the morning to go to my 9 a.m. Communications class at George Mason University. I wasn't feeling very well. I felt nausea, for what reason, I did not know. I thought about missing class, but I had a long day ahead of me on Tuesdays. And since school had just started, I didn't want to start of by missing participation points. So, I dragged myself to school. I felt horrible during class. I had a headache and I felt like throwing up. I tried to shake it off, and I still participated in the group activity at hand. We were dismissed from that class at around 10:00 a.m. I stayed behind with the teacher to ask her a question regarding my topic on our first speech. As I was leaving, one of the students from my class came and told my teacher that an airplane had hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. I thought to myself, "Gee, that sucks". Then, I left the room and proceeded to the Johnson Center, where I would wait until my next class, which did not start until 12:00 p.m. As I was walking to the JC, I received a voicemail message on my cell phone. It was from my mom. She had left a message telling me to call her. Her voice sounded worried. I tried and tried to call her in the office, but the line was busy. I got to the JC and I sat with one of my friends. Everyone was in a frenzy! There were monitors in the JC and people were watching the news. Everyone was trying to call their parents. People who had relatives in New York and people whose parents worked at the Pentagon. None of the cell phones would connect. I thought to myself, "What's the date today?". And I realized that it was 9/11. While all of this was going on, I still felt ill, and I couldn't get in touch with my mom, who worked at the World Bank. I did not want to attend my Theatre 210 class at 12 p.m. any longer. But, I also did not want to just miss it. So, I decided to just drop the class. It was a 2 hour and 45 minute class every Tuesday, that I got lazy to go to. Especially with everything going on around me, I really did not want to attend. Since I dropped that class, I went home. I still had a 4:30 p.m. IT 103 class that afternoon, so I still had to go back. As I was walking to the parking lot, my mom calls my cell phone from our house. She got off early from work, since they sent her home. My mom told me that she was calling me because I had gotten test results back from my appointment at the doctor's the week before. I had a mild liver infection. That was why I was feeling sick. So I get home and relatives had called asking if we were alright. My boyfriend who lives in Toronto, Canada had also called me. He got out of school early too. As we were watching TV, the channels kept playing and replaying the image of the planes hitting the Twin Towers. I called the George Mason University Information line and asked if classes had been cancelled for the afternoon. And they were! So, I no longer had to return to school for my 4:30 p.m. class. For the rest of the afternoon/evening, I just stayed home and watched the news.