story2227.xml

story2227.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-11

At first, it was just like any other day. I was sitting in my 2nd hour class at school, AP Government, and we were discussing democracy and what it meant to us. This ended up being strangly ironic. All of a sudden, other teacher from the hall knocked on our door and told us to turn on the news in our room, and that America was under attack. Our eyes widened as our teacher switched on the TV. We didn't know what to expect. Nothing like this had every happened to us in our lifetime. By the time we had turned it on, the first tower had already been hit. No one knew what it meant. I could just hear whispers of "Oh my God" fading in and out across the room. At first a few students suggested that it was just an accident or a hijacker whose initial intentions weren't this extreme. However, after the second plane hit, we knew it was no accident. A few minutes later, the same teacher came back to our room and told us to change the channel because the pentagon had just been hit in addition to the towers. We couldn't believe our ears. America was under attack. My first thoughts were that this couldn't be happening, and then, that the USA was going to probably declare war. We watched the news the rest of the hour because there was now way we were going to be able to concentrate on anything else. By the time we got to our 3rd hour class, just about every TV in the school was turnedon to the news. It was all the kids talked about in the hall. Everyone making their own theorys about it. In 3rd hour, our principal made an announcment that due to the events that day, we were allowed to leave the news on all day, or we could try to have a normal day of classes. Of course we all wanted to leave the news on. We watched in horror as the towers crashed to the ground. We watched people jumping to their deaths. I began to cry thinking about what that must have been like for them. We continued watching wanting to know why this happened and what was going to happen. There was talk of anthrax and terrorists and nuclear war. Every channel said something else. Slowly they began to piece together who caused this terrible act. Unfortunately, I had to take a math test that day, and our teacher refused to postpone it. I don't think I did very well on that test, for as you can imagine, integers and fractions were the last thing on my mind. I had to console a friend the next hour whose dad was in New York on a business trip. I just told him that I was sure he was fine and that he wasn't anywheres near the twin towers. When I got home that day, my mom was frantic. My sister goes to college on the east coast and is only a few minutes away from New York. My mom has the tendancy to picture the worst scenario possible. We finally got a hold of her and she was fine. She told us how crazy everyone at Brown ( her university) was going. People were already starting to organize groups and rallies. People there are extremely well educated there, so they knew exactly what had been going on in the middle east and the problems that occur there everyday. We continued to watch the news that day, calling all of our loved ones to make sure they had heard and to see how they were handling the situation. We watched the president address the nation to try to give us information and hope and what the future was probably going to look like. Now here I am, one year later, in school, writing this essay in class. I am surrounded by students dressed in red, white and blue. We are going to have a moment of silence next hour also. I can't believe a year has gone by already since those aweful events. Things as tragic as those however stay the clearest and most recent in your mind above all other memories.