nmah5293.xml

nmah5293.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-11-21

I was in school that day. In my Spanish class, someone told me that planes had hit some buildings in New York City. I thought they were joking. When I got to lunch, I had just sat down with my food when the Vice Principal walked in. She quietly explained that two planes had flown into the twin towers and that they didn't know anything else. A flurry of questions ensued, such as "What kind of planes?" and "What happenned to the towers?" The Vice Principal said that she knew nothing. After lunch, I went to my history class. The class spent the whole time talking about the history in the making. A number of students, including myself, left to go to the library to watch the television there. I couldn't believe my eyes. School continued for the rest of the day, but after-school activities were cancelled. When my mom arrived at school to take me home, all I could say was "Did you see it?". At first, she didn't know what I was talking about. "You mean the plane that hit one of the twin towers?" I explained to her that there were three planes. Throughout the rest of the car ride home, we consolidated our knowledge. Finally, I got home. The one thing I wanted was information, and lots of it. I had, for most of the night, a television tuned to CNN, a radio tuned to WZID 95.7 FM, which had skipped their regular music shows to cover the attacks, a computer playing BBC World, and three computers on different news web sites. Every time I learned something new, I just wanted to know more. I continued like this for the next week, only taking short breaks for dinner and homework. Finally, my parents convinced me that I wasn't going to learn anything else.