where were you | september 11th, 2001

I was sitting in my Spanish IV class when one of my school's office secretaries knocked on the door to ask my teacher if the Spanish department had an extra TV they could watch in the office. My teacher told us that a plane had hit or bombed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and that several other ones were flying around. He turned on the radio briefly while we nervously talked, and heard at the very end of a brief story that two planes had hit the World Trade Center and another had crashed into or near the Pentagon. He turned off the radio, and attempted to carry on the lesson, but we weren't very interested in it. At the very end of the class, the principal came on over the intercom and told us that planes had hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Upon getting to Religion class, we had some sort of lesson we went through, but before entering the classroom, I leaned into the next room, which had a TV in it and all of the seniors were watching. I was briefly able to see the World Trade Center towers on fire. In the last period before lunch, Pre-Calculus, we had a test, so we did not hear anything for 45 minutes. At lunch time, I ate my lunch inside, simply because I didn't really feel like going all the way outside to the courtyard to eat. I had found out that the first tower had fallen, but it was not until this point that my friend told me that both had been taken down. I learned a little more about the Pentagon as well. After finishing my lunch, I went to the school's library and was quite surprised to find it filled with people using the computers. I saw several of my friends trying to access the various news sites, which were overloaded and taking forever to display. During my U.S. History class immediately after lunch, we began discussing what information we did have. A few moments later, the principal came on the intercom again and told us that the bishop had declared the following day a day of prayer and that school would be closed. In Chemistry, my last class of the day, we listened to the radio for the two periods for which I have that class. Once I got home, I started visiting the news sites, eventually finding out that CNN.com worked through a link from Metafilter, and was able to get the updates without any lag or problems loading it.

I know that I shall remember this day and the events of it forever, and I hope that everyone else remembers the horrible tragedy so that it may never be repeated again.