Where were you on Sept 11?

Well, it was the second day of the first full week of my junior year of high school. It was probably 10 or so, before anyone knew at my school. I don't know how word got passed around, because turning on a Television during a class, obviously isn't commonplace. So, as one class ended, as I exited, the teacher from next door came in and whipered something to my teacher. They exchanged a few more concerned whispers, then the other teaher left, and my teacher now had turned on his own television. He didn't have the antenna in just yet, so all I saw was a fuzzy, gray box, with some kind of other gray form undulating out of the top of it. The class was already over, and I was one of the last people in the room. I asked him what that was, but was told only to go to my next class.

Fortunately, my next class was in the computer lab of my old school, so at least the internet might have some answers. As I arrived, another student was in another classroom, when the principal came in and turned on the TV in there. We were told to go on as normal, and they'd tell us about it later. Being that we were in a computer lab, myself and the other student who had any odea of what they were doing, logged onto all of the computers, and tried to get onto CNN.com. We did this, because we now knoew that their servers would be inundated, and it could be hard to get on. We were literally getting busy replies from CNN.com, and needless to say, that's just something that shouldn't happen. Finally, mine was the first to actually get onto CNN, and all that they had was a CNN logo, and a picture of the first plane hitting, with a caption reading something like 'Tragedy over NY. More news as it comes in." Everyone crowded around my screen, and I don't even remember how long we stayed there, just staring at it, trying to figure out what the hell happened. Finally, my computer teacher announced that he was going to unplug the cable line from the hub, so we could watch what was happening on the news. I don't need to explain any of that. We all saw it.

You'd have to know my school, but there's it's a christian high school, consisting of probably a total of 170 students, and 16 or so faculty members. So, obviously, people are pretty close. An assembly was called, to discuss the matter with the students, including the 7th and 8th grade classes who are part of my school's elementary school. My principal, Mike Belmont (Nice Guy) did his best to explain the situation, mainly for the benefit of the younger kids. I don't quite remember what he said, but...whatever it was, it was the best thing he could've said under those circumstances. I know he was also preoccupied, being that he had a number of friends who worked in the NYC financial district, some of whom worked in the WTC, or at east would be likely to be near, if not in there, that morning. Once he was done, the 'superintendent' of the elementary and middle school got up to say something. I don't remember much of what he said, but I know he's an idiot. One thing that he said sticks out in my memory. He said 'Rochester has tall buildings, We could be next.' Mind you. his audience was a room full of high school students and middle school children. Yeah, the guy's a jackass.

Anyway, as the day progressed we half heartedly went on to our next classes, recieving little news flashes throughout the day. Once the word terrorism was mentioned, for some reason or another, I began thinking of Rochester's Ginna Nuclear Powerplant. I don't quite know why I thought of that, and it hadn't been mentioned on the news yet.

The rest of the day, and that week, even though I don't live in New York City, there was this weird sense of numbess. It was just like...this is America, dammit. This kind of crap doesn't hapen here. 2000 people aren't supposed to just die

I mean...I don't have any outright connection to any of it, like no family members of mine died, but...y'know. I just had to say something.

But just for the sake of remembering, where were you that morning?

Yeah, that guy's an idiot. definitely. And in your case, Msz, him actually announcing what had happened like that was freakin' assinine.