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Post by Amaranth on Sept 11, 2011 7:41:46 GMT -5
I was headed to class when the first plane hit the WTC. Most of my classmates lived in town or nearby, so they'd already heard the news before they left for class. I usually cranked a mixed CD instead of listening to news on the way down, because I like to keep alert. There wasn't much to the class, because everyone was distracted.
The prof cut the class early so we could see what was going on upstairs, and it was only a few minutes later that we saw the first tower fall live.
I left shortly after, because the professor said we were free to go. I remember driving up to the main campus (My class was at the downtown campus), and being stopped by a cop who said the campus was closed.
I knew people in Boston and New York, and I was fairly worried, so this was a big deal to me. Beyond the ramification of the terrorist attack, that is. And rather than worry about them, I could have used class time.
With pretty much nothing but 9/11 24/7, I just kind of went numb by the end of day one.
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Post by Tenfold_Maquette on Sept 11, 2011 8:15:55 GMT -5
I was eating breakfast in the living room when the news suddenly skewed to a live feed of the first tower vomiting smoke. In the middle of some half-assed speculation between myself and my ex-military father, the second plane hit. I choked on my Cheerio's and Dad went ballistic. He left the room soon thereafter (PTSD is a bitch), so I spent the remainder of the morning narrating what I was seeing to him.
I wasn't upset so much as numb. I kept thinking that what I was watching had to be some sort of advertisement for a movie or something. It was horrible - unquestionably, awfully horrible - but at the time I felt absolutely nothing.
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Post by trike on Sept 11, 2011 8:18:44 GMT -5
I was a freshman in hs and home sick. I stumbled out of my room around ten in a sickness haze and my mom had cnn on showing footage from ground zero and she was on the phone in the other room. I sat down and watched, thinking that it was some movie. After flipping around the channels some I realized it wasn't.
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Post by clockworkgirl21 on Sept 11, 2011 8:26:38 GMT -5
Is my school the only one that didn't function any differently at all? If I had been out in the bathroom or something when the principal told us, I wouldn't have had the slightest clue anything was out of the ordinary. The only difference was the TVs being on during lunch but they were low volume and no one was watching.
I can see schools closer to NYC not functioning, but how about others like mine in the west and midwest?
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Post by Ian1732 on Sept 11, 2011 8:52:15 GMT -5
I was in First grade, so I don't remember much. All I remember is that it was also my sister's 3rd birthday.
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Post by verasthebrujah on Sept 11, 2011 8:56:27 GMT -5
Is my school the only one that didn't function any differently at all? If I had been out in the bathroom or something when the principal told us, I wouldn't have had the slightest clue anything was out of the ordinary. The only difference was the TVs being on during lunch but they were low volume and no one was watching. I can see schools closer to NYC not functioning, but how about others like mine in the west and midwest? My school was in the Midwest-- we stayed open and went from class to class, but just watched the news all day on the 11th. We even had the news on in about half of our classes on the 12th.
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Post by Smurfette Principle on Sept 11, 2011 9:07:15 GMT -5
I was eight, in third grade. I don't remember the attacks actually happening, but they printed up some flyers for us to take home to our parents about talking to your children about disasters and stuff. My mom told me an airplane had flown into some buildings but wouldn't elaborate, but we had circle time the next day to talk about it and then I understood what had happened (mostly because the boys were being very graphic).
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Post by SCarpelan on Sept 11, 2011 9:20:13 GMT -5
I was 21 and don't remember exactly what I was doing. I just remember that my flatmate came home and went straight to his room and I heard him turn his TV on, change channel to BBC and turn volume up. I realized that something was going on and did the same. They were showing live feed from the WTC and speculating about the cause of the first plane hitting it. A couple of minutes after that the second plane hit the towers so I watched it happen live.
Watching it happen felt unreal and it seemed like a plot from an action movie. It was real, though, so I also felt horrible for the people trapped in the building and the area.
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Post by DeadpanDoubter on Sept 11, 2011 10:02:15 GMT -5
I was 11 and being that I was in the same time zone as the attacks and homeschooled, I was fast asleep in my bed. It was...8:45y mom dragged me out of bed and into the living room. I think it was 9:30? Not sure.
But anyway, she was bawling and whimpering about how it was the End Of The World. I had no idea what was going on; I didn't know what the fuck the Twin Towers were, didn't understand why my mom was so upset about (rather good) special FX, I was just shaky because my mom was sobbing hysterically and she just doesn't do that.
It's never been a very traumatic thing for me; I've had no personal repercussions from the attacks, other than becoming a huge Country music fan for a few years (don't ask). It's not that I don't care, I just...can't get too upset about it unless I see or hear the story of someone who WAS personally affected by it.
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Post by Amaranth on Sept 11, 2011 10:05:27 GMT -5
It's never been a very traumatic thing for me; I've had no personal repercussions from the attacks, other than becoming a huge Country music fan for a few years (don't ask). It's not that I don't care, I just...can't get too upset about it unless I see or hear the story of someone who WAS personally affected by it. Country music? Why, Deadpan, did you want Toby Keith to put a boot in your ass? ohgodimgonnadienow
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Post by DeadpanDoubter on Sept 11, 2011 10:08:37 GMT -5
It's never been a very traumatic thing for me; I've had no personal repercussions from the attacks, other than becoming a huge Country music fan for a few years (don't ask). It's not that I don't care, I just...can't get too upset about it unless I see or hear the story of someone who WAS personally affected by it. Country music? Why, Deadpan, did you want Toby Keith to put a boot in your ass? ohgodimgonnadienowHar har. I was more partial to Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning". Toby kind of offended me, even at that young, fundie, conservative age.
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Post by Kit Walker on Sept 11, 2011 10:27:40 GMT -5
Is my school the only one that didn't function any differently at all? If I had been out in the bathroom or something when the principal told us, I wouldn't have had the slightest clue anything was out of the ordinary. The only difference was the TVs being on during lunch but they were low volume and no one was watching. My school didn't tell us. They told the teachers at some point, but pointedly chose to not tell the students so as to not upset us. The problem was that I had made plans to go home for lunch that day. I was 11, in sixth grade. My dad had just been laid off from his job maybe two weeks earlier. We made plans for me to come home for lunch, just me and him (my mom made plans to be out shopping) eating lunch together with no TV on or anything. We initially planned it for Monday, but he had golf plans he had forgotten about so we moved it to Tuesday. If I had ever followed school rules and told the main office that I was going home for lunch, they probably would have stopped me. However, I always just walked right out the front door to my parents' waiting car. My dad was very shaken by the attacks, and held nothing back from me. I...I didn't handle it so well. I couldn't comprehend the true scope of events, but I could understand that 1) a lot of people were dead and 2) my dad was freaked out by all this. He tried to return me to school, but the principal gave me a stern lecture not to tell anyone what I knew when I got back to class and when I went out to the playground (always got back to school about five minutes before lunch ended), I just lost it the second a girl friend of mine just came running up to me and perkily asked how I was doing. All I had to tell my teacher was "I went home for lunch" and she immediately sympathized with my crying breakdown. My dad literally walked in the door to the phone ringing, the school telling him to come back and get me (we live maybe two miles from the school). My dad at first thought I was taking advantage of the national tragedy to get out of school, and was pissed at me for a while. But my mom talked sense into him and he realized I really was freaked the fuck out. He, to this day, regrets the way he handled breaking the news to me.
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Post by Aqualung on Sept 11, 2011 10:27:54 GMT -5
I was 18; I had just started college. I didn't have my own computer at that time so went to the computer lab in the morning before class. There was a tv on in the office/little room off the lab and people were saying there was an explosion at the WTC. I was like OK....I went to class and everyone was talking about it. By my second class we all knew what was going on and then we heard they hit the Pentagon. I went back to the computer lab to read the news but it still didn't sink in until I went back to my apartment for lunch and watched the tv news coverage. Everyone was just kind of stunned. I think I had one more class that afternoon and I don't remember what we did. Then I went home and watched the news for the rest of the night. I also remember the eerie silence of no planes flying for a couple days.
I had been to NYC two years before and been close to the twin towers so I was sad that it had happened.
It seems impossible that it's been 10 years already; it seems like it was just 5 years ago.
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Post by Amaranth on Sept 11, 2011 10:28:58 GMT -5
Har har. I was more partial to Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning". Toby kind of offended me, even at that young, fundie, conservative age. Toby should have offended anyone sane. Not sure about young fundie conservatives...Are they people too? >.> Then again, I'm a Neil Young fan and I was STILL embarassed by his response. And even his later, anti-Bush record sounded pretty awful. I remember hearing Keith's explanation of what that song was about, and clenching my fists because I'd seen live clips and he wasn't USING it in the same sense. Meanwhile, I was getting pissed because ClearChannel wanted to remove all sorts of songs from rotation, including "Imagine." In an attack that was all about religious fundamentalism, they wanted to take off songs that offended religious zealots.
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Post by nickiknack on Sept 11, 2011 10:32:48 GMT -5
I just woke up, and getting ready to leave for college(I lived off campus, because I live right across the river from it)and My family & I spent most of the day freaking out because my sister worked right across the street from the WTC. She turned out to be ok, but she saw the whole thing happen from the window in her office, and she came home covered in that dust & ash that came from the towers. The thing is that her company used to be located at the very top of one of the towers, but they moved out right after the '93 bombing for safety reasons, but they still had meeting in the WTC from time to time. I believe someone from her company did die in the attacks, but she didn't know the guy personally.
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