remembering

everyone loves to tell their 'where were you on 9/11' stories, and i've heard some pretty amazing ones. i'd share mine, but it's largely uninteresting and can be summed up in one word: college. i didn't know anyone killed. i didn't know anyone up in NYC. i'd never even been to NYC. what i find interesting about my own experience is that i remember the day in brief but sharp and vivid vignettes. in short:

_ the night before my roommate and a friend of ours stayed up late in my dorm room watching monday night football. the dolphins were playing, though i don't remember who else was or which team one. after the game we watched 'wayne's world' and laughed so hard. it was the first night of the semester i didn't get all my homework done.

_ because of the late night, i slept a little later than usual. our friend who had been over the night before called, and my roommate who was already up said something about a plane hitting the WTC. i said 'huh, that couldn't have been an accident,' and went back to sleep.

_ when i woke up about 30mins later, it occured to me i should turn the tv on -- something i usually didn't do in the morning. i watched, stunned, as the second plane hit.

_ my british lit teacher, choked up, cancelled our morning class. my journalism teacher did not cancel our afternoon class, and we didn't even talk about what had happened. not even about how a journalist should handle such stories. i thought that was a huge missed opportunity.

_ groups of students gathered everywhere -- students' center, hallways, courtyards -- for impromptu crying and prayer sessions.

_ i called my parents later in the day. my dad told me about how he and my mom walked and sat outside and thought about how important life is and how different everything would be.

_ the weather outside was the most beautiful day of the year. sunny, mild and fresh. the irony of that bugged me for most of the day.

_ my homework routine never recovered for the semester as i put it off for several days, instead opting to watch more and more tv coverage of the attacks.

it's hard to believe that day was five years ago. the fact that i can still remember things so vividly, as i'm sure everyone can, is proof of how profound an impact it had on us.