Five years ago, I was into my second week of teaching. After first period, a flighty someone came in the English office and asked, "Did you known we've been bombed?", but I figured it was something minor. I was too busy planning the Anne Bradstreet poetry lesson I had on my hands to think much else of it.
We heard more and more about it throughout the morning. Details became more clear. The kids were dismissed at 11:54 am, and the kids actually cheered when they were dismissed. No one really knew at that point. They made teachers stay until the regular 3:15 dismissal time, a move I still see now as very myopic.
Then I went home and, in a fog, watched the coverage on television with my roommates. It was harrowing.
What I wrote that day
What I wrote the day after
Both of these pages are still widely googled. My thoughts on it are pretty inaccurate - "I think it's a mistake that we're blaming the middle east. It's the same mistake we made with the Oklahoma City bombing... It's my gut feeling that it wasn't bin laden. It might just be wishful thinking because we've had our eyes on the guy for five years, and if it was him, then we're in trouble..." - but raw and real.
NL Notes: Amarista, Nationals, Morse, Krol
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Here are a few National League notes as we head into the weekend: Padres utilityman Alexi Amarista has switched his representation to Martin Arburua, tweets ...
5 hours ago
2 comments:
I remember that that day fell on the third week of my first year of teaching. Unfortunately, we had had an in-service day in the morning and then the kids arrived roughly 15 minutes after the first tower was hit. I was in a daze, wondering where my father was and if my friend in NYC was alright as I walked to my 1st hour class full of frightened freshmen. An administrator stopped me in the hall on the way to my room and said something like, "nothing like a test like this for your first year of teaching. Good luck!" I spent the day consoling 150 9th graders, discussing the tragedy five times over with five different classes since there was no television in my room, all the while holding back my own tears which had to wait until the students left at 2:10.
And that was my welcome to education - the most emotionally draining profession there is.
I've been hearing about things in the mainstream media here and there, but I finally checked out one of the "conspiracy theorist" sites - go to www.loosechange911.com and check out the evidence for yourself. It really makes you think. I'm an open-minded person, and if you put this together with Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, I think you'll have a healthy dose of doubt in the legitimacy of the US Government. It was a terrible tragedy, and I don't think the individuals that demand more answers are doing a disservice to the deceased in any way. Instead, they are honoring their memory, and making sure that they did not die in vain. They speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves.
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