what were you doing....

[reciprocity]

I was driving from Cincinnati to Toledo to help my girlfriend move her stuff into the dorm, I remember hearing on the radio that a plane had hit and they thought it was some sort of freak accident or something, then the second one hit, and no one knew what was going on. I didn't see it on TV until I got to Toledo that afternoon.

[Flynn]

I was on my way to class (high school teacher) when I caught what was happening on the radio. The broadcaster was freaking out. I got to school and all the teachers with TVs in class had them on and kids were glued to it. The school had this black cloud of quiet over it.

We had a long assembly and the history teachers presented what happened as best they could. It was an interesting day. The only other BIG day I remember life effecting the classroom (unplanned stuff) was Coulumbine. THAT was a dousy too.

[alison]

I was in my first year of the MA program...
I had just taught the 8am class, so none of us caught what had happened. As I was walking back to my office, a student of mine ran back to me telling me that "we were going to war." That line has stuck with me, because it was clear what was going to happen. And of course, what is still happening.

My student was panicky and told me that someone had left a voicemail on her cell phone and told her about the towers. I rushed home by cab and dh (boyfriend at the time) was visiting me. There was no way I was going to go my usual route (underground subway close to Sears Tower). We watched tv for the rest of the day, re-watching footage of people jumping (they don't show those pictures anymore). Even though they would show the same footage over and over again, it was chilling each time...

The ticker across the bottom of the screen on news channels is a remnant of that day...

NPR has been running "audio clips" of people's "what were you doing when" all day. I've started crying a handful of times already, and I'm trying to stay away from most of this stuff.

Some are really powerful.

[houseelf]

My grandma was in her final days of Parkinson's disease dieing slowly and painfully back home in Southern Ohio. I was trying to arrange to fly back home but didn't know how I could juggle all the logistics. (She ended up dying before I made it home anyway).

Anyway, on the morning of September 11, I dropped my toddler son off at childcare and heard the news during my commute to work. It was surreal. I called my husband, my mom, and my best friend in California and told them that I loved them. I couldn't turn off the news that night. I'm glad that my child was too young to understand the images.

Kelly

I woke up early and got on the internet at about 5am. I was 9mths pregnant with my second son and was 6 days overdue. I prayed that the baby wouldn't be born on that day and luckily it came 3 days later. My son is 5 in two days and I am sad that he has to be brought up in this age of terror, but I still see the miracle and innocence of children and am grateful for that.

I woke up the whole house and we went downstairs and watched the TV for the morning. It was very scary news and we all were convinced it would start a war, which is retrospect is what happened.

[rockgirl]

It was my first week teaching. I had no idea what I was doing... and had to explain what was going on in the world and why this was happening in the United States to a bunch of 13 & 14 year olds. We watched the towers collapse on live TV and from then on I have been a news junkie.

It all seemed so impossible... very unreal but at the same time forced me to refine my priorities in life.

I was in my apartment in Chicago watching CNN just minutes after the first plane hit. I watched in total disbelief as the second plane hit.
I had just began a new job at Northwestern University on Chicago Avenue the day before and felt like I had to go to work. I jumped on the bus and as I walked down Chicago Avenue, I stopped by a deserted fire station with a tv on and watched the first tower came down.
It was surreal to sit with one lone fireman in an empty Chicago firehouse. After watching both towers crumble to the ground, I walked into the laboratory only to be told that the building was to be evacuated immediately.
Downtown Chicago quickly shut down. All the stores and restaurants on Michigan Avenue closed their doors and posted handwritten signs in all the windows saying "Closed."

[Malpka]

DH and I were engaged at the time. He had a weeks vacation (intern year) so we were in FLA visiting the IL's and my parents to make final wedding arrangements. We were watching the Today show and sipping coffee, and then watched the whole thing unfold. Horrifying. We spent the whole day glues to the TV, and trying to contact our bestman (who worked at one of the smaller buildings on the WTC site). Luckily, he was fine- but what an amazing story he had to tell.

We could get no flight back to VA, so my parents drove us to the Jacksonville airport to a rental car counter. I have flown out of that airport dozens of times, and to see it totally deerted was beyond eerie. The vibe on the trip back was so strange, so many displaced travelers.

I was packing in my bedroom getting ready to go back to college for my final year in nursing, My graduation was held on the 1 year anniversary.
My mum called up the staris to switch the telly onto sky news and I saw the second plane hit.

myself and SO visited ground zero last weekend to pay our respects, it was such an eerie feeling knowing we were in the place that we had seen people fall to their death and lives ending in front of our eyes on the television.