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September 11th, 2001
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 the day i truly grew up
Posted by: Dolores from Dallas, TX
Friday March 08, 2002 @ 10:57 PST

i was in 11th grade, and 17 years old. i remember my geography class had a project due on september 10th. we had 6 groups of 2 or 3 students. i was the only one to show up in my group that monday so my teacher let me present it on tuesday if someone else from my group had come. tuesday came and all three of us did too. it was 8 am--9 am in new york. our project was to report over some events and the basic geography of the middle eastern region. as soon as we had reported that there was political and social unrest in israel, our dean of admissions asked our teacher to step outside. she asked us to keep reporting and we finished. after 5 minutes my teacher came back in followed by our 9th grade math teacher who was carrying and plugging in a small black-and-white tv. she explained to us that we were about to watch a piece of history that we were sure to never forget.
"i have been told that a plane crashed in new york city. i'm not sure exactly where, but it has crashed into a building." my heart raced. i had never even imagined the magnitude of the crash, or even how serious it could be. i look back now and i can't believe that i had become so cold-hearted as to say to myself: 'oh well, that's sad. but how bad could it be?' then the tv came on, and we--my class--saw the world trade center on fire. i couldn't believe it; i was in complete shock. about a minute later the camera panned out a little and my one of my friends had spotted the second plane. he yelled 'it's too close! it's too close! it's gonna crash!' and lo and behold as soon as he finished those words the plane crashed into the other tower. i couldn't believe it. all my friends and my teacher were just thinking what could be happening? we cancelled all classes that day and stayed in our rooms watching the news. we were given permission to go home, but almost all of us stayed in school until 3:30 pm when they ran us out.

around 9 am there was another emergency bulletin. a plane crashed into the pentagon. i knew it then that we were under attack. i didn't want to accept it, but when i saw that plane crash into the tower and then heard of the pentagon's hit i had no other alternative but to accept it. one of the freshman girls that i knew stood up and started yelling 'this is it! we're all going to die!' i was so mad at her that i just yelled at her to shut up and sit down. i haven't talked to her since; guess it's because i just can't believe that she would've reacted in such a stupid way especially when we were so far away from the events. i looked at the tv as it panned back to the towers around 9:15 am. i saw the debris falling to ground, and then there was much more falling faster and faster. i had seen too many specials on the "discovery channel" on building demolitions not to know what was about to happen. i whispered to myself "it's gonna fall... it's gonna fall..." the girl next to me heard me and told me that it wasn't true, that i was wrong and all of the sudden the building collapsed. she couldn't believe it and neither could i.
as a tear finally ran down her cheek she whispered to me: "you were right." half an hour later the north tower followed the same pattern. i repeated those same words: "it's gonna fall... not again, please god don't let it happen again." he let it happen. he let thousands of innocent people be killed in cold blooded murder by terrorists. after that the pain and the emotions were too much. after that, the day just went by in slow motion. i had no words to express myself--something that rarely happens to me. i still have no words to describe in detail my feelings on september 11th. i just can't forget those images in my head, and i never will. i just shudder to think about what i had thought just that weekend before.

i wrote an essay for my english teacher describing my opinion of a decline of american beliefs. i chose the subject of black comedy and geographic illiteracy and related it to those people who are "jaywalking" all the time on the tonight show. in my concluding paragraph i also stated that pride could be a crippling factor in this country.
"people can never admit that our country can be conquered due to lack of education, and it’s completely true now but it could change. maybe not today or tomorrow, but how about 100 years from now? or maybe 50? maybe 500 years? well, this doesn’t tend to come up unless we are really close to finding out the hard way. people have ridiculed even president bush about his iq, personality, and behavior. many people think that having him as president is a big mistake because they think that president bush is not ready to take his job seriously or even do it right. but then again, he could do better than our dear former president clinton, don’t you think? we use stupidity as an excuse for comedy, but how far is too far? if our generation is like this right now, how will this affect the next generations? remember, children of the 1980’s are growing up and some already have children. how will their children be able to cope with whatever we leave them?
because of these reasons geographic illiteracy can become stronger or weaker, depending on how we decide to tackle the topic. if we are proud and naïve, we may fall into the ‘abyss of a third world country’. if we decide to tackle it, we may come out to be the most intelligent society the world has known since atlantis… maybe..." scary point: i wrote this on september 9th, 2001 and was to turn it in on tuesday, spetember 11th, 2001. irony can be so powerful. it left me bewildered, and september 11th left me weak in a way, but as an american i came out strong. to this day i shed a tear to those who lost a loved one, but i hold my head up high and i refuse to let myself be taken in by terrorists. because by doing so would just be pleasing them. not only have i come out stronger, but i really think that i grew up on that day. i think that's the day i matured one more step into adulthood.


god bless america! god bless us all!!