8 Years

I was having lunch at my desk as it poured down (much welcome) rain outside. I noticed a few friends posting Facebook statuses about where they were 8 years ago today. I don't have a great story, but it's my story, so I thought I'd share it with you.

September 11, 2001
I was a Senior at Texas A&M University, and I had an 8 o'clock class that morning. It was an Anthropology class, and we were watching a video about a tribe in South America. While not exactly compelling, it wasn't a bad start to the morning.

After class, I rode my bike across campus to the Business school where I had my next class. As I would typically do in between classes, I ducked into the library to check my email in the computer lab.

It was typically busy at that time of the day, so I didn't notice anything different that morning. I checked my email - again, nothing out of the ordinary. Then I tried to access CNN, and the page was taking forever to load. I asked the guy next to me if he was having computer problems, but his English wasn't the greatest.

I gave up, and started making my way into my next class. That's when things started falling apart a bit.

There were t.v. sets in the hallway of the building that my class was in, and as soon as I walked in, I could barely move for all the people who were just standing in the hall watching the news.

I looked up and froze: iconic buildings in New York were on fire. People were jumping out of buildings. We were clearly under attack and no one knew what to do.

We all just stood there: mouths hanging open, some people crying, others in disbelief.




I think I remember us seeing the first tower fall.




Do I go to class?
What happens next?
Do I know anyone in New York?
Will there be more attacks?





What does life look like now?








After watching for what seemed like an eternity, I decided to go to my next class. I couldn't even tell you what we discussed.

Once that class was over, probably about 20 minutes after it began, we all found ourselves once again staring at the news in the hall. Another building had fallen. I didn't even know that was possible. We were all in a state of shock.

I went to my next class, where I knew the professor was a Christian. I think we decided to pray in class.

After about 15 minutes, I went back into the hallway.

It's all a blur after that, but it was one of those days you don't forget.

Where were you?