I attended my Physics Lab this afternoon and the mood of the campus is cautious, reserved, and solemn. Students are going about their business as usual, but you can tell that something is weighing on everyone. Nobody alive today has witnessed anything of this magnitude and it will certainly be a thought on my mind constantly for quite some time.
Regardless of the scale of the tragedy, it is important to look for rays of light, little victories, and things to be thankful for. This afternoon, while watching the news in a classroom after my physics lab, a Sophomore stepped in to see what the latest was and stuck around to watch with me. After a while we started talking and I found out that her name is Jennifer and she’s from LA. I also learned that her Uncle was to be on a red-eye flight last night to New York for a 9:00am meeting at the World Trade Center. Her Uncle missed his flight by 15 minutes and is safe at home.
To me, that speaks to the granularity of life. When you see a Boeing 767 crash into a 114 Story building, it is tremendously difficult to comprehend the emotions the thousands of people directly and indirectly involved. It all seems somewhat surreal. Unless, of course, you know someone directly involved. But things go from such a broad level, seeing a plane hit a building, down to the very fine details of the first thought of a person sitting on the 40th floor of the north tower after the first impact… all in all, this will have a ripple-effect that we’ll feel for decades to come.
Rise and shine, sleeping giant, rise and shine.