2001-09-12 - 7:36 p.m.
I had just turned off the light to go to sleep when Lela got me out of bed with her frantic call: “Are you watching the news? Something terrible is happening! Terrorist planes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon!” I got off the phone and turned on the news to see the same horrific footage you have all been watching for the past day -- except none of it was in English. Desperate to find out what was going on, I tried to log onto the Washington Post, NYT & CNN websites, but they were all jammed. I tried calling my parents and a friend in the States but I couldn’t get through to them either. I finally got through to my dad who filled me in on what happened, and later to Rashida who told me more information and told me about the scene at Vassar, which was in crisis mode. Lela and I exchanged information once or twice more, and then I curled up with a box of Kleenex to watch more incomprehensible coverage until the wee hours. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I finally took a chill pill and went to bed.
I barely slept, waking up nearly every hour to check the clock and for messages on my phone. I got out of bed about an hour and a half earlier than normal, showered and got ready for work, and then logged onto the Internet to gather information. News sites were working by then and I had received several e-mails about the status of friends and their loved ones. This information continues to trickle in, and I am shocked by how many people close to me were affected in NY -- friends either saw it or had friends or relatives who escaped; I know of one aquaintance from Vassar who made it out of Tower 1.
School was very rough today. Many teachers asked me how I was and if my friends and family were safe. I had to give my self-introduction speech twice today -- it centers around “I come from Washington, DC and I went to school in New York.” The teachers whose classes I worked with today all told the students about the incident. One teacher in particular, the one who has been the most caring towards me, gave a somber address in Japanese -- I could understand her describing the events, that my family and friends lived there, and I think that she told the students that I was very upset and so they should be sympathetic towards me. The students looked at me with serious, awe-struck eyes. I had to teach four classes in a row, and I was trying not to cry in every one. I considered asking to go home early, but I stuck it out and fortunately a teacher gave me busy work to occupy my 4 free hours in the afternoon. I stopped by the Bd. of Ed. this afternoon and there was a fax from the American Embassy. Not once did I stop thinking about it though -- it left my mind for about 10 minutes during my haircut after school, but other than that, I can’t get it out of my head.
I am glad that so far everyone I know is safe -- though I know that nobody feels safe, and I know that that is a horrible feeling. And worse, I know that many people are gone and that the country is changed forever. I am torn between wishing I was there and being glad I am far away, but mostly I just wish I was home. I nearly panicked when I heard on the bilingual news that all flights from Japan to the U.S. have been canceled -- it’s an weird feeling to know I can’t get home, even if I wanted to. I know that my Japanese co-workers and even non-American JETs realize the significance of this, but their lives are going on with a degree of normalcy in which mine, and other Americans’ cannot.
