Weekend of Memories

Friday my school had a moment of silence and showed video clips from September 11, 2001. I was in 7th grade that day. I was in band when things started, and since we were all in our "special" classes, all the 7th grade teachers had prep that period. Naturally, one of the history teachers was watching the news. My friends and I filed in to our preAlgebra class and we'll never forget that history teacher coming down the hall and telling our teacher to turn on the news. I don't remember exactly what else he said, but I remember confusion and the crazy indescribable look on his face. We saw the live footage of the second plane. I don't think many other teachers let us watch the news that day. There was a lot of confusion... I guess that's middle school for you.

Later, when I was a freshman in high school, our English teacher made us draw pictures about that day. I don't remember the point of the assignment. We probably wrote a poem or something too. But I do remember a very artistic classmate of mine's drawing. He drew us sitting in that preAlgebra class. It was a drawing of what he saw at that moment. He remembered who sat where and made and included the backs of our heads. And up in the corner of that drawing was the mounted TV from our classroom, with that image we saw so many times over those days.

So thank you, pre-Algebra teacher. The firefighters get a lot of recognition (which they deserve, because they were great!), but we won't ever forget you either. Thanks for letting us witness history happening, and thank you for keeping us calm.

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This weekend I attended a wedding in the town I went to college in. I stayed with younger friends all weekend, but the couple who got married were seniors when I was a freshman. It was a weird combination of feeling really old and really young. I had a great time, but I realize that I'm not cut out for college life anymore. I'm SO tired and I am seriously lacking the motivation to grade these papers sitting next to me.

It was a strange weekend of reliving old memories, making happy new ones, and reflecting on a sad day 10 years past. I hope that I'm never the teacher that my preAlgebra teacher was to me. I don't want anyone to ever have to go through another day like that.

Thanks for reading.