Friday, March 16, 2007

Last night, while I waited for Anne to finish something so we could start our movie, I saw part of a documentary about September 11th. Each time it said a time at which something had happened, I thought about what I had been doing. "10:15 am." hmm... that was when I was catching the bus to go to school.

Why did I go to school that day?
There are so many things about that day that seem strange now when I look back. First of all, in a way, I am surprised that I even went to school that day. It seems strange that I didn't stay home to watch the news - I've missed a million days of school for baseball.

And why weren't Mom and Dad and I listening to the radio? Was the TV on in their bedroom? Were we just checking internet updates? I remember Dad coming downstairs and saying what had happened, but I just thought it was an accident, you know, a plane hit a building, that's sad. I guess we were less wired then than now, but it still seems strange.

But the weirdest of all is what happened at school. Why did we go to French class and study French? Why did I then go to Composition/Literature and do comp/lit? Why did we only listen to the radio and talk about what was happening in global studies, and then once I moved on to biology, we did biology? As if, in global studies, we were studying something that had happened on the other side of the world, or some war that took place a hundred years ago. Not a major event, happening at that very moment.

Doesn't it seem strange that everything didn't just freeze, and all eyes turned to the news, the radio? Shouldn't it have been, in some way, like a snow day, including the sort of muffled quiet?

You hear about other big occurrences in history, and how everybody just listened to the radio, wide-eyed, scared, maybe...

It just got me thinking.

And now I have to start thinking about the difference between so-called 1st and 3rd world cities.

Oh - and another thing I wonder about: Why wasn't the commentary of the final out of the 2004 World Series much more exciting? I'm thinking the Shot Heard 'Round the World. I'm thinking immortal, prototypical fame... Instead of "And the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions. For the first time in 86 years, the Red Sox have won baseball's World Championship. Can you believe it?" and barely a shred of excitement in the guys' voice. Pathetic. How about "THE RED SOX WIN! THE RED SOX WIN! For the first time in EIGHTY-SIX YEARS, the RED SOX WIN THE WORLD SERIES!" Any fan would have done better.

17 days till the Sox play again, and only 16 till the season officially opens...

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