This post was originally written on my personal blog in 2003. It has been revised and reposted each year since then.

It still seems like just yesterday.

I had moved into my dorm at Douglass College just days earlier. As I sat in the dining hall on that beautiful morning with my best friend Erin chatting about our schedules, I remember hearing the morning radio show talking about the Twin Towers. I also remember Erin and I wondering aloud why talk radio was being broadcast in the dining hall and why were the hosts talking about something that had happened in 1993? We tuned it out; it became nothing more than white noise in the background. We were college students and it didn’t seem important. We finished breakfast and headed off to class.

I went to my Women and Public Policy class; it was a class of about 50-60 students and I think I was the only freshman. As my classmates settled into seats in the small lecture hall, our professor, Jen, apologized as she placed her cell phone on the podium. She explained that she had to keep it turned on because she a had a flight out of Newark later that day and she needed to keep up on any delays due to the incident in the city.

That was the first that I heard about a plane crash.

This was college in 2001. I had a TV in my room but it wasn’t hooked up yet. We had the internet but it was hardwired and most of my time was spent on AIM, not looking at news sites. I had a cell phone but it definitely wasn’t smart. In class, I had a notebook and pen, so there was no way to seek out any more information than what the instructor shared with us. I hadn’t heard about a plane crash, but everyone in class seemed fairly calm. We talked about what had happened for a few minutes and most of us assumed it was just an errant pilot; a tragedy, but nothing too life-changing for the majority of us. There were no details available. So from 9:50-10:30am we continued on with our normal class schedule, discussing women in the current political system. I packed up my bag at the end of class and followed a group of students out of the building. I remember walking back to the dorm, over the Hickman Bridge, listening to people around me say they heard that classes were canceled for the rest of the day. It seemed strange, but I figured I would get details when I made it back to my room.

As I walked into my building, I could sense the panic. The stress and tension in the air hit me like a slap in the face. Girls were walking around crying. A group was huddled around the one television in the back lounge. I walked up the three flights of stairs to my room and immediately saw that my answering machine was blinking wildly. Each message was from my mother, trying to get in touch with me. I grabbed my cell phone, which had been turned off in class, but the call would not go through. “All circuits are busy” was the only response I got when I dialed. Cell phone lines were jammed.

As I kept hitting the redial button, I watched my floormates pace up and down the hall. One of the girls walked past my door no less than twenty times in 2 minutes. She was trying to get in touch with her father who worked in the Twin Towers. Others were just trying to find their parents, even if they didn’t work in the city. We all just needed the reassurance of talking to family.

Unable to get through to anyone on the phone, I took my cell phone and walked back downstairs to the lounge where I sat on the couch with my dormmates, staring at the images that were being flashed on every station on our common room TV. No one spoke. We’d only met a few days earlier and suddenly the scariest event of our lives was occurring in the city we thought of as our own. The city.

After a few minutes, I couldn’t watch the news anymore. The news anchors were so unsure and so frightened; they kept showing the same clips over and over and they didn’t have any answers. I hoped I could find out more on the internet.

At 11:00am, I finally got through to my mother (while reloading news sites over and over) who she was relieved to hear from me. She told me you could see flames from the beach by our house and that there was a huge cloud of smoke and a smell enveloping Middletown. She asked if I wanted to come home, and while I considered it, I chose to stay. I wanted to be with my friends, and I admit that the idea of driving home was frightening. None of us knew what was happening or what would happen in the next few hours. It felt safer for us all to stay in one place.

It wasn’t easy, though. The panic in my dorm just increased all afternoon. My friends and I sat in stunned silence, alternating between watching the television coverage and reading each other updates from the internet. At one point, fighter jets flew over campus and people ran for the basement. No one knew what would happen next. Were we at war? That sense of terror was something unimaginable only hours before.

We watched the news for hours on end. I sent IMs and received IMs from friends who were at school in the city, in DC, and across the country. People I hadn’t talked to in months came to mind. I went to a tiny high school, only about 60 students in a graduating class, and our network of students was reaching out to one another. We just needed to know that everyone was all right. I remember the anxiety we all felt while we checked on all “our” Maryland people, friends who went to school near the Pentagon and Washington, DC. Eighteen years old and we were frantically searching for people just to make sure they were still there.

AOL Instant Messenger was our lifeline. Away messages served as life affirmers. Emails were sent back and forth.

I will never forget signing on to our high school email network and reading the public announcements, a forum usually reserved for messages about upcoming school dances and PTA fundraisers. The tragedy began to hit home as some of my peers posted messages asking for classmates to look for names on lists- parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins. As each new manifest was posted by the media it became more and more apparent that some of those who were missing would not be coming home that night.

This wasn’t supposed to happen to people you knew…

Later that day, my mother got through to me again, telling me that my brother’s best friend’s dad was missing. That’s when I made a decision. I went home.

I stayed home. School was cancelled for days. We weren’t sure when classes would start again. Most of my floormates went home, too. We didn’t know if we were at war, if terrorists would strike somewhere else in the coming days, if we were safe. Suddenly college didn’t seem that important.

At home, my mother told me how on the morning of September 11th, ferries came from the city to our harbor. Ferries that were based all over NY just packed with passengers from NYC. People who just had to get somewhere besides Manhattan. Ferries would load up and sail to any dock available outside of Manhattan. Passengers stumbled off the boats- people covered in ash, people in shock. They were hosed down immediately by men and women in hazmat suits, for fear that they were carrying biological agents.

Over the next few days, the newspapers talked about how my town, Middletown, was the town in NJ hit the hardest by the tragedy. We lost so many. So many people from my church, people I knew from middle school and high school. Parents, siblings, friends, colleagues all of them. We were a commuter town and every family was touched in some way. Today, Middletown is known as the place that lost the most residents on 9/11 after NYC. There are memorials all over town. There are scholarships and 5K races each year in memory of those who were lost. It’s a constant part of so many lives.

We all grew up that day and our lives changed forever. Safety and security became the most important social and political issues. 9/11 effects us to this day; we take our shoes off at the airport, we arrive 3 hours early, and we still get a little too nervous when flying. But this isn’t new for my students. For them, it’s just the way it’s always been. September 11th is history to them, something they read about each year. For my entire teaching career, I’ve had to be careful of what I’ve said on 9/11 because there was always a student in the room whose life was touched by the tragedy. But now? My students were not born when the tragedy struck. If their family lost a loved one, my student most likely never met them. My current freshmen were born in 2009/10- almost a decade after that September day.

That’s hard for me to comprehend because 9/11 is such a huge part of my life. But for my students, it’s something their parents and other adults talk about. The visual of a plane hitting the towers live on television isn’t part of their life; that’s something I can’t imagine. But for my students, today is September 11th “capital letter because it’s a month,” not September 11th, “a day that changed our lives forever, so it has forever been ingrained in our minds.”

I’ve even seen posts in some teacher groups I am in lamenting the fact that we need to continue talking about this day in schools.  “Why does it matter in 2024?” some posts ask.  Part of me understands that sentiment: we glossed over things like Pearl Harbor Day during my education. But the other part of me remains stunned at the idea of skipping today’s remembrance.  Here in NJ, it’s hard to skip it regardless of your feelings, as our major news stations will run coverage of the ceremonies at Ground Zero, Shanksville, and the Pentagon all morning.

For me, it is hard to fathom not being able to articulate exactly where I was that day, that hour, that minute. While I am glad they have no memory of the terror our nation, especially the tri-state area, experienced that day, it still leaves me stunned. It’s such an integral part of my life that I can’t imagine it not being a cornerstone in others’ lives. Yet I am grateful for that blessing, too. September 11th will always be a day that stops me in my tracks, but I am glad that it’s history for my students. I hope they never experience anything like we all did on that day. But I also hope that they never forget.

We will never forget.
God Bless all those lost on 9-11-01……

It’s the end of the month, which means it’s time for end-of-the-month round-ups. The graphic above is from Storygraph, an app/website I use to track the books I read throughout the year. At the end of the month they provide lots of data about your reading, and I always find it interesting. This month I read 8 books, and Storygraph breaks it down by genre, format, and more. It’s fun to look back to see the types of books I was reading at any given time.

I’ve also spent a lot of time tonight reading the reflections many of the 9th graders have posted over the course of the day. The Slice of Life Challenge is one of my favorite assignments every year because so many students grow to enjoy/appreciate it. While students often groan and complain on March 1st, they change their tune by March 31st. I love that so many students have written about building community with their classmates via comments and others have written about the joy I sharing their daily routines. Blogging is a skill that can be used anytime, and it also transfers to non-digital formats like journals and notebooks. Taking the time to reflect on our days can be really valuable, and it doesn’t have to stop now.

While running errands today I was listening to A Catalog of Burnt Objects because I am working on a (possible) thematic guide for Penguin Random House that focuses on nature/conservation.  A Catalog of Burnt Objects  is a new YA novel that deals with growing up in a small town in California that is inspired by Paradise, CA.  As you might be able to infer from the title, the book deals with a devastating wildfire.  I am about halfway through and it’s really good.

When I wasn’t out of the house today I watched March Madness.  The women’s games were very exciting today, with South Carolina and UCLA pulling out wins.  The second game of the day for the men was also fun to watch.  Auburn is a fun team to watch, so I was happy they pulled out the win. Auburn forward and SEC player of the year Johni Broome went down with an elbow injury after trying to block a shot by a Michigan State player.  He landed awkwardly and immediately grabbed his elbow. When he walked to the locker room you could clearly read his lips as he told the team he was “done”.  I was shocked when he came back in the game after x-rays.  He was clearly in pain and his right arm mostly hung limply at his side.  I’m not sure he should have been playing, but I understand why he wanted to get back on the court.  Hopefully he will be good to go later this week for their Final Four matchup.  

Now I am watching Angel City vs. Seattle Reign where there have been two goals, a penalty in the box, and multiple cards in the first 12 minutes.  NWSL after dark even if it’s only dark on the East coast!

Oh. My. God. No spoilers, but Sunrise on the Reaping is everything I hoped for and more. Even if you have not read the original trilogy and/or Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, you can pick this one up. There of lots of details series readers will appreciate, but the books stands alone, too.

I read The Hunger Games in 2008 when Scholastic sent me an ARC (advance reader copy)  ARCs are shared with people in advance of publication to help build up buzz. Here’s what I wrote on my blog after reading my copy in 2008:

I read this novel in less than a day. The action is non-stop and heartpounding at many points in the story. Katniss is a likable character: she isn’t perfect, she isn’t a moral compass, and sometimes you even want to hate her. However, the situation she is thrust into is eerily similar to the modern-day obsession with reality TV and you can’t help but wonder if this the frightening direction into which we are headed. Collins never mentions a year in the novel, so it could be tomorrow or a thousand years from today. That in itself will keep you engrossed in the novel. The story is violent and filled with betrayals, but there is also kindness, love, and drama. This is one novel you will not be able to put down. This is the perfect start to what should amount to a fantastic trilogy.

I loved the book so much that I waited on an excruciatingly long line at BEA (the now defunct BookExpo America) for an ARC of Catching Fire.  Here’s what I wrote in spring 2009:

Unreal. Amazing. Heart-stopping. Gut-wrenching. Mind-blowing. Just a few of the superlatives that describe Suzanne Collin’s Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games).

Yes, I was one of the lucky ones who scored an ARC of Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) at BEA. I started reading on Sunday and have been dragging it out ever since. I just didn’t want the experience to end! However, I have two classrooms full of students clamoring for their chance with the book. Plus, I want to reread it now.  It’s just that good.  Of course, now I have to wait even longer for the third book in the series to come out.  And talk about ending on a cliff-hanger!

Scholastic has asked that no one reveal plot details so that everyone gets a spoiler-free experience when the book is published in September. But what I can tell you is that Suzanne Collins has outdone herself. I read a lot of books and many times can see twists and turns coming from a mile away. But not with this book, no sirree. Collins blew my mind at some points and had me gasping at others. Her world building is impeccable and her characterization continues to amaze me.  The plotting starts out a bit slower, because this is a sequel.  But hang in there, because Collins outdoes herself almost immediately.

By the time Mockingjay was published in 2010 there were no ARCs.  The series was HUGE, so no advance marketing was necessary.  I wrote a spoiler-filled review at the time, so I won’t share much here, but I did share my favorite lines from the book:

“Are you preparing for another war, Plutarch?” I ask. 

“Oh, not now.  Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived.  We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self destruction.  Although who knows?  Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”

It blows my mind that I’ve been reading this series for 17 years.  I brought that first ARC to my 6th grade classes in Manalapan, and it was passed from student to student for the next year.   The same happened with the next two books in the series.  Now, my high school students read the series.

Tonight I am watching Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I read the book when it was released (and had strong feelings about it), but I never watched the film. Imagine my surprise when I remembered that the tributes are put on display at the zoo; just this week my classes read about Ota Benga(during our unit on The Tempest) and discussed the myth of the noble savage. On our last day of class this week, we discussed “How can studying the connection between Caliban and Ota Benga help us read literature more critically today?”

And here’s another example in Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.  

Suzanne Collins really does know exactly what we need and she writes it.

If you noticed something was up this week, you were right! We try to do underground spirit week at least once each year as a way to have fun. This year we used it to help us make it through to spring break.

I think today was my favorite theme day because everyone looked so silly! We did favorite holidays.

Now I am trying to watch the men’s and women’s March Madness games and Gotham vs. Houston.  I’m flipping between YouTubeTV and NWSL+ while also constantly checking scores on my phone.

Quick change of topic- I need someone to figure out why female athletes are more likely than male athletes to tear their ACL. Tierna Davidson, USWNT member and Gotham defender, went down with a non-contact injury during the 1st half. When she finally got up she was crying and Emily Sonnett was walking next to her carrying her water bottle as she slowly limped off the field.  One of the announcers got choked up. Goalie coach Michelle Betos met her on the sideline and they just hugged for a long time before Tierna Davidson  headed to the locker room. I hope it’s not her ACL, but I’ve seen this too many times. Just a few days ago JuJu Watkins of USC tore her ACL during her team’s sweet sixteen game. We need more research in women’s sports medicine and more focus on strength and conditioning for female athletes.

Ugh. I really hope Tierna Davidson’s injury is something minor. Fingers crossed.

Every day it’s light out for a little bit longer. I’d appreciate it if the weather would stop dipping close to freezing, though. I was not adequately prepared for the ride over to gym duty. My ears were freezing on the ride there and back!

Today was the first day all week that I didn’t have a meeting after school. I got home at 3pm and was able to relax a bit before taking care of some errands. I finally remembered to go to CVS for contact solution because I had a minute to sit and relax!

After a few miles at the park and a beautiful sunset, I made dinner. Tonight’s dinner was Chicken Souvlaki Platter with Rice Pilaf & Chopped Salad. I used a recipe from the dinner delivery service Dinnerly. It turned out to be pretty good! Tomorrow will be a challenge when it comes to dinner because Fridays in Lent mean no meat. I’ll probably just make a frozen pasta dish from Trader Joe’s before taking Kells to class.

In case you can’t tell, I’m running out of things to write about! It always gets tougher at the end of the month. Because spring break still feels so far away there isn’t much going on.

Speaking of spring break, I’ve been trying to plan a Broadway trip for that week. I am hoping to see Smash so I have been checking for cheap tickets daily. Hopefully, I will be able to grab some soon! I need something to look forward to!

I don’t normally go out on school/work nights, but my friends wanted to get together tonight. We agreed to meet up for gelato in Freehold around 5:45pm. We all used to teach together at Pine Brook in Manalapan, but now we teach at 3 different schools: I’m in MCVSD, and while the both teach in Manalapan, they are at different schools.  We try to hang out whenever we can, and usually we go out for sushi. However, we are all so tired that gelato sounded easier. Plus, who can turn down ice cream?

I got two scoops of gelato: one scoop of chocolate and one scoop of cookies and cream. We hung out for about a jot abc caught up on each other’s lives.

After eating ice cream I came home to make dinner. I used leftover corned beef to make Reuben sandwiches. I also used the homemade sauerkraut I made a few weeks ago; it was delicious! I’ve never made sauerkraut before, but I figured it was worth trying because it only has a few ingredients. It turned out really good!

Finally, I watched some TV and worked on crocheting a bunny rabbit for my niece. She requested a bunny and an Easter egg for Easter, so I had to her started! I’ve been crocheting for about a year, mostly using the Woobles patterns. I can finish the easy patterns in just a few hours, but I spent a few weeks recently working an an intermediate design: a glow-in-the-dark kraken! 
It took me forever, but I love my kraken!

Now I am getting ready for bed. These last few days have really drained me!

My sister-in-law brought my nieces to surprise my dad, so that was awesome! My brother and his wife moved to Pennsylvania in November, so we only see my nieces every few weeks/months because they live 2.5 hours away. When I was halfway to my parents’ house I got a phone call from them asking where I was because they were very excited to see everyone.  There were lots of hugs and kisses when everyone finally arrived!

One of my brothers also has a birthday this week, so we celebrated him and my dad. My mom picked up pizza and she got two cakes – one ice cream cake and one regular cake. The regular cake was from Mueller’s Bakery, which is my dad’s favorite bakery. I was tempted to have a piece from each cake, but I settled on the baked version.  I did, however, swipe some ice cream cake from my nieces. Oops!

I have 5 younger siblings, and most of them stopped by to wish my dad a happy birthday.  My nieces and my nephew were very funny tonight and had lots of stories to tell everyone. My 3-year old niece told me she is a good listener in school but another girl “is a bad listener and she climbed under the table!”  Three year olds are definitely very funny and they like to gossip!

I spent about 2 hours at my parents’ house before I had to head home. By the time I actually got out of the house it was about 7:30pm.  I made it home by 8:20 and now I’m exhausted.  I think I’ll try to head to bed early.

Monday is always such a long day. It felt especially long today because it rained all day long. All day. I know we are in a drought (in most of New Jersey), but grey and rainy days always make me feel tired at work. Luckily, the weather cleared up a bit after work so I could walk the dogs.

Now I’m watching the women’s March Madness tournament. I was looking forward to seeing Juju Watkins of USC play in the late and, but 5 minutes into the first quarter she went down hard after a fast break. I couldn’t tell if it was her ankle or knee, but she had to be helped off. Hopefully, it’s not her ACL. Female athletes suffer so many ACL injuries that scientists are actually researching the reasons the injury seems so common.

The rest of the this week is filled with family birthdays. My dad and my brothers all have birthdays within a 30-day period, so March is always very busy!

I wasn’t sure what to write about, so I procrastinated by scrolling Instagram. I paused on a story a grammar school classmate posted.  As the reel played, the memories came flooding back.

I love how music can immediately bring us back to the time and place when we first listened to it. I hadn’t thought about Little T and One Track Mike since college, but my friend’s post, which was a repost from a nostalgia account, immediately brought me back to high school.

I saw Little T and One Track Mike play that same show at High Tech and had completely forgotten! My friend’s post brought me back to watching “Shaniqua (Don’t Live Here No More)” premiere on Total Request Live in 2001 and listening to it on alternative rock radio stations even though I hadn’t thought of the song in over 20 years

One Track Mike was a High Tech graduate and the official music video for “Shaniqua (Don’t Live Here No More)” included a cameo by at least one other High Techer who was a senior when I was a freshman. I remember we all thought it was so cool that people we knew were in a music video that was on TRL. Mike’s brother (also an MCVSD alum) graduated the same year as me and was good friends with some of my friends. We hung out a lot my junior and senior year and he was my swing dancing partner at many a High Tech dance. (That is the most y2k sentence ever). I think he gave me a copy of Fome is Dape, but I can’t remember.

What I do remember is playing that CD a lot. It turns out it’s on Spotify, so I listened to it tonight. I had forgotten that the late 90s/early 2000s was a time of “secret tracks”. Streaming didn’t exist yet, so we listened to CDs. Artists would “hide” a song at the end of the CD; the song wasn’t included on the track listing and you’d only find it by listening past the end of the CD. Usually, the song would play 5 minutes after the last song. There’d just be dead air in between. The secret track on this album was “Famous” and when I played it tonight I realized I still knew every word. How crazy is that?!

It turns out that the music we listen to in our teens seems to (figuratively) be wired into our brains. Scientists have found that humans experience “neural nostalgia” related to songs they love when their brains are rapidly developing as adolescents.That’s why I still love musicians and bands like Something Corporate, Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney, Missy Eliot, Catch-22, Dashboard Confessional, The Used, N’Sync, The Backstreet Boys, and Ludacris- that’s who I listened to between ages 14-20. Those are the concerts I attended. I bought the CDs and downloaded their songs from Napster, Linewire, and Kazaa. I made mix CDs and traded them with my friends. We requested their songs on the radio.

It’s also why I remember every song by Little T and One Track Mike. They have the added nostalgia of an emotional connection to HTHS and my best friends from high school. I hadn’t listened to their music in over 20 years, but the first few beats of that Instagram Reel brought me back to the year 2000.

So yeah, music is awesome and so are our brains!