Where were you on 9/11 when it happened?

I was not long out of college and living with my parents. Like most people, I thought the first one was some bizarre accident, but when the second plane hit we knew it was terrorism.

I was living in the Midwest and attending high school as a sophomore at the time, so we were an hour behind. The planes hit while I was in gym class for First Hour, so I didn't hear about the incident until I went to my Second Hour class (Introduction to Physical Science, or IPS). I walked in and saw everyone standing or sitting in the classroom, staring at the tv with what looked like two, silver, smoking chimneys on there. Every tv in the school was tuned into the news, watching events play out for most of the day. We even saw the South Tower fall down. Nobody was sure what was going on, other than knowing it was an Arab terrorist attack. I remember writing in my journal that day about it, including the confusion.

A rather peculiar incident happened after Second Hour, when we the students were going to our Third Hour classes. I was in the stairwell, heading down the stairs, when we all heard the PA system going off. For one, brief second, everyone in the hall stopped to listen. You could tell what was on our minds. What bad thing was going to happen now? But it turned out the announcement was a boring, everyday one, and a few kids laughed or giggled as we resumed our walking. The incident took 3 seconds, but it was really weird, and some people talked about it over the next few days.

It took all day to find out what happened. My parents at home had the tv on too. We watched the news quite a bit over the next few days as the details behind the attack came out.

I woke up to my radio alarm clock playing the local morning rock station show. They described a hijacked plane in the air on the east coast. I initially pictured a small one-engine type plane. As I was getting ready for school (i.e., 2nd day of senior year in hs) and I gathered the radio show was doing some kind of "War of the Worlds" type show, as the hosts tended to giggle about things during their conversation.

Found out more about the situation once I got to school. By second or third period, I think, we were all let go and ordered to return home due to multiple bomb threats [mind you, I was living in CA at the time]. I walked out of school at about 10:15am PST. Everything felt so surreal, almost dream-like for most of the day. I think it was the first time I watched Fox News Network, of all things that day.

*none of my teachers or admin staff talked about what was happening on the east coast, no tv or radio broadcasts were presented to us -- on the day of nor any days after. Teachers kept it as "normal" as possible by not talking about it. Just stuck to class lessons and materials.

1st period gym class in High School, Chicago.