I wrote this a while ago and is also posted on my pretty much defunct personal site. It's here since 'scribbles does actually get updated.

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I woke up that morning, late as usual. I had my "Programming Languages & Translator" class at 8:40am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but woke up at 8:30am. My place is about a 20-30 minute commute by bus, but since it was the beginning of my first semester at Columbia, the only means of transportation I knew then was via the subways. I lived on 92nd on the Upper East Side and my subway route was from 86th Street south to Grand Central (42nd Street), then west to Times Square (also on 42nd street), and then north on the 1/9 train to Columbia on 116th. It made a "U" around Central Park.

So, I left my place around 8:40am, no shower that morning, just the essentials. I was hoping to make it to class before it ended so at least I could sit in the lecture even for a just a few minutes. I got on the subway and proceeded to head to Grand Central. When I was almost to Grand Central, the subway stopped on the tracks between stops. I thought it was strange because it was the first time the subway had stopped on me before reaching a station (like I said, I was new in the city). So at that point, I kinda realized that I probably wouldn't make it on time for class to hear anything significant, so I planned to ditch class that morning and putz around until my next class at noon.

The subway then started again, and I got to Grand Central and jumped on the "shuttle" subway to Times Square. In retrospect, if I had exited the subway station at Times Square, I would have saw what was happening in the southern tip of Manhattan on the large TV screens decorating Times Square, but instead, I just waited for the red subway going to Columbia (Note: this was about 9:15-9:30am).

When I got 1/9 subway to go north, there was a African American there talking and had an audience in the subway car listening to him. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he was talking about and explosion and a fire at some building. Apparently, he didn't know how it happened, but he said he left (maybe asked to go or just fled) and was going home. My impression of it was that some apartment or building fire somewhere. No big deal, or so I thought.

When I got to school, I decided to hit the library because it was already 9:40ish, and the class ends at 9:55. I had brought my laptop that day to use the school's public network connections and to also buy and install a wireless network card to use around campus (I didn't have my DSL at home until October). But before I went into the reading rooms where the ethernet connection was, I stopped by a public terminal and logged onto CNN.com because I hadn't read the morning news, which is usually CNN.com. The CNN.com site was moving very very slow though, and it seemed like the server was down. I kept on hitting refresh, and still, nothing showed up on screen. I then hopped to other news sites, like ABCNews.com, or whatnot, but none of them were working either. Something's fishy. I finally got a visual on the NYTimes.com page, and saw the picture of the holes in the WTC. Oh shit. I think it was also at this time that I read that G. Bush called it an act of terrorism. At first, I was cursing in my head at his statement because I never liked Bush, his decision for a missile defense system, and his stance on the threat of a war. I thought he was jumping to conclusions on this one, but I think I was the one who only had a few paragraphs from the NYTimes.com to read about the incident.

I quickly went into the reading room and hooked up my computer to the network so I could scour the web for information to what has happened. The attempt was pretty futile with all the Internet traffic, so I packed up and walked around for a bit to collect my thoughts. The one thing I have to say is that you couldn't tell there was a disaster less than 5 miles south of where I was from looking at the campus.

I then went to buy my wireless network card from the mini-J&R store on campus, as I had planned. While I usually would have been a little hesitant buying this piece of equipment (my conscience usually gets to me about spending so much money on non-vital computer equipment), I had no doubts then because that day was probably the best day to be wired to the constant flow of information from the Internet.

I went into the store asking to purchase it and used my credit card to buy it. The clerk warned me that she didn't know if it would work because it contacted a bank somewhere in downtown Manhattan, but it did and I got my card. As I left the store (around 11am or so now), I called my parents back in California from my cell phone that I was okay. When I dialed, I could hear the special dial tone that indicated that I had a voice message, but I didn't bother checking it just then because having gone through emergencies before, I knew that the phone lines would be super-clogged and I just needed a minute's time to tell my parents were okay (later that day, I checked the message and sure enough, it was from my parents). After about 10 tries, I told them that I was safe and sound at school, which is a good ways away from the financial district (although still on Manhattan Island). The also told me that they were called by my relatives wondering if I was okay.

After the conversation, I went back into the library to the same kiosk to read the news again. This time, my jaw dropped because the headline now said that the WTC were gone. I had to read that one several times just to make sure. Noon was quickly approaching and not knowing what I should do, I figured I should follow my routine of going to Japanese class. Outside the building, there were signs that said that classes were canceled, but I met with some of my classmates who knew how tough the language department was and wanted to check with the instructors directly. When we got to the office, the instructor didn't know that classes were canceled despite the tragedy so they went and checked with the main office of the Asian Languages department. Sure enough, class was canceled. As we were leaving the building, a classmate wondered whether we had homework and so we went back and checked. Some people are so paranoid (and no, we didn't have homework, just in case you're wondering)!

At that point, I asked my classmates if they knew of a place on campus where there was a TV. None of them had a clue. So after some thinking, I figured that the business school must have TVs to watch stock tickers or something, like how it is at Cornell. Sure enough, they had it. I got a sandwich from the cafe there and sat in the TV room with a lot of other people watching the coverage on CNN. I think I sat in there for a total of 5 hours or so before I had returned home. About halfway through my stay, they brought in free pizza and sandwiches for us to eat. During my time there, I used my laptop and found a friend of mine, Eric, who was working in Midtown. He said he was okay, but didn't know if he was getting home since he lived in New Jersey.

Anyway, I got home that night, just to sit in front of the tube watching CNN for another few hours until G. Bush's speech. The next morning, I got up nice and early to get a copy of the New York Times newspaper. While it's a respected paper, the coverage was pretty weak on the attacks. The New York Post had great articles and footage.

In the days following Tuesday, I could tell that the city was in a state of sadness. The usually liveliness in the streets were gone and people on the subways were more somber than usual. I was starting to be affected by the mood. By Thursday night, the stench from the wreckage had come up to 92nd Street. At that point, I realized that I had to leave the city for the weekend and went back to Ithaca (Cornell) to escape.

As a footnote, I was at the WTC on September 8th with friends John and Eric. They were showing me around the city and we had to go to the WTC to take the underwater subway to New Jersey where Eric lived. I took my digital camera along that day and was at the base of the WTC looking up and thinking "Wow, this would be an awesome picture." But it was a Saturday afternoon, and I didn't want to look like a tourist, so I thought, "I'll just come back next week, early in the morning. It's not like they're going to go anywhere in a week."

Lesson: Don't let the fear of embarrassment or self-image stop you from doing what you want, because you'll never know if you are going to have that chance again.

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