Here's a link to the word file. I wrote each class along with you students.
Note that, though interesting, each one is imperfect. They are rambles, disconnected from a central focus.
Now, I have to find one for myself. I'd suggest you do as well.
Link opens a word document, "Sept11"
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5 comments:
Thanks Brad for sharing your writing. As always, it helps make my thoughts clearer. It’s kind of embarrassing to show my post-draft-rambling, but hey, I’m encouraged by someone’s words, “our first draft will be $%#@!”
Here’s what I’ve done during the class:
I’ve completely forgotten how I felt that day. Maybe I am a cold person.
A kid’s show was supposed to be on air in the morning—our household ritual—but instead of a cartoon, TV screen was showing a top half of a building with smoke coming out of the windows. Fire in a hi-rise, was my first thought. What was that old movie, Towering Inferno? came in my mind. Then I heard the news. The kids started to whine in the background, where is Mr. Dress Up?
What I felt? I don’t remember, but my heart starts racing even now when I try to recall a thousand of stories I heard in the month of September, 2001. A man climbed down 100 stories of the stairs, a businessman called his love-ones from the airplane, the people whose lives were robbed suddenly.
There. That’s all I wrote in the class. Measly 130 words.
I now know that I hadn’t gasp what happened that day until now when I try to write something about it five years later.
That incident rubbed in my face that PEOPLE CANNOT UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER.
There’re always people hate you whatever you are. And boy, they cannot stand the fact that you are breathing the air on the earth. They don’t mind throwing their lives away at all just to make the point.
We don’t speak same language. There’s no way to reconcile.
Also, just because it happened on American soil, we had so much coverage on media to make us horrified, but there are still numerous mass killings around the world, aren’t there? Tons of people, with their own stories.
It doesn’t to take much for our lives to be crashed. Just one fanatic could destroy our seemingly peaceful life. Like the guy in North Korea or a loony on the street.
...But I’ve got to make Sunday lunch right now. Ah...
Hi Brad. I wasn't sure what I was to do with this assignment so i'll take my leave from Hiromi....September 11th has burnt itself into the world's psyche. I awoke that morning, got my tea and turned on the tv. The sight of that plane flying into that tower was surreal to me. I think tried to tell myself it must be somebody's sick idea of a joke. Maybe it wasn't real. It didn't seem real. I hoped it wasn't. When reality soaked in I found I was really pissed off. Not at whom you may think though. I started obsessing on the arrogance of the United States. I was horrified and saddened by all the death that occurred that day. I'm also horrified by all the death wrought by America over the last two hundered years or more. I know it's not a popular notion but I feel that the American government is a huge terrorist body. So many innocent people, all over the world have been murdered or tortured by the American military. I think the world got a wake up call the morning of September 11th. Just because we live in North America doesn't mean that war cannot visit us in our backyard's. This thought doesn't comfort me, but it's made me aware and far less smug. By that I mean smug in the assumption that if war happens it will be somewhere a trillion miles away. Far from my child's school or the nearest grocery store. That day changed everything, especially my sense of security. When I read about your ordeal with the body search, at the airport, it was to me and my way of thinking a rational and imperative thing for security personal to do. After all, what does a terrorist look like? How easy was it for those men to hiijack those planes? What resistance were they met with through air traffic security? From the documentaries I've seen and the papers I've read it was a relativley easy thing for them to accomplish. Your experience was a time consumming, presumabley embarrasing inconvenience for you. If that sort of security was in place before 9/11 maybe it wouldn't be a topic we're writing about today. I wish the world didn't have to be on the lookout, all the time for such horrendous occurances but such is life. We have no more room for safe assumptions that our way of life and our beliefs are secure. Someone could and will drop a bomb on us while we're shopping or picking up the kids. Someone has stolen planes and flown them into buildings. It's right in our faces. We have to deal with it. That means far greater security measures at airports, border crossings and anywhere traveling.
Well...those are my thoughts so far. I know I didn't touch alot on the grief for the families. I suppose it's just too sad for me to let myself think about. I guess I'm just not ready to deal with all that yet. I'm sure I'm not done writing, as we were told we have months to accomplish this assignment. I'll write more as new thoughts come to me.
Interesting to see Hiromi and Stacey's writing juxtaposed like this. As far as a focus is concerned, it sure seems to me that our awareness of the world's troubles is key. Your takes are different, however, Stacey's more "political" if you will and Hiromi's more personal.
I do believe as Stacey does that "We have no more room for safe assumptions that our way of life and our beliefs are secure." We have to look at ourselves, yes, and our profligate ways; we have to look at those who seek to convert us to another religion or to kill us if we do not (I know only the view of extremists, but those who did 9/11 were extremists)
Is another attack inevitable? What was the point of all the alerts and searches (Vancouver airport last Sunday comes to mind) and has their ever been a terrorist who looked like me? Good questions, but I wasn't the only one patted down. The guy also stopped teenage girls; elderly women. What do we get when we suspect everyone?
Thanks to both of you for sharing your work in progress.
Some of Hiromi's words won't let me sleep so I have to write. "People cannot understand eachother." It scares me to think that folks feel that way, but I suppose thats one of the main reasons that terrorism or racism exists. It's a lack of desire for understanding. For some I suppose it's easier to label and come to an opionion on another rather than learn and understand that just because we believe something different, doesn't make us automatic enemies. I watched a documentary on Iraqi youth. They raise children on hatred one generationan at a time.
Imagine if we all decided to raise our children on acceptance, tolerance and understanding one generation at a time. Imagine if we all put as much into that education as the Iraqi's do with thier own...
Stacey,
I've just read your paragraph.
It's such a huge issue, and I can't say much right now, but I'M GLAD YOU ARE IN THE CLASS!
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