oooh, lookit...
Sep. 11th, 2002 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_t_220Hey look, my desktop thing is working again. isn't that nice?
Man, I'm so tired. Got to about 11 o'clock when I only had half an hour left to go and I'm suddenly filled with the feeling that if I don't get out of this damned building now I'll be left with no choice but to gouge my brain out with a sharpened piece of parmesan stolen from the chiller cabinets.
Talking of chiller cabinets... it's bloody cold working down the dairy aisle for more than 5 minutes at a time.
Really though, no matter what shift I'm on, but especially at night, I get to about half an hour before I'm due to leave and the ONLY thing on my mind is that I'm so, so desperate to go home.
*sighs*
Got tomorrow off. Have to do a whole crapload of laundry though.
Oh, and because I'm in a funk and it's now over hanf an hour into being Septeber 11th, I figure I'll nick Deke's somewhat depressing survey.
Where were you when you heard about the attacks on the pentagon and WTC?
London, just outside the Tate Modern gallery at the end of a highly pointless college trip. We were out of touch till the coach came back for us at about 6 in the evening and the first any of us heard about it was from the coach driver who'd been listening to it on the radio while he was waiting to come and collect us.
What country/group did you suspect immediately?
Actually, none. Because the news we got was really distorted word of mouth, at first we all pretty much figured it was just a really bad accident.
Does air traffic control count as a group...? ^^;
Who were you with? How did you react?
I was on my own in a big, big group of students from the college. They were all technically in my class but we'd only had a few lessons together so no one really knew anyone very well.
I can't say I reacted much at all to the incident itself, again because we didn't really know what had happened.
When I finally got back home and saw the TV footage it was more a case of "Woah... I heard it was just a plane crash..."
Whom did you call first?
Well I tried to call my mum to tell her we might be late back. At the time there were rumours circualting about evacuating parts of London and we were expecting a lot more congestion in the city than we actually got.
However, the Vodaphone network was swamped and I my mobile wouldn't connect, so actually I called no one in the end.
What did you do the rest of the day?
I didn't get back till almost 10 at night, so I watched the footage on TV for a while then leaped on the net to say hi to all the folks I knew over in the USA.
It was, in its own way, kind of interesting watching how opinions about the matter changed the further West across the country you went.
People on the Eastern side of the country were just uniform blank shock, and the further West you went the less shock you had and the more exceedingly pissed off people were.
Did you have any friends or family killed in the attacks?
Thankfully, no. Though my brother is now very keen to hang onto the WTC postcards he got when he was there a few months before.
Do you think 9-11 should be a holiday?
Difficult question.
Over here, really I doubt it.
Over there... I don't know.
I think that coming from the UK there's a certain mindset that we have about this kind of event.
It's like... the scale was HUGE... but the intention behind it was something that we've lived with for decades. I remember growing up watching the IRA bomb London, seeing all the damage done from that, hearing about so many people being killed...
Like setting off nail-bombs in crowded streets, you'd see all these pictures of holes in buildings and some poor bastard who got peppered with hundreds of bolts of 6" steel.
And while the scale was so much bigger, it's the continual exposure to that which brings about the understanding that no matter what you do there are always going to be people out there that HATE you...
They'll hate you for whatever reason they can find and they will do whatever is in their power to make sure that you suffer.
Like the bully who'd say just the right thing to really really hurt you, you can't avoid these people, and the day that you sit and mope endlessly over how you were wronged is the day that they acheived what they set out to do.
Don't make it a holiday, make it a day to build.
Build a bigger WTC... one with 3 towers... with a giant hand flipping the finger on top of the middle one... I don't care...
Rise from it stronger and harder and you will never be beaten. Sit and cry and they've already won.
Did you feel an increased sense of patriotism?
Uh... no ^^;;
Again, I think that transatlantic divide had something to do with that.
Have you flown since the attacks? How soon did you fly again?
Yup... flew from Heathrow to NYC to see Hugh in Carousel. Ain't no way any terrorist is going to keep me from the chance to letch at Hugh in real life ^___^
Have you been to Ground Zero?
No, but I kind of wanted to... just to see the really REALLY huge hole.
Man, I'm so tired. Got to about 11 o'clock when I only had half an hour left to go and I'm suddenly filled with the feeling that if I don't get out of this damned building now I'll be left with no choice but to gouge my brain out with a sharpened piece of parmesan stolen from the chiller cabinets.
Talking of chiller cabinets... it's bloody cold working down the dairy aisle for more than 5 minutes at a time.
Really though, no matter what shift I'm on, but especially at night, I get to about half an hour before I'm due to leave and the ONLY thing on my mind is that I'm so, so desperate to go home.
*sighs*
Got tomorrow off. Have to do a whole crapload of laundry though.
Oh, and because I'm in a funk and it's now over hanf an hour into being Septeber 11th, I figure I'll nick Deke's somewhat depressing survey.
Where were you when you heard about the attacks on the pentagon and WTC?
London, just outside the Tate Modern gallery at the end of a highly pointless college trip. We were out of touch till the coach came back for us at about 6 in the evening and the first any of us heard about it was from the coach driver who'd been listening to it on the radio while he was waiting to come and collect us.
What country/group did you suspect immediately?
Actually, none. Because the news we got was really distorted word of mouth, at first we all pretty much figured it was just a really bad accident.
Does air traffic control count as a group...? ^^;
Who were you with? How did you react?
I was on my own in a big, big group of students from the college. They were all technically in my class but we'd only had a few lessons together so no one really knew anyone very well.
I can't say I reacted much at all to the incident itself, again because we didn't really know what had happened.
When I finally got back home and saw the TV footage it was more a case of "Woah... I heard it was just a plane crash..."
Whom did you call first?
Well I tried to call my mum to tell her we might be late back. At the time there were rumours circualting about evacuating parts of London and we were expecting a lot more congestion in the city than we actually got.
However, the Vodaphone network was swamped and I my mobile wouldn't connect, so actually I called no one in the end.
What did you do the rest of the day?
I didn't get back till almost 10 at night, so I watched the footage on TV for a while then leaped on the net to say hi to all the folks I knew over in the USA.
It was, in its own way, kind of interesting watching how opinions about the matter changed the further West across the country you went.
People on the Eastern side of the country were just uniform blank shock, and the further West you went the less shock you had and the more exceedingly pissed off people were.
Did you have any friends or family killed in the attacks?
Thankfully, no. Though my brother is now very keen to hang onto the WTC postcards he got when he was there a few months before.
Do you think 9-11 should be a holiday?
Difficult question.
Over here, really I doubt it.
Over there... I don't know.
I think that coming from the UK there's a certain mindset that we have about this kind of event.
It's like... the scale was HUGE... but the intention behind it was something that we've lived with for decades. I remember growing up watching the IRA bomb London, seeing all the damage done from that, hearing about so many people being killed...
Like setting off nail-bombs in crowded streets, you'd see all these pictures of holes in buildings and some poor bastard who got peppered with hundreds of bolts of 6" steel.
And while the scale was so much bigger, it's the continual exposure to that which brings about the understanding that no matter what you do there are always going to be people out there that HATE you...
They'll hate you for whatever reason they can find and they will do whatever is in their power to make sure that you suffer.
Like the bully who'd say just the right thing to really really hurt you, you can't avoid these people, and the day that you sit and mope endlessly over how you were wronged is the day that they acheived what they set out to do.
Don't make it a holiday, make it a day to build.
Build a bigger WTC... one with 3 towers... with a giant hand flipping the finger on top of the middle one... I don't care...
Rise from it stronger and harder and you will never be beaten. Sit and cry and they've already won.
Did you feel an increased sense of patriotism?
Uh... no ^^;;
Again, I think that transatlantic divide had something to do with that.
Have you flown since the attacks? How soon did you fly again?
Yup... flew from Heathrow to NYC to see Hugh in Carousel. Ain't no way any terrorist is going to keep me from the chance to letch at Hugh in real life ^___^
Have you been to Ground Zero?
No, but I kind of wanted to... just to see the really REALLY huge hole.
