An American in Provence

A first-year graduate student at the University of Virginia, Electrical Engineering Department. She has a few classes, plus an Introduction to Science and Engineering class for Freshmen for which she is the teacher's assistant.


Another fall day in Virginia like any other. She gets up, and leaves her first-ever apartment for class, this morning she is sitting in on the Intro. to Science class. The professor up in front is talking about GPS- what it is and how it works. He talks about the accuracy of the GPS locators, saying that they have an accuracy radius of about 100 m. To demonstrate, he shows a picture of the White House, showing that a GPS could be used to hit the white house, and also Pentagon.


Outside class, there is some buzz about a small plane or helicopter that hit the World Trade Center in New York, but nobody really thinks too much of it.


As the morning progress, things begin to seem much more serious, but nobody really knows what is going on. The university puts some TVs in the hallways, and there are groups of students standing around the TVs, watching.


There starts to be some panic, and someone mentions that the top-secret Army Intelligence installation just north of town was also hit, that someone saw some smoke coming out of the building.


In the afternoon, in the computer lab for the Intro. class, the teacher apologizes for his remarks earlier that morning. He had had no idea, obviously, that at the time of his comments, someone was hitting the Pentagon with a plane.


The day passes, and our young graduate student returns to her apartment, feeling a bit isolated- no roommate, plus doesn't know too many people as classes started just a few weeks earlier. She doesn't have a tv, so just listens to the radio and looks at the news on the internet.

Her family calls, to make sure she is alright, and to say that nobody they know was hurt.


Classes are cancelled for the next few days. People go to give blood, donate items, raise money.
Church attendance is greatly increased, and there is a candlelight vigil on The Lawn. Everyone is still rather stunned by it all.