to everything turn, turn, turn

this week has been a dark one for americans, and those around the globe. for miami, it marked the death of one of its students. for virginia tech, thirty two students and professors were slaughtered in cold blood. for the world, hundreds lost their lives in baghdad today.

it seems like the only news i hear nowadays is bad news. some mornings i don't even want to check my email or turn on the television, because i know if i do, i'll be bombarded with images of death, of chaos, of suffering. tuesday, in one of my workshops, we put aside the flannery o'connor stories we were assigned to discuss and talked instead about the events that happened the previous day. "it seems you you guys today have been through much more than any generation," my professor said. "you had columbine, and september 11th, and now this."

i was in 7th grade when i heard about columbine. i still remember where i was, what i was wearing, all the cliches they say define moments in your life. mrs. carr's classroom smelled of mud and the various colognes and perfumes from bath and body works that all teenagers thought smelled wonderful. the orange plastic of the desk chair charged my skirt with static; the room was humid with all the students waiting for classes to start. mrs. carr sat down in front of the class on a stool. i had never seen her look so serious. she said, "i don't know if you've heard, but in a high school in colorado, many students have been shot and killed."
i grew up that day.

and now, eight years later, cnn and foxnews and msnbc and katie courac and everyone else is likening these attacks to those at columbine. everyday, a more tragic, heart-wrenching story is told. ryan clark, the tripple major R.A. who died to save another student. Caitlin Hammaren, who was only a freshman. the professor who blocked the door to save his students and was fatally wounded.

the most heartbreaking story i heard was on NPR - friends of those attending virginia tech would write messages of concern, saying "are you alright?" only to find out their friend was a victim of that day.

life, i think, comes in droves. it's cyclical. there are times in my life that everything seems to be set in place, and i float through my days as if i were acting it out in a play or a movie. but then something like this happens, that shakes me to the core. who could committ such horrible acts? nbc released videos cho had mailed. in the package, he also enclosed 27 photographs of him holding guns, some of them pointing at the camera. he said he was misunderstood and driven to do this, and he could have been prevented. and that eric and dyllon (from columbine shootings) were martyrs.

how do you get past this, though? i don't know, and i don't think there is any proper way. i think we just have to live, one day at a time, sadder and wiser for what has happened.

there is no other way.

quote of the day: "today, we are all hokies."