Where Were You....

7 years ago?

I was 21 years old, in college, living in the sorority house. I was President at the time and we were just starting all our preparations for fall rush, so everyone had just come back to campus and we spent the night before rocking out at our favorite local pub.

I woke up at 5:50am to my phone ringing. Thinking it was my sister up the road at Cal Poly getting revenge on me for my 4am drunk dial, I rolled over and put my pillow over my head. Then the phone rang again. and again. Finally I picked it up, and my mom just said "TURN ON THE TV". I immediately called my sister and [amazing] she answered, and I relayed my mom's words to her.

I remember it was right about 6am when I walked out to the dining room and there were about 5 other girls sitting there watching the news. We were the only ones awake in a house that slept 48. Then, as we sat there, we watched the 2nd plane hit and then the subsequent collapse of both buildings. I'm still not sure at what point we all came to terms with the fact that this was not an accident. The group huddled around the TV eventually grew to about 40 girls around 9am. I canceled rush practice for the rest of the day. Some girls cried, some girls got mad, and I remember feeling that I needed to put on a strong face since I was the fearless leader.

I'll never forget sitting outside on our patio with a few of other seniors later that day, talking about what life really meant to us while making little red, white, and blue ribbons to wear under our badges when rush started a couple days later. Word had spread that the new UCSB gymnastics coach was on one of the planes which brought the story even closer to home. Somewhere in IV, we heard another sorority practicing some cheesy rush chant/song and we all couldn't believe it.

I will never forget that day.