AtifSajid
04-18-2007, 09:01 AM
So a co-worker of mine actually knows some students who go to VT. He has been communicating with them and this email was sent to him, which was approved to be posted here...
Hey
thanks for calling and writing.
it is so awful here. As more news comes out it just gets worse and worse and more weird all the time...
the person we knew was our best friends' neighbor, so BBQed and chatted w/ him a couple times at our friends' house. They live close by so we'd see him when we walk ila. He was just a couple years older than us and now his wife is all alone. So we went over to our friends' last night to sleep b/c her husband is away at a conference and she was getting calls from the media and was freaked out and trying to figure out how and when to tell their kids who are 5 and 3 that their neighbor friend is gone... this sucks.
Yesterday before we found out it was kind of easy to think that we didn't know anyone... now it's real.
more names are coming out... i haven't recognized any more so far.
ugh
Went to the convocation yesterday. It was kind of a bummer b/c the basketball collosium filled up so they moved us into the football stadium, but we couldn't hear much since we had to watch on the scoreboard screen and had crappy speakers. They should have had the whole thing in the football stadium and we could have all been together. Now I feel like GW Bush or some other dignitary w/ no tie to VT had my seat. The people that spoke were OK- Bush, our Governor, president of the university... Nikki Giovanni, a poet lauriette from VT, gave a moving poem that's now being pegged as 'political.' It wasn't at all. She just said that we didn't deserve this, but things happen all over that people don't deserve. Then she listed off bad things that happen that people don't deserve, like children born w/ HIV from drug using moms, or houses that get shluffed of hillsides in west virginia b/c mining companies fail to stabalize their mines (this is happening in WV right now, so it's on people's minds). I think her real message was that all the things she named are things that we should do something about but choose not to, and the shooting is the same. The cycle is: something undeserved happens, we get pissed and mourn, and then go back to normal without addressing the problems. It wasn't a political message, it was a societal message. What do you expect from a critical poet? Her speech was moving and got people fired up. Then our "let's go Hokies" cheer erupted from the student section. That was a little over the top for me, but people do weird things to show 'unification and community' in tragedies.
The weird thing for us here is how this whole ordeal is being framed by the media. It seems we're already part of history. We're now associated w/ Columbine and other school shootings, being labeled as the worst shooting of all time. But, for us here, we're still living this thing. It's not history for us and the events are not done shaping themselves. People are nervous that their could be a copy cat, or some other stupid follow-up; all the names of victims are not out there so people are still waiting to hear of other friends that may have been killed; I know of people who have been calling friends on their cell phones for two days and can't reach them, and don't know if they are among the dead or not. So, we're not history in Blacksburg--we're the present--but the rest of the country moves on. I guess that's the way these things work, it's just frustrating that the media decides how the event and follow through will be remembered and not those of us living it.
It seems the media is also moving focus from the victims and the actual shooting, to the shooter and his 'profile.' I get the impression here, however, that no one cares about the shooter yet. It's still very much about the victims and the act. It's about finding friends that you haven't heard from, visiting those in the hospital, sharing stories from that morning, and deciding if you're going to stay in town for the rest of the semester-- or leave. Lots of people are suggesting they might leave forever. For our international friends this is a very real and hard decision. I can call distant friends and family any time I want, and you all can call me any time (xxxx- call!), but our friends Tim and Kelly from Australia, David from Switzerland, Bini from Togo... they can't call home as frequently and their parents are freaking out. And, since we're all a little older and had careers before coming back to school we feel like the sacrifice we make to be here may not be worth it when put in perespective w/ family, friends, home... Amy and I feel like we can mediate this w/ phone calls and driving to visit people, but these friends can't so the shooting really has major effects outside of the killing.
The wife of the friend who was killed now has all her husband's family in town. She is German, so not sure what her family is doing. The husband's sister and family are sleeping in our friend's house. That makes the follow through real for us to. Lots of talk about funerals, visiting Jaime one last time, where to bury him... You'll know his case from the media b/c he's the young professor that was teaching the German class (not to be confused w/ the older German professor that survived the Holocaust, and was also shot) in which the kids were holding the door shut and one was shot in the arm. His name in the media is Christopher, but we all knew him as Jamie.
In short, Blacksburg VA is a really, really awful place to be right now. And here comes another press conference from campus- I wonder what's next? I received a campus police email a few moments ago that read "It was reported that suspicious activity was in burssuss hall. Police reponded. The incident was determined to be unfounded." Can't help but think this is the same police department that thought the dorm shooter had fled and the incident was "just domestic" and over. Trust is gone, but I wish is weren't.
Keep the calls and emails coming. They help.
Curt
Hey
thanks for calling and writing.
it is so awful here. As more news comes out it just gets worse and worse and more weird all the time...
the person we knew was our best friends' neighbor, so BBQed and chatted w/ him a couple times at our friends' house. They live close by so we'd see him when we walk ila. He was just a couple years older than us and now his wife is all alone. So we went over to our friends' last night to sleep b/c her husband is away at a conference and she was getting calls from the media and was freaked out and trying to figure out how and when to tell their kids who are 5 and 3 that their neighbor friend is gone... this sucks.
Yesterday before we found out it was kind of easy to think that we didn't know anyone... now it's real.
more names are coming out... i haven't recognized any more so far.
ugh
Went to the convocation yesterday. It was kind of a bummer b/c the basketball collosium filled up so they moved us into the football stadium, but we couldn't hear much since we had to watch on the scoreboard screen and had crappy speakers. They should have had the whole thing in the football stadium and we could have all been together. Now I feel like GW Bush or some other dignitary w/ no tie to VT had my seat. The people that spoke were OK- Bush, our Governor, president of the university... Nikki Giovanni, a poet lauriette from VT, gave a moving poem that's now being pegged as 'political.' It wasn't at all. She just said that we didn't deserve this, but things happen all over that people don't deserve. Then she listed off bad things that happen that people don't deserve, like children born w/ HIV from drug using moms, or houses that get shluffed of hillsides in west virginia b/c mining companies fail to stabalize their mines (this is happening in WV right now, so it's on people's minds). I think her real message was that all the things she named are things that we should do something about but choose not to, and the shooting is the same. The cycle is: something undeserved happens, we get pissed and mourn, and then go back to normal without addressing the problems. It wasn't a political message, it was a societal message. What do you expect from a critical poet? Her speech was moving and got people fired up. Then our "let's go Hokies" cheer erupted from the student section. That was a little over the top for me, but people do weird things to show 'unification and community' in tragedies.
The weird thing for us here is how this whole ordeal is being framed by the media. It seems we're already part of history. We're now associated w/ Columbine and other school shootings, being labeled as the worst shooting of all time. But, for us here, we're still living this thing. It's not history for us and the events are not done shaping themselves. People are nervous that their could be a copy cat, or some other stupid follow-up; all the names of victims are not out there so people are still waiting to hear of other friends that may have been killed; I know of people who have been calling friends on their cell phones for two days and can't reach them, and don't know if they are among the dead or not. So, we're not history in Blacksburg--we're the present--but the rest of the country moves on. I guess that's the way these things work, it's just frustrating that the media decides how the event and follow through will be remembered and not those of us living it.
It seems the media is also moving focus from the victims and the actual shooting, to the shooter and his 'profile.' I get the impression here, however, that no one cares about the shooter yet. It's still very much about the victims and the act. It's about finding friends that you haven't heard from, visiting those in the hospital, sharing stories from that morning, and deciding if you're going to stay in town for the rest of the semester-- or leave. Lots of people are suggesting they might leave forever. For our international friends this is a very real and hard decision. I can call distant friends and family any time I want, and you all can call me any time (xxxx- call!), but our friends Tim and Kelly from Australia, David from Switzerland, Bini from Togo... they can't call home as frequently and their parents are freaking out. And, since we're all a little older and had careers before coming back to school we feel like the sacrifice we make to be here may not be worth it when put in perespective w/ family, friends, home... Amy and I feel like we can mediate this w/ phone calls and driving to visit people, but these friends can't so the shooting really has major effects outside of the killing.
The wife of the friend who was killed now has all her husband's family in town. She is German, so not sure what her family is doing. The husband's sister and family are sleeping in our friend's house. That makes the follow through real for us to. Lots of talk about funerals, visiting Jaime one last time, where to bury him... You'll know his case from the media b/c he's the young professor that was teaching the German class (not to be confused w/ the older German professor that survived the Holocaust, and was also shot) in which the kids were holding the door shut and one was shot in the arm. His name in the media is Christopher, but we all knew him as Jamie.
In short, Blacksburg VA is a really, really awful place to be right now. And here comes another press conference from campus- I wonder what's next? I received a campus police email a few moments ago that read "It was reported that suspicious activity was in burssuss hall. Police reponded. The incident was determined to be unfounded." Can't help but think this is the same police department that thought the dorm shooter had fled and the incident was "just domestic" and over. Trust is gone, but I wish is weren't.
Keep the calls and emails coming. They help.
Curt