If I knew before I left the house this morning what I know now, I certainly would have taken my digital camera. After attending this community college for nearly a year and a half, I wouldn't have thought the students there would be the type to gather around the televisions in semi-circles, anxiously awaiting the next bit of information Fox News or CNN Headline News had to throw to us, wrapped up in gruesome footage of smoking buildings ("monuments of American capitalism," I heard one reporter say) collapsing in on one another.

When my Mom called me (Sera, really; she's got the cellphone) in class this morning, I didn't believe her. When Sera leaned over to me to whisper, "It was your Mom. A plane crashed into the World Trade Center," my immediate reaction was that she must have been kidding. There's no way that could've happened. And then, when class let out, it was all over the televisions in the cafeteria and the lounge and everywhere.

Today reminded me of those last few days of high school my Junior and Senior years. It was a sense of mass confusion; no one really knew what was going on or where they were headed, they just knew they had to go. Everyone except for me, that is. And that's what made me realize I wish I could have been there in New York today. Not because I wanted to witness the suffering of the victims of this terrible incident, but because it was such a tremendous experience for so many people that I feel somewhat left out. It's horrible what happened, but it was also a piece of American history. I can't even begin to comprehend what it must have been like to have just stood there amid the turmoil.

Tomorrow I will be going to Houston and, while I'm there, I'm going to buy several newspapers whose headlines concern themselves with this incident. I wonder if, someday, my grandchildren will ask me about this. I wonder if America's response to this will be something I can be proud in retelling to them.

Life is but a dream.