It started out as a regular school day.  Having an early period, I arrived at my first-period class at Stuyvesant High School tired and groggy, and was relieved to be at my second-period class, phys-ed.  The class had barely started when a student came back from the stairs excited, saying that a plane had crashed into the top of the World Trade Center.  I thought he was kidding at first but, when a friend and I went to the farthest classroom and looked out the window at the North Tower four blocks away, all doubt was eliminated from my mind.

It is hard to describe what the building looked like when seen through one's own eyes.  It almost looked like it was alive and in pain, the smoke, like blood, pouring out of a gash where the plane had so brutally collided.  A collision – this is what we all thought had occurred.  We returned to our gym class quite late and, some time later (18 minutes, I later learned), we heard a plane roar loudly overhead.  My gym instructor, perhaps regretting his words now, cracked, "What's that, another plane?"  Shortly after, excited, we trickled to our third-period classes, most of us incurring long delays due to the animated conversations with friends in the halls.

Upon reaching my eighth-floor physics class, I sat with a friend and gazed out the window at the massive building with the huge gash in it, the endless supply of smoke rising out, and the endless supply of men and women in expensive suits running from the area on the street below.  After a few minutes, we were able to identify some of the falling objects, horrifically enough, as people slowly and gracefully tumbling from the windows above, toward the ground below.  Some of my classmates were attempting to contact their parents through cell phones, but soon realized that all service was out.

After watching our teacher attempt to keep us in order and struggle through the lesson plan, we listened to our principal in shock as he announced on the loudspeaker, "The Twin Towers have been hit by two planes, and similar attacks are occurring throughout the nation.  The Pentagon has just been attacked."  After further announcements encouraging us to remain calm and in control, we were told to proceed to homeroom.

Ironically enough, my homeroom is on the top floor, where I have a prime view of the North Tower.  However, quite quickly we heard a large crash and the lights flickered out.  Only later did I learn that this occurred because the buildings came down.  Watching through the window, I saw people dashing as fast as possible from the area, and the air all around the building rapidly turned gray with soot to the point where it was impossible to see anything.  The last sight I had before we all evacuated the building was quite eerie – the streets, the baseball fields, and the park, deserted and covered in gray soot.

After evacuating the building, we walked quite a way up the West Side Highway, where, to my surprise, I met my father, who was searching there for me.  Later, a group of friends and I went out with posters to encourage people to give blood, and, to our pleasure, the hospitals and centers were overfilled with donors.

Three days later, I found myself and the same friends at the same area, working for the American Red Cross at a mass-care center at Elementary School PS 234, a block away from Stuyvesant.  The area was completely different.  Chambers Street was dirty and disheveled, filled with loose papers and debris and people from hundreds of different groups, some military, some civilian.  We spent three days helping with makeshift construction in areas of the center and moving supplies and, least rewarding of all, cleaning up the street for President Bush's car.

We have had no school and will not until Thursday (September 20), at which point Stuyvesant students and teachers will be relocated to Brooklyn Tech on an 11:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. schedule for 3-4 weeks.  So we volunteered for three days, at which point, due to extremely frustrating disorganization, we left the Red Cross.

A week later, I still find myself thinking about the attacks constantly, though more reflectively now.  And although it is difficult to actually realize that the mighty Twin Towers, which have been perhaps the most essential part of our downtown skyline and a symbol of New York's pride and economic power, have been destroyed, I also realize that this is something I will never forget for the rest of my life.