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Sep. 11th, 2011
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Sep. 11th, 2011 02:56 pmToday I went to an interfaith service that the church and several other Boston churches was putting on in memory of 9/11 at Copley Square. I don't think there was a single dry eye in the crowd by the end.
The part that really got me was that they had all the children who were born after 9/11 come forward, and the speaker said that they were children who'd never lived in a world with the Twin Towers, but they were also the first people who wouldn't have an answer when people ask "Where were you?" and never had to watch the videos of the towers falling over and over again as it was happening. They then had the crowd tell the children that they were sorry that they'd given them this burden, and the children replied "We forgive you." That got everyone, myself included.
They also had everyone take a stone and place it on a sort of cairn that they'd made, and then gave everyone a paper crane. It was a very sweet ceremony.
One thing it seems a lot of people noticed was that the weather up here today is exactly like it was 10 years ago. It was pretty eerie. We were also all very aware of the helicopter that kept circling overhead, and in fact right now I hear one.
The part that really got me was that they had all the children who were born after 9/11 come forward, and the speaker said that they were children who'd never lived in a world with the Twin Towers, but they were also the first people who wouldn't have an answer when people ask "Where were you?" and never had to watch the videos of the towers falling over and over again as it was happening. They then had the crowd tell the children that they were sorry that they'd given them this burden, and the children replied "We forgive you." That got everyone, myself included.
They also had everyone take a stone and place it on a sort of cairn that they'd made, and then gave everyone a paper crane. It was a very sweet ceremony.
One thing it seems a lot of people noticed was that the weather up here today is exactly like it was 10 years ago. It was pretty eerie. We were also all very aware of the helicopter that kept circling overhead, and in fact right now I hear one.
Glad to see that my Japanese skills didn't totally deteriorate over the summer. Some stuff I had to look up, but I remember most of the basics, in fact more than I expected. It probably helps that over the summer I wrote notes to myself at work in Japanese to keep my skills fresh. I did have a few problems remembering some katakana, but that'll probably come back. At least I can do the hiragana.
That said, I found it odd that my textbook does not actually contain the word "textbook." And no, we were not allowed to cheat and just write テキストブック aka the "Fuck if I know it so I'll put it in katakana" method. The word we were supposed to use is きょうかしょ, which I had to look up in my notes from last semester. But seriously my textbook doesn't have the word textbook in it. Huh?
During class on Friday we also confirmed that I screw up left and right in Japanese as well as English! For some reason I have trouble telling the difference between them, and always have to do the "hold up hand and see which one makes an L" method.
That said, I found it odd that my textbook does not actually contain the word "textbook." And no, we were not allowed to cheat and just write テキストブック aka the "Fuck if I know it so I'll put it in katakana" method. The word we were supposed to use is きょうかしょ, which I had to look up in my notes from last semester. But seriously my textbook doesn't have the word textbook in it. Huh?
During class on Friday we also confirmed that I screw up left and right in Japanese as well as English! For some reason I have trouble telling the difference between them, and always have to do the "hold up hand and see which one makes an L" method.
