This is part of an ongoing series of articles about being employed or unemployed in today’s economy. We are sharing real stories of struggles and accomplishments, as well as advice on what others can do to make it out in the real world. Read more articles from our writers series on The Vine.

When The Melon’s editor told us about a writer’s series on the struggles to find employment, I thought, “um, yeah. I have a thing or two to say about that.” I have been looking for a job since I graduated college in 2007. I have applied for what I would estimate to be well over 500 jobs. Then, three days after the email about the writer’s series, something unprecedented happened: I was offered a job.

Now, there are two clarifications I need to make. First, I have not been unemployed this whole time. I have just retained the same (excruciatingly painful) job as a salon manager I’ve had since Freshman year of college. As much as I hated this job, I cannot even imagine what I would have done without it. To those people that have faced unemployment, my heart breaks for you. My experience with menial wages has been bad enough.

Clarification #2: although I am sincerely grateful for this new employment, with a great company that I’m sure will afford me many possibilities, the position I am taking has absolutely nothing to do with the degree earned in college.

That degree is a Bachelor’s in Journalism from Eastern Washington University. I worked hard for that degree. Graduated with nearly a 4.0. Put myself into debt for that degree. Was passionate about that degree. However that degree, I can’t help but feel, is completely useless.

In my college classes we had discussions about ”the changing face of journalism;” the move to the Internet, the rise of the blogger, etc. But to my recollection there was never a discussion that the field already had one foot in the grave. That seasoned, talented journalists were being let go, and that we would be competing with these veteran journalists for entry-level positions. So when I graduated wide-eyed and ready to take on the world, I abruptly had the wind knocked out of me. Not only were positions to apply for scarce to say the least, they were basically just a race for a rejection letter.

But that was just Spokane, I told myself. My hometown was small. Only one major newspaper, one alternative paper, not much else. Small market, of course I won’t find a job here. So I transferred my job to Seattle and headed west to the big city. Shortly after, The Seattle P-I went out of print. Seattle was now a one-paper town like Spokane. Hmm. Time for a change of tactic… I’ll do marketing writing instead! Copywriting or something. Easy.

Or not. More brick walls. More unreturned calls. More unfortunate “Dear Candidate” letters.

And so on and so forth. Each time I “lowered” my standards for employment, thinking it would be only a matter of time until I received an offer, I was met with disappointment. It began to wear on my self-confidence that a resume with a Bachelor’s and management experience couldn’t even get me an interview for simple administrative work.

This is part of an ongoing series of articles about being employed or unemployed in today’s economy. We are sharing real stories of struggles and accomplishments, as well as advice on what others can do to make it out in the real world. Read more articles from our writers series on The Vine.

Before I begin this article, I want to offer some perspective. The other night I heard 5 gunshots and the desperate moaning of a man who had just been shot not 40 yards away from the bed I was sleeping in. From what I gathered talking to the police, he was shot in the leg, but I have yet to get an update on his condition.

Unemployment is certainly a serious issue facing lots of Americans, but I just want to encourage us to remember to count the blessings in our lives. Anyways, without anymore preface, the following are the thoughts I had on my experience in the employment market and finding work that you can value.

We were all lied to. We were told that if we worked hard, pursued opportunities, and got a degree that there would be a decent job waiting for us. When I graduated college back in March of 2010 we were still in the early days of the shitstorm that is the employment market. That is to say, there were very little options available to me, but by August I had found employment on Senator Murray’s reelection campaign in Tacoma. I thought I had finally broken through into the world of professional politics.

Campaigns end, though. And when ours did I was staring at the looming prospect of renewed unemployment. I decided that it would be best to take my experience and new connections to D.C. So I packed up a couple of bags, found housing via Craigslist, and embarked on a great journey to find my place on Capitol Hill.

What I found was that to actually enter the world of Capitol Hill requires a perverse amount of nepotism, a healthy dose of luck, and baring those two, it requires the classic internship. My connections were not deep enough to go the nepotic route nor am I inordinately lucky. So I applied and was accepted to be an intern.

The first part of my internship was fine; I learned the ropes and accepted my generally mindless tasks with stride. I was offered some amount of help finding permanent employment, but nothing ever fully panned out.

As the internship progressed, I started to realize that I was highly replaceable labor and that there was no real intention or incentive to help me out. Quite the opposite, there was high incentive to dodge the effects of the budget cuts by using interns for more and more tasks that were traditionally the domain of paid employees. By the end of my internship, I was essentially doing a large part of job where the paid employee was promoted and the position eliminated.

The other thing I noticed was that the egos and attitudes of staffers were overly inflated and fairly appalling. I had interned in college for the Scottish Parliament and came into this experience thinking that people would be grateful for your work, patient with your mistakes, and eager to help you learn. If you devoted the effort to be a good (unpaid) intern, then the staff would devote the energy to be good (paid) teachers. That is how I was able to go from knowing nothing about Scotland to writing a comprehensive review of the legal system’s response to knife crime and the legislative options for changing it.

Instead, I got continually shit on. There were the daily terse e-mails from staffers angry about honest mistakes. Nor was there any real input on how you are developing and what you could improve upon. Even worse, I once got a tongue-lashing for asking a senior staffer her career arc and background (whilst I was filing her papers and labeling her boxes for an office move). I get that people are busy and that the work is important, but when you are cycling through a Pandora station for music you can answer a question or two. I have never understood the culture of general dickishness towards your unpaid grunt force that seems to dominate lots of our culture, especially on the Hill. The great irony was that the Senator was an amazing human being who went above and beyond to make you feel welcome.

The sad thing is that these internships are seen as competitive resume builders. The idea is that you get shit on for 6 months so that you can build a career. However, in this economic climate, you get shit on and spat out, back to a job market where everyone else has impressive credentials and your internship no longer matters. When I was being interviewed for a job after my internship, I was told as much.

So, how did I find employment? The week after I left my internship I applied with a temp agency. Three weeks later I had a position that was only supposed to last a month. Now a few months later, I can finally start to think the burden on unemployment is off my back. Did my internship help improve my standing to get offered the position? Maybe it did. Though I know a lot of other hill interns who are still unemployed. I think I got this position because I have a very diverse background and skill set which was a good fit for the company.

That is not to say that I am in a position that I dreamed of. Far from it, I am doing work that I am good at, but I desperately miss the sense of meaning my jobs and internships once had. Doing work is something that one should always be proud of, but I got a degree in Political Science so that I could go out and do things I believed in. Right now I sit behind a desk and solve IT issues while answering phones. Hardly the life of public service I got my degree for.

Still, the most rewarding work I ever did and the experiences that I value most were the small campaigns and nonprofits I volunteered for. I loved being involved with small organizations and candidates who shared my values. The options for a career in that field are currently very limited, but they are always looking for people to help out. Honestly, it was the network and experience at the nonprofits where I got the most career help, training and satisfaction.

So, my advice to the potential Capitol Hill intern who wants to work on issues important to them is to pass. Go intern for a nonprofit, work for cheap (or free) for a campaign, or just volunteer somewhere that you feel makes the world better. Dabble in lots of fields and learn new skills. Go somewhere that will appreciate you. What is better than an internship on The Hill is an enthusiastic recommendation from someone who genuinely appreciated your work.

The events of September 11th will always be inexorably linked (in my mind anyway) with the events of several years prior that took place at a Columbine, Colorado. If I were five or six years older I may have felt the same about the Challenger disaster, but (as it is) I am too young to remember that tragedy first hand. These were the events that unfolded for me (and for millions of people my age) on television screens in classrooms, on the kinds of devices that were just out-of-date enough to be available in public schools, and were often strapped by a kind of seat belt to a rolling metal dolly that can only be found in Audio Visual departments and some hospitals.

Looking back, it still seems surreal that I experienced that horrible day they same way that I learned about The Cosmos from Carl Sagan, but we as a class (or a school, or a country) processed those images of confusion and of horror as a community, and that was important. I have never talked to anyone my age (In fact, I don’t remember talking to anyone, period) that watched those events alone. Some moments are simply too large for one person to comprehend without support.

I was in high school in Redmond, Washington on that particular Tuesday, and our school began at seven o’clock Pacific Standard time (10 am EST), and I was out of district, meaning that I had to wake up by about 5:30am (or about ten minutes before the first plane struck the North Tower) and start my commute at around six am (or right about the time second plane struck the South Tower). I learned of the worst attack on American soil in my lifetime from a Seattle alternative music station morning drive-time DJ – it was initially hard to believe. I think it was hard for everyone to believe until they saw the impacts and the aftermath and the always-put-together nightly news anchors with mussed hair and nothing to say.

By the time I had parked and walked the block or two to school (I wasn’t yet an upperclassman, and therefore unable to park on campus), most classrooms were already filled, some spilling students out into nearly vacant halls. Most mornings, the majority of the student body hung out in the large common areas, usually near vending machines, but this morning even the students who tried their best to look the least interested in academia, were sitting quiet and present at desks fifteen (maybe twenty) minutes before first period. There was no prodding everyone just instinctively knew it was what must be done. I don’t know why (maybe it was because I knew the kinds of students who wish to study extra calculus lessons before school) but I watched the continual loop of collisions in the Advanced Math classroom. Much later, I saw the footage that had gone out live (and then, thankfully, was pulled) of people jumping from the buildings, and sometimes I get all of those visuals mixed in my memory, but it did seem like Peter Jennings and the ABC News Team must have shown the second plane hit the tower ten times in the short span that I watched.

The first tower collapsed five minutes before the first period bell at Redmond High School, and even the teachers didn’t know how to proceed. I took my book-bag and headed to my own classroom, but was quite certain that we wouldn’t be discussing a great deal of English Literature on this morning. The class was half-full, and the teacher told us that our room’s television didn’t get reception, so she was going to put on a VHS copy of a Shakespeare production, and that if any student wished to watch the news in another class, they would be free to do so. Most of us left to stand along the back wall of the Calculus room. By second period, I (and everyone else, I suppose) had learned of the crash at the Pentagon and was hearing rumors of a fourth hijacking (students who are raised in Microsoft’s backyard are adept at using the Internet for news, but had also learned of its spotty reliability.)

I didn’t learn of the crash of Flight 77 in a Pennsylvania field until forth period after lunch. By that time, nearly all students were attempting to have as normal a day as could be possible, and were attending their regularly assigned classes (mine was, fittingly enough, US Government). We watched the news with the volume low and discussed all of the names and terms that all Americans learned on that day. That afternoon al-Qaeda entered the US lexicon and has never really left.

Once school had let out, the flag was already at half-mast and many students lingered. It felt like we had all learned of the terrible event together and thus, were reluctant to break that tenuous bond (Or maybe we were just too dazed to do much of anything.) But other than the students who needed a ride on the big yellow buses, nobody went home. In the cafeteria, I talked with a group of friends about our futures, about that of the country. We wanted to do something, anything, but (for the live of us) we couldn’t figure out what it was.

After school, I watched more of the news (I think everyone did), and called a group of friends to answer my one pressing question: Do you go to soccer practice on 9/11? It turned out that I did. And so did everyone else on my team. We had a distracted lesson, and at its completion the sun had gone down. I don’t remember how I slept, but I was a teenager, so I probably slept fine enough.

Conventional wisdom says that the Sept. 11 attacks were the defining moment of my generation (or an instigating event, or some such thing), but at the time it just felt confusing. And in many ways it still does. Compared to the Columbine massacre, the motives behind the attacks felt murkier and farther away. I may not be breaking new ground, by claiming that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold acted out of anger when they decided to open fire on their faculty and fellow students, but that anger wouldn’t have been present if the boys didn’t ultimately want to fit in. And every teen can identify with that desire.

In contrast, I did not understand the fanaticism required to plan and execute such a cold-blooded act as 9/11. I have learned a great since of both the history of Western interference in the Mid-East and of Islamist extremism (and it was an extremist element that carried out the attack), but I can’t say that I yet understand the motivation. On an intellectual level I can connect the dots, but I certainly don’t empathize on a gut level. And maybe that’s a good thing, but it makes tragedies like this seem all the scarier. I just don’t get it. And I probably never will.

I think that many people who had not attended high school in a good many years, felt similarly to the Columbine events – the media sure seemed to. Largely diverse subsections of students were lumped together as “others” even if those groups were wildly dissimilar. To be clear: Harris and Klebold were not Goth. Just as Al-Qaeda was not Islam. Eric and Dylan may have worn black and sneered at the popular crowd, but so did Johnny Cash. And Johnny Cash is not Goth.

[The Gothic movement began in the 1980s with a wave of overly sensitive (mostly male) rock-pop music from the UK – think The Smiths, Morrisey, et al. – and much like the Nerd empowerment events of the same time, the Goth kids were attempting to find strength by controlling their own exclusion. Most of these kids knew they were never going to be cheerleaders or football All-Americans – they were the misfits – so they dressed and acted in a manner that guaranteed ostracism. They dressed androgynously, talked about feelings, and were usually the only kids paying any attention during discussions of 19th century poetry. They didn’t want acceptance. And it worked. And the misfits found each other. ]

Because Harris and Klebold wore trench coats and did their damnedest to be off-putting to those around them, Goth culture (teens often on the receiving end of bullying themselves) was blamed for inciting violence. America (and its media) loves the idea of “enemies from within”, but aren’t particularly skilled at defining them.

I had a friend in high school, not a close friend but the kind I would talk to at lunch almost every day, who had the misfortune to be named Osama and to live in the US in the Fall of 2001. After several ugly incidents involving older generations (the hardest kind for teens to deal with), he started going by Sam. It was for the same reasons there weren’t a lot of Adolphs running around after 1945. In the grand scheme of things it isn’t the most heart-breaking concession that came out of the era, but it’s one that has stuck with me over the past ten years.

It is impossible for me to know how the televised horrors of both Columbine and New York City have shaped me as a person, but I believe they have made me wary of generalizations. They have made me think about spheres larger than my own. And they have made me aware of mans potential both for great love, but also for great hatred. But I do my best not to dwell on any of these thoughts for too long. They are simply too much for any one person to take on alone.

By Sept. 14th (roughly), I had watched the news at every opportunity, hoping for some conclusion (some great revelation), but it would not come so quickly or so easily. I, along with many Americans, turned off the TV – and the radio, and the Internet browser – and simply tried to live as best I could with what had happened. And that all any of us can ever really do.

Where I was on September 11, 2001, is unremarkable. I was doing what anyone of my age (and time zone) was doing – preparing for another day as a Junior in high school. I spooned some Cheerios, changed outfits three times, and waited for my friend Meg to arrive so that we could drive to school together as we always did.

That morning I had not had TV or radio on, so when Meg called and said a plane had hit a building in New York City, I was confused, but unfazed. Meg would be here soon, we could talk about it then.

Arriving at school, everyone was buzzing. It was in first period Biology that I got my first look at the events that had unfolded. Around that time, we watched live as the second plane hit the South Tower.

Silence. Hands covering mouths. Shock. Tears running down cheeks.

Even as naive 16-year-olds, we knew this was not an accident. President Bush soon confirmed what we knew: the nation was under attack.

Through all six class periods, no coursework was done. Televisions were on in every classroom. While teachers tried to explain and comfort their pupils, it was easy to see they too were trying to grapple with their own emotions and form an understanding. Lunchtime, usually a raucous, carefree event, was solemn. Quiet discussions amongst tables.

I arrived back home without a word, and silently joined my family who were holding hands watching the television. A discussion followed that evening, but produced few answers. As my father correctly predicted, “this will be the most important event of your lifetime, Myronda.”

Ten years passed, and many of my peers were sent to faraway places to fight a war that was conceived on that September day. Some did not come back. It pains me to think that today, some of our combat soldiers were 8-years-old on September 11. Do they even remember the day that sparked the battle they are fighting?

My story, along with many others, of where I was on September 11, 2001, is painfully average. Uninteresting. Nothing special. But all of us had nearly every aspect of our lives changed as a result of that day; from the way we travel, to the economy we faced as we reached adulthood, to the way we treat each other. One of my friends of Jordanian descent hung his head in my art class in the days following the attack. Some of his friends and peers had turned on him. Of all of the events that had conspired, this, to me, was the most difficult of all to understand.

We came of age in a country that changed overnight. A heated political climate, a call for vengeance, a divide, a coming together. We are the ones about to take the helm of a world that was shaped when we were not even eligible to vote. To this point, all of our experiences, then and now, while seemingly average, are in fact extraordinary.

9/11/2001.  Coming into Mr. Kiki’s world history class felt different today.  Everyone was quiet.  The television was on, and no eye missed the screen.  Taking one glance, I saw smoke and flames.

“Where’s the fire?” I asked flippantly.

I looked at the pretty blonde girl in my class.  She was crying.

“Oh, sorry.”  I said.

I realized that there was something going on that was beyond me.  I put my book bag down, got out my school supplies and looked at the screen.  What I saw made me stop what I was doing.  We had been attacked.

New York seemed to me invincible.  Living in a small town in Eastern Washington, the bigger cities were always untouchable.  For rich, powerful people with agendas.  New York is cultural.  People are accepted.  New York has people from all across the world.  I was so naive.

Throughout the day at school, every screen in every classroom was turned on to breaking news.  Everyone was crying.  The “funny boys” tried to crack jokes, but even they realized how affected they were and could not find the punch line.

School was a fog.  Our brains seemed thick, like the smoke which now enveloped New York.  We didn’t stop watching. 

I called my mother from the school office.  She was crying.  No one we personally knew was involved, but as an American people, we all became involved.  I felt our school come together that day.  Tragedy has an odd way of bringing people together.

School ended and my sister and I clung to one another waiting for our bus.  My mom came and picked us up instead.  We came home, and immediately turned on the t.v.  I think we were all drawn to it this day more than ever before and did not stop watching until the late night when our tears wouldn’t come anymore.  We were all dried up.  I can’t remember anything else about that day.  What I do remember is that I took a bath, and tried to go to sleep.  I felt older.  I felt my innocence resign.  And I felt so incredibly sad.

Looking back on 9/11 I don’t think I could have predicted the subsequent 10 years. Other people did. They talked about a new age for American people; a fundamental change to the country. I was too wrapped up in my own studies at college to really devote enough attention to really generate the fear and panic the rest of the country seemed to be feeling. After 10 years the memories serve to reveal the kind of people we are, and the kind of people we want to be. 9/11 and the subsequent 10 years provided us with a mirror so we could see ourselves for who and what we are.

At the precise moment of the planes hitting the towers, I was a freshmen in college sitting through an early-morning science class and trying to stay awake. Even now I can’t be completely sure which class it had been. My first inkling of trouble was when I returned to my dorm room after my class for a free period between my early science class and the beginning of a scheduled school assembly. When I walked into the dorm there were an unusually large group of guys standing around watching the television. It might have been a bit early for TV, but the guy’s dorm would have been oddly empty if there hadn’t been someone watching it at any particular hour. On the television was tall building with smoke pouring out of it. I was told something about how a plane had collided with a tower somewhere. I imagined a small plane accidentally hitting the tower, and I thought this was vaguely and grimly funny. It was something on the level of the Darwin awards. How incompetent do you have to be to hit a freakin’ skyscraper in downtown somewhere? I stayed for a moment to watch the television but they didn’t really seem to be talking about anything. I walked back to my room and in generally putted around for twenty minutes until it was time to go to the assembly. When the University President addressed the students, he said two planes had collided into the Twin Towers. They had collapsed.

As in collapsed. They fell? This couldn’t possibly be. I just saw them on the TV. I wanted to run back to the dorm to check and see if the television was faulty. I also had the extremely guilty thought that if I had been willing to be late for the assembly I could have seen the towers fall for myself. I don’t remember the rest of the speech. I think it had something to do with school outreach to New York and prayers or something. The awful gravity of the situation didn’t really sink in until later that afternoon when no one seemed to think that grounding every airplane in the country was an overreaction. Up until that point, I was still wondering if I still had classes that afternoon.

The biology department cancelled its classes and one of the professors set up a small TV in the hallways outside of his lab. Information came in bits and fragments, when it came at all. A newswoman was saying that there could be as many as 50,000 people working in the buildings at any given time. There was something going on at the Pentagon and Pennsylvania. Fortunately, over the next few days the death toll kept being revised downward. This was the first view we have of ourselves. Stories of heroism began to percolate. Stories about rescuers running into the burning buildings and perishing there. Stories about outreach and friendship. For the first time since New York was a Dutch colony, the denizens of that place developed a short-lived beneficence toward another. In an outpouring of support and camaraderie, our NATO allies sent warplanes to patrol our skies like a bunch of Mach2 blankies.

I remember how we vowed as a country we we’re not going to be afraid, and we were not going to let the terrorists win, while at the same time letting our fear motivate us into unwinable wars, torture, and the oppressive need for new security measures. I’m not even altogether certain when it was in these myriad of events that the word terrorism was first uttered. But soon it had seemingly replaced all the other words in the dictionary. It was the year of anthrax, yellow cake, WMDs, and another geography lesson for Americans regarding central Asia.

When I say it was the day we failed, I’m not talking about intelligence failures, structural defects, absent WMDs, or truth issues, I’m talking about how our short-lived beneficence was cruelly withheld from those with even the vaguest resemblance to Muslims. Because of fear and hatred, we abandoned our egalitarianism and enlightenment for crass xenophobia and revenge. With flagrant hypocrisy we put, “national security” above human rights and used that common excuse to abuse and torture.

Perhaps this controlled violence saved lives by disrupting terrorist plots, maybe it cost lives as Guantanamo became a recruitment ad for terrorists. Perhaps in the chaos of war it never mattered at all. God only knows. I only know that when our ideals were tested, we failed them. 9/11/2011 is a day of remembrance, and it behooves us to remember not only this tragedy but the others before it. In many ways, we’ve improved as a country. Unlike the past, we didn’t use biological weapons on anyone, forced marches, or ship our own citizens off to camps in California. We may have learned from the past, but that does not exempt present cruelty.

In the wake of 9/11 we see a version of our country where xenophobia is the norm. Where we’ve forgotten that meaningless persecution of race and religion is the grossest betrayal of our founding principles. However much of an improvement, we still have a long way to go as a people. For example noted political commentator, Juan Williams, once stoked controversy when he said he feels very nervous when getting on-board an airplane with observant Muslims. He’s obviously entitled to his own feelings and in the wake of 9/11 it’s a very human reaction. It’s an understandable reaction. The problem is that he said this without the slightest bit of shame or regret. He’s not a bad man, just a small one.

The greatest tragedy of 9/11 was not the lamentable loss of life for which we still grieve. The tragedy of the falling towers was that they somehow made us all something a little smaller. It was a grievous wound and worthy of revenge. 9/11 did not make us this way. It just somehow gave us an excuse.

Terrorism has personal, economic, social and politico-military implications, it is the penultimate act of nihilism. Meaningless destruction, on any scale, is nothing more than artistic rage and is self-defeating in the long term. Ten years later, I don’t think that anyone believes anthrax, yellow cake, WMDs are in every cave, just waiting for the chance to destroy us. As much as we may wish it, 2001 was not a fevered dream. The consequences are real. Whatever else terrorism has done, it has shown us our two faces. It has illuminated the choice we have before us.

The antidote to rage will never be hatred and prejudice. In the face of anger and hostility we should rise to the challenge of magnanimity and moderation and embrace the principles of equality and equanimity upon which our country was founded. Without them, we will forever be victims to a blood-soaked pyromania. We may be attacked again. On that day I hope we will find a better version of ourselves.

On August 24th, 2001 I stepped off a plane from Miami onto the tarmac of Quito International Airport, excited to be experiencing a new corner of the world. Two and a half weeks later, I sat in the teachers’ lounge at the Colegio Americano de Quito, watching CNN and drawing angry, furious sketches in an art book wondering what the hell was going on. I was a junior in high school on a foreign exchange with Rotary Youth International – one of about 30 who had come from all over the world to live in various parts of Ecuador.

I woke up that morning and gone to school like every other day, and it wasn’t until I arrived that I first heard anything, and what I did hear was nightmarish: that America was dead and gone, that cities were burning, that I would have to go back right away, that I couldn’t ever go back, that everything I knew and loved was gone in a flash and I was 3,000 miles away from anything and everything familiar. In a way, it was almost a relief to get the facts – as horrific as they were on their own scale – they were tame compared to the rumors I had heard all morning. I spent the rest of the day skipping class and watching an endless repetition of planes flying into buildings and collapsing towers. I felt sick.

I remember being simultaneously angry that someone could possibly have the gall to do such a thing, and unsurprised that what we as a nation had essentially done to so many third-world countries in the past was now coming home to roost. It was clear to me that Ecuadorians bore individual Americans no ill-will; it was our government they hated, not us – and I came to understand why. Ecuador did not remain untouched during the years of US intervention in South America, and many people around me saw what happened on September 11th as justified retribution for a nation that had interfered in the affairs of so much of the world. I remember thinking – for months afterward – that this meant war, and fearing that “9/11!” would become a rallying cry for another crusade for blood. I remember turning in my draft card a little less than a year later frantically searching for ways to make my Conscientious Objector status known. I remember the ramp-up to the war in Iraq. I remember “Mission Accomplished,” flight-suit-bulge Bush, and the PATRIOT ACT. I remember the worst of us coming out in the months and years following, and the best of us seemingly absent everywhere.

As time passed, and memories of that day started to scab over, my life returned to normalcy – well, as much as any strongly opinionated teenager’s life can. I knew nobody personally in New York, nobody directly involved with the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. I went to college, and to Japan, and up until March of 2008, I thought I would go on to law school, to a cushy desk job, to (some) wealth and happiness. I had everything all planned out.

September 11th never entered into my mental calculus when I first went to EMT school. A year-and-a-half of laboring at a desk being bored out of my skull every day, however, did. Life in the desk job world wasn’t doing it for me, and the prospect of returning to school for three years, just for the pleasure of going back to it didn’t excite me in the least. I wanted to actually feel like I was doing something with my life. I wanted to be a firefighter.

It’s been three years now since I started that part of my life, and while I’m still not a firefighter – at least not professionally – life in emergency medicine (as a paramedic) is shockingly similar. I live in a world that’s been defined by September 11th in a way that my life up until now had not been. There are shades and echoes of it all over, from American flag stickers with ‘343’ etched over it (for the 343 firefighters who died that day) to ambulances with a 9/11 theme. This corner of the world still bears the scars of that day, and it’s hard to say sometimes just what that’s supposed to mean to someone who never considered being involved in it until well after the actual event.

So many people in this line of work say we should view 9/11 as ‘just another day’ – even though it was anything but. Could this sort of thing ever happen again? Of course. Will it? Hopefully not. But when your job description is essentially “run toward the things that other people are running away from,” awareness of the possibility starts to come with the territory.

It remains to be seen what will happen on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, but for my part, I hope it’s just another day.

There were periods in my life when watching television mattered to me.  Over many years, I was hooked on a soap opera.  All My Children, soon to be terminated by the ABC Network (and recently sold to an internet company where it will take on a new life form), was the soap which held captive my attention.  The show featured a “super couple” known as “Tad and Dixie.”   Tad and Dixie, wonderfully portrayed by Michael E. Knight and Cady McClain, kept me watching.

It was in the late 1990s that I participated in a Yahoo! Group created for Tad and Dixie fans.  Most of the time, we shared our views and soap magazine stories about the characters, what made the show’s writing good or bad, and the scoops of what was yet to come.  However, sometimes the conversation drifted into more personal topics.  The fans all got to know each other fairly well.

One morning in 2001, I expected the day to play out as it always did.  I would wake up abruptly, get out of bed, turn on the computer, bring up a news website, check email, and then make sure the boys were out the door to go to school.  The routine also included bringing up my instant messenger chat on the computer.  A few of the people I knew from the Tad and Dixie Yahoo! Group were friends on my instant messenger contact list.

Alyssa was online that morning. 

Twenty-one year old Alyssa, a college student in Medford, Massachusetts and a fellow Tad and Dixie fan, was at her computer when she noticed my name move from inactive to active status on her chat list.  Before I could bring up a news website on my computer, Alyssa typed to me “You need to turn on CNN.  We’re being attacked.”

Her words set me into motion.  I immediately ran across the room to turn on the television, not daring to guess what her words meant.  I had no idea what I’d find on CNN.   I would soon see the images that would stay with me for the rest of my life.

When I was a small child, I often wondered what would happen if a skyscraper came crashing down.  Would it fall sideways?  Would it collapse?  Would a falling skyscraper ever happen during my lifetime? 

Alyssa and I shared the horror and helplessness of what we observed as the violence took place in the sky far above the New York streets.  The dark smoke.  The flames.  The horrific understanding that lives were lost and many more were about to be lost.  I flipped the channel, and that’s when a well known news anchor was describing what he was watching just as the plane moved into view.  The plane impacted the building.  The devastating moment was nearly impossible for the anchor to report on.  He struggled to find the words….

Typing message after message, no sooner had one of us commented on something, we’d see or hear about something else to react to.   Television news placed us there in “real time.”  We were watching the flames, the explosions, the individuals leaping from the top floors, the fire fighters trying to reach the terrified workers trapped throughout the twin towers.  Then, we witnessed the building break up, one floor at a time.

The soap opera, Tad and Dixie, and the events of September 11^th have provided us with opportunities to get to know one another and become good friends.  I sometimes pause to reflect on this unusual connection we will always share.  To date, ten years have passed, and we have never met in person. As for the upcoming anniversary of the event, Alyssa told me she will be flying somewhere on September 11^th.  Airfare is incredibly inexpensive on that particular day.

On September 11th, 2001 I was just fifteen years old.  A busy athlete, I was listening to the radio and getting ready to start my morning training routine when I heard news of the first crash.  Initially, I was bewildered by the thought of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.  It sounded much more like a Die Hard movie than reality.   I ran out into the living room to tell my mom what I had heard.  Instantly, confusion and concern washed over her face.  She turned on the news and I followed to watch.  For some reason I remember so well the moment when we began to watch the news, as if I were watching it happen from a distance.  I sat Indian-style on the floor, stoic and still, where I would stay for hours. Being such a young age, I was not able to conceptualize the enormity of 9/11, yet I felt the weight of its devastation on my shoulders.  My heart ached.

On this tenth anniversary, my heart still aches.  There are some wounds that can never heal.  Some wounds that bind a nation, a world, to one truth: life is precious.  On this somber anniversary I want to remember with deep love the lives that were lost, honor our heroes, and rejoice in our blessings.

For this tenth anniversary, let us celebrate life’s many miracles, our neighbors, our community, our nation.  Help a friend, call your family, volunteer at a shelter or school, take your kids to the park, or thank a soldier, police officer, or fire fighter for their service.  Practice forgiveness and release frustrations, take time to reflect and wear your heart on your sleeve.  Life is precious.

In honor of our fallen heroes, I would like to share a patriotic recipe for Red, White, and Blue Cobbler. Pick up the ingredients at your local Farmers’ Market and share it with those you love!!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Clean and rinse fresh pears, blueberries, and strawberries.  Slice pears and strawberries.

To create first layer, lightly toss pear slices in 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1 tsp lemon juice.

Next, toss blueberries in 1 tbsp cane sugar and 1 tsp lemon juice.  Layer over pears.

Finally, toss strawberries in 1 tbsp cane sugar and 1 tsp lemon juice.  Layer over blueberries.

I prefer crumbly cobbler topping.  Unfortunately, I never measure my ingredients.  I do however use a food processor to make things easy.  Combine pecans, chilled butter (in small cubes), brown sugar, oats, and whole wheat flour in food processor until well blended, it should have the texture of bread crumbs.  Sprinkle cobbler mixture over fruit. Bake for 45 minutes.

Enjoy served hot or cold, with ice cream or whipped cream and remember it’s better enjoyed with friends.

“What is that orange bar creeping on the bottom of my screen?” you may be asking yourself.

“Why are you talking to your computer?” I’ll politely respond.

In all seriousness, you likely have noticed that The Melon has inserted a social media bar created by wibiya onto the entirety of our site. The bar provides hot links to a ton of social media pages like our facebook page, our twitter, videos we’ve made on youtube and even a link to donate to keep us rolling (hint: donate to keep The Melon rolling. We do all of our work pro-bono, just so you know).

What’s more is the new bar provides ways to connect to other real live people by sharing articles you like on facebook and twitter or joining a live chat when there are other Melonites perusing the site. (I’m going to make an effort to be on that chat if you ever want to drop me a line.)

So what was the impetus for adding this bar? Sure, we’d love more donations from you lovely people. But what we’d like to see most of all is interaction.

We, at The Melon, like to think we provide a lot of good resources, media, information and discussion opportunities and we want to see that continue to happen and in higher volume. Already since adding the bar, we’ve seen more sharing of articles on facebook and twitter and hope that will lead to more eyes and more discussion therefore more interest in what we’re doing and more opportunities to create more work. We’re hoping that this bar will help to sustain a cycle of buzz and discussion that will keep The Melon juicy.

That being said, your opinion is far more important. Is the bar and eyesore? Do you use it? Do you like it? Do you want it gone? If the bar was made out of cheese, would you eat it? Let me know what you think about it. If enough people don’t like it then I’m happy to banish it back into the bowels of the internet. Until then, I hope you’ll give it a try and help The Melon and all of the great stuff that we do reach your friends and beyond.

Sincerely,

Elliot Trotter
Creative Manager, The Melon