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发表于 2007-4-17 14:36:24
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MJJF上一位MJ歌迷就是这个学校的。她的帖子：
thank you for your post. Yes, I AM proud of the students here. This is not the fault of the university. It is a GREAT university, and I am proud to work at Virginia Tech and to contribute to the educations of so many young people.
Now that I've been safe at home for a few hours, I'll talk about this from my perspective. I am still terribly shocked. This is one of the U.S.'s finest universities. Most people know it only for its outstanding football team, but it is also a great place for learning. It is a large state school on the level of schools like UCLA or the University of Michigan. You can see from the tv images that the campus is beautiful, with gray-stone buildings and a gorgeous campus. It was snowing slightly today, and it is very windy, as you can maybe see from the tv images? We are located in Blacksburg, a small town in the Appalachian Mountains. Blacksburg is unusual in that it is a tiny town (about ten thousand permanent residents), with a huge university. Twenty-six thousand students, and ten thousand faculty and staff. I am an administrator here. I got into the office at nine a.m. as usual, and as usual, checked my email. The first school email said there had been a shooting in a dorm, and that there were fatalities. The email was in a sense too matter-of-fact (?)and I assumed that the shooter had been apprehended. Why else would the university have remained open? I still don't understand that. There was a two-hour time-lag between the two shootings. During that time, shouldn't the campus have been evacuated? If it had been, many lives could have been saved. All I can say is, we have no experience with things like this. It has never happened here before. You've by now seen the president of our university on tv? Charles Steger. I know him personally. I can only imagine what he feels now.
We went on to have a small party in our unit's office (muffins and tea) for one of our staff members who had just returned from vacation. During that interlude, we heard a loud-speaker saying, "This is an emergency. Go to a building and lock yourselves in and stay away from windows." I didn't know WHAT was going on. At that time, the secretary and the work-study students fled the building and left. I stayed, not knowing what was happening. Then I heard the pops of gunfire. My building is only two buildings away from Norris Hall, where the mass-murders happened. I have given many lectures there, in those rooms. That loudspeaker continued as I hid under my desk. At that time, I contacted my sister, and then my daughter on my cell phone (from under the desk). Local friends called me, too. It was weird to be talking on the phone with the sounds of gunfire in the background, with me hiding under my desk. I have corner office with two windows, so I put a thick wall between me and the gunfire. Then, the entire building was locked so no one could get in, and I unlocked my door and went to an interior hallway. We don't have tvs in our offices, so the only info I had was my sister calling to tell me what CNN was reporting. I have never heard so many sirens in my life. Our local hospital filled, in Blacksburg, then patients were taken to Roanoke (the closest city) and elsewhere. The sirens kept coming and coming.
There were conflicting reports that I heard from radio while in the building. One was that there were several shooters, including snipers on top of buildings. That was not true. Also, that four students had been killed. The reality of the death-toll was much, much worse. After a few hours, we were told to evacuate our building. I walked to the parking lot with a co-worker. I drove first to a friend's house, who also works at Virginia Tech. We talked, and tried to make sense of it, but the full news was not in yet. When I got home, I started emailing students that I know. I still haven't had replies from all of them.
Now, EVERYBODY is here from the major news networks, including Geraldo. They, also, are trying to make sense of it. What is so weird is to see MY building on national/international news, from this usually quiet town. There is a candlelight vigil tomorrow night on the drillfield in the center of campus. Many of us are not comfortable with that. We are not yet into the grieving process, but still in shock, and think it is too soon. The names of the victims have not even been released yet, nor the families notified. And, we are still not certain if there was one, or were there two shooters? We do not know for sure if there is another maniac at large. There are many unanswered questions. There are many counselling stations set up on campus, and that's a good thing. But, I'm not sure how one deals with horror on this magnitude? For my part, I'm glad to be home and safe, but am extremely concerned about my students who have not checked in yet. I am not just a teacher. I LOVE my students.
Please continue to pray.
Victoria |
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狗仔卡
发表于 2007-4-17 14:34:36
显身卡
发表于 2007-4-17 17:04:12
