Faculty, students deal with Sept. 11’s disruption of daily routine

Missing intern Chandra Levy, shark attacks, Michael Jordan and
an earthquake were the some of the stories capturing the attention
of the UCLA community on Sept. 10, 2001.

A day later, it would all seem so trivial.

On Sept. 10, the public focused on day-to-day developments of
the missing intern of Modesto. CNN talk show host Larry King
interviewed Congressman Gary Condit’s 25 year-old daughter
Cadee Condit regarding the missing intern.

Internationally-known athlete Michael Jordan was considering
returning to the NBA after a three-year retirement period.

Instead of playing in the sand, children were being attacked by
sharks along the Florida coastline.

A 4.2 earthquake had hit West Los Angeles at 4:59 p.m. Sept. 9
““ the largest ground tremor since the 1994 Northridge
disaster ““ causing severe damage to an apartment building in
Westwood.

These were some of the stories that students, faculty and
members of the UCLA community watched on Sept. 10. These stories
were dwarfed when people woke up the next morning to a different
world.

On the morning of Sept. 11, hijacked aircrafts struck the twin
towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon and
Pennsylvania.

Sept. 10 was the last day of normalcy. Jalil Roshandel, a
visiting professor in political science, had just come to UCLA from
Stanford University and looked forward to beginning a new academic
life in Los Angeles.

For his first quarter, he was planning to teach “Iran and
the Emerging Middle East,” and planned to emphasize the
relations between the United States and Iran as well as relations
between Iran and the Middle East.

“I wanted to mention terrorism in my class as part of what
happens in the Middle East, but I never thought it was going to be
the major topic of discussions,” Roshandel said.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Professor Roshandel felt it was
appropriate to include terrorism, war and jihad in Islam in his
course teachings.

Fourth-year political science and history student Brian
Spoelstra was an incoming transfer student from Pasadena City
College that fall. Prior to the attacks, he was spending his summer
working at the Hollywood Bowl, focused on saving money for
tuition.

He said he wanted to enjoy the summer and looked forward to
attending UCLA.

“I was mentally trying to prepare for the first year at
UCLA. Just trying to live life and trying to find happiness from
day to day,” Spoelstra said.

On Sept. 11, Spoelstra said his job served a second role, as a
way to distract himself from the “reality” of that
day.

While many students and faculty members’ days were
dramatically interrupted by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,
others continued their daily routine.

Fourth-year biology student Anita Chung was focusing on her
internship at a dental lab last summer. One of her many tasks was
to provide patients with magazines in order to ease their fear of
the dentist.

“On Sept. 10, like any other day, I went to my internship
to work. I saw it as another day to learn,” Chung said.

When Sept. 11 arrived, she said she went about doing her job at
the dental lab because the attacks did not affect her personal
plans in becoming a dentist.

Other students continued planning for the future despite the
uncertainty brought on by the terrorist attacks. Third-year
mathematics student Peter Pesic was preparing for the Graduate
Records Exam last summer.

“My months were preoccupied with study sessions. On Sept.
10 I continued my studies and I did the same through Sept.
11,” Pesic said.

“So what if the terrorists struck the U.S.? I was not
going to allow them to affect study sessions for the exam,”
he added.

The nation’s youth had never experienced an event of the
magnitude of Sept. 11 ““ but older generations were reminded
of other tragedies that occurred in the past.

According to sociology professor William Roy, the only parallels
to the attacks are the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy
and Martin Luther King Jr.

“I think it is the profound sense of unreality that makes
it seem so real in retrospect, that makes it stand out from the
mundane events that we quickly forget,” Roy said.