<p>Shoe,
We're worried about you. Please check in and let us know your'e okay...</p>
<p>Also thinking of you today, Shoebox. Hope that you are okay and my thoughts are with you and your fellow Tech students.</p>
<p>just want to add my voice.. hope you are ok</p>
<p>I was about to make this topic when my power went out. (Wind storm in Northern VA) Weird that we were sent home around the time of the shooting due to the storm. I hope shoe is alright too.</p>
<p>Shoebox, hope you are ok? My Mom graduated from Virginia Tech and she is heart-broken that such an awful massacre could occur to such a beautiful and vibrant school.</p>
<p>Wow, shoebox10 I know I speak for everyone when I say I hope you and your friends are okay. You've been a tremendous help on this site since I have been here.</p>
<p>Check in as soon as you can</p>
<p>hope you're alright!</p>
<p>Just expressing my hopes that she is fine as well!</p>
<p>Just saw this on the transfer thread. She's okay! Thank goodness...</p>
<p>To everyone in the CC-UVa community: Thank you. From the botte of my heart, and from my fellow Hokies. This has totally rocked my life, and VT's engineering community, as well as VT as a whole. I am ok, but know some involved, and are unsure of their status. There is a feeling on campus of total shock, sorrow, pain, hate, and love, and now, everythings starting to sink in.<br>
I was actually not on campus, but at UVa. I was staying with a friend in the basement of Old Dorms, so I didn't have service. It was at 12:30, when one of his hallmates asked if I had heard about what happened that everything came crashing down. My mom was frantically trying to reach me, my dad and sister were a mess, and everyone around me were flipping out. From there it was a complete blur...
On to the worst part: I was supposed to be in class that morning. Had I not missed my ride back from UVA Sunday night, well, I don't know how much I would be of help to this board right now. It scares the living daylights out of me, and mygod, its going to have a horrible impact on my academics I think. As with the rest of the community, this will never leave my memory. Today is etched into my mind, everything from seeing the words "23 Dead on Virginia Tech Campus" on the TV after the hallmate got me, to hearing my dad cry, to not being able to reach my mom then finally just breaking down to hear her voice, then finding out 33, then not being able to reach some of my fellow engineers, to coming back to see 4 ambulances along the way, to coming back to an empty campus full of flashing blue, white, and red lights and police and EMS crews everywhere.</p>
<p>Please...if you're ever having troubles in college, go to someone, anyone, and just talk. If you ever have a gut instinct, follow it. Call your parents often, they love and miss you no matter how much you don't want to admit it. Keep your friends close. Live everyday to the best. And skip classes every once in awhile, as it might save your life one day. </p>
<p>Like I said in the transfer thread: I want to be a Cav, so much. But right now, I have never been so proud to be a Hokie, and will always be a Hokie at heart. Even though some may say "well then you'll never be a true Cav", you can never understand until something like this happens. My heart is within this place simply because VT is family right now, and you can't chose your family, but they're forever attached to you. I can love UVA so much, but somewhere deep, VT will be there.</p>
<p>As for this board: I don't know how much I'll be around over the next few days. I'll try to check, but I'm going home tomorrow I believe, but I have too many feelings raging inside, and I don't think I'll be of much help.</p>
<p>To UVA: Thank you. I hope this will end the constant bitterness between the schools that some people try to make, because for once, Virginians are Virginians, whether they are Techs too or not.</p>
<p>And skip classes every once in awhile, as it might save your life one day. </p>
<p>wow I should skip classes tmr then because of the wind. hehe</p>
<p>glad to know that you're okay. :)</p>
<p>Shoebox</p>
<p>Glad to know that you are okay. Take care of yourself, my thoughts are with you and your fellow students.</p>
<p>yea thanks for updating us all, i figured/hoped you just had better things to do than go on this board. i hope you enjoyed your time here as much as you could before finding out this news, and i am very glad you missed class.</p>
<p>thank goodness!</p>
<p>Glad to know you're ok shoebox.</p>
<p>I was in Umich yesterday so I didnt get to hear the news until later that day. As soon as I got to know this happened I immediately thought about you!</p>
<p>Btw, had you gone back to V Tech, would you have been in the class where the incident took place?</p>
<p>Yes, but I would have left by then (8-8:50am class), but I usually just sit in the hallway in some chairs if I can or an empty classroom because I have class a bit later that's in a building next to it. I came really close...and its horrible.</p>
<p>Update: Classes are cancelled for the week. I'm at home with my family until Sunday, and have no idea what will go on with classes next week and for the rest of the semester. No one knows whats going on, including the students, administrators, parents, families, friends, faculty, everyone. There's no guidebook, and it just isn't fair to anyone to have to deal with this. I am guessing the academic life of VT is going to go into makeshift mode as students, nor faculty, will be able to continue with full steam.
As I find out more about VT and what's going on, I will keep this board posted.</p>
<p>Again, thank you to everyone for your support. This is so incredibly hard, especially knowing that a few of my 2010 classmates will never graduate college. And as much as I want to be a Cavilier next year, my heart will never, ever, ever leave Virginia Tech. As your mother tells you when you're screaming that you hate your sibling(s) or your parents themsleves, they're still your family no matter what, and you will always have them. The Hokie family will always be together, no matter what, and I will forever love them and the school, and are damn proud i'm a Hokie.</p>
<p>This was written by Greg Crapanzano UVA '09, who calls himself a WaHokie:</p>
<p>Monday's event should make us question what rivalries really are. </p>
<p>The fact is that the students, teachers and athletes of both UVA and VT, of UNC and Duke, of Penn State and Michigan, are all people. They are people with closely related networks of friends. Of families. </p>
<p>On the field, there is a need for competition. In the classroom, there is a need for competition. In the research labs, there is a need for competition. But what we have learned is that, in the large scheme of things, SAT scores and selectivity do not separate us from all being young aspiring students. The score at the end of a game does not separate us from being young aspiring athletes. And the amount of money pulled in from research grants does not stop us from being aspiring researchers.</p>
<p>Rivalries are only good because they make each side work harder in their endeavors to operate at the highest level of performance.</p>
<p>Rivalries fail when they create biases, prejudices, and unfounded hatred that makes us all forget that regardless of where we go to school, we are all people.</p>
<p>Death is the great Equalizer, for none of us can escape it. And in tragic times we are reminded of this inescapable truth. </p>
<p>We are all people. </p>
<p>In the next months we will mourn. We will come together. But when we will drift back apart? When will we all cease to be Hokies? </p>
<p>My hope is never.</p>
<p>My hope is that we will unite, Virginia.
Not the University of Virginia
Not Virginia Tech
But the Commonwealth of Virginia.</p>
<p>In competition, let us remain rivals in order to encourage one another to excel, but I pray that we never forget that in instances such as the one we face now, when we realize for a few short moments what is really important in the world, we come together as one community. </p>
<p>May this community never fail to exist and never cease to nurture one another.</p>
<p>May we continue to all be Virginians long into the future. Empty of hatred. Of elitism. Of pranks and foul play.</p>
<p>Let us unite now and stay united forever, remembering always that we are all fragile humans and that in the long run, we survive better together than apart.</p>
<p>shoebox10, I'm a mom of a son going off to college next year. My heart is warmed by the fact that you are safe, and I believe, you were meant to miss that ride back to school that day. I am sure your family thanks God right now that you were at UVA that day. I know things are rough for you right now and in many ways, we are all changed by this tragedy. But I pray that you will find comfort in the arms of your family (as I am sure they are in yours), and that you will be able to continue your academic aspriations and never give up on them.</p>
<p>Thought everyone should see this letter (from the UVa website):</p>
<p>Letter to the Students and Administration of the University of Virginia</p>
<p>Date: April 17, 2007</p>
<p>On behalf of 30,000 students, administrators, and our Virginia Tech community, I cannot begin to express our gratitude for the outpouring of sympathy, support, and compassion UVA has shown us in the past two days.</p>
<p>It is an understatement to say the aftermath of our losses has been emotionally trying for us. The realization of losing 32 valuable lives in our Virginia Tech family is something that we are trying desperately to recover from...but even in the most difficult day of Virginia Tech history, we have found strength-it is your university in particular that has sustained us, far beyond what you will ever know.</p>
<p>We thank you for your students and faculty that gathered to memorialize our victims and to share in our sorrow.</p>
<p>We thank you for the initiative and commitment your student government made towards finding 30,000 candles for our grieving campus, so that our student leaders could focus on healing and comforting instead.</p>
<p>We thank you for the hundreds of Hokies who saw your painted bridge, and were moved to tears.</p>
<p>We thank you for the way your students instantly put aside our infamous rivalry to the point where the greatest measures of compassion from another institution have been from you.</p>
<p>Your aid has had such a profound impact upon our students. Please know what UVA is doing is being noticed, is making a difference, and is nothing short of extraordinary.</p>
<p>Thank you for being a testament to the best of collegiate student leadership-and to humanity in general. In what we have been calling the darkest night Virginia Tech has ever seen, you are one of our brightest lights. The strong alliance that has been formed between our school and yours is part of our foundation in moving forward.</p>
<p>From our hearts to yours, thank you for your noble efforts. May you also find solace and restoration as we grieve together as students and as a nation.</p>
<p>In or out of times of need, Virginia Tech will stand beside you as fellow students, Virginians, and most importantly, as friends.</p>
<p>With gratitude,</p>
<p>Elizabeth Hart on behalf of Virginia Tech students
Virginia Tech Student Government Association
Director of Public Relations</p>
<p>We truely do thank you. This is an unbelieveably hard time for us all...</p>