By Bryce Carter
Over two years ago, I had a class on the second floor of Virginia Tech's Norris Hall for two weeks. The classroom was overcrowded, so we moved to a bigger room in a neighboring building. Two days ago, for the first time since then, I walked into Norris Hall. I barely recognized the hallway of the second floor of Norris, with its wood flooring and a hazy glass wall with the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention engraved into it.
I felt very weird at first being in there, looking at the exact spot in the hallway where I knew a fellow student had died. Here I was, walking along the hallway of classrooms where 31 had lost their lives and remembering the other two who died in a residence hall. This time of the year will always be tough for all of us who were here on that horrid day, and I know many of my friends may never be ready to enter Norris Hall again.
Nevertheless, it is evident that our community is moving on. Since I was a freshman when all the events occurred, I know that after I graduate next year, there will only be a few super-seniors and graduate students on campus that will have had that experience. But for a long time after that, we'll probably be known as the massacre school. Time and time again, people I meet elsewhere refer to the whole event simply as "Virginia Tech."
This is what I feared early into the tragedy and spoke about on air with MTV News on April 17, 2007, but now this is something that I've accepted. These events happen, whether they're here at Virginia Tech, in New York, at Northern Illinois or elsewhere across the world. It is a tragic situation for which there is no set answer. Blame video games, blame parents, blame whatever you will — I guarantee that there are others who grew up in the same circumstances and are perfectly fine in life.
In the final aftermath of all that has happened here, I have come to the conclusion that we truly choose who we are. We may not be happy with our lives. We may not often get our way. But we can choose how we move forward with life. Yesterday, April 15, was Free Hugs Day at Virginia Tech. It was an opportunity for everyone to embrace what makes our community special: each other. Dozens of us hugged and high-fived hundreds of fellow students to celebrate what it means to be a Hokie and to celebrate what makes each and every one of us who we are, even for a brief moment. We will always remember the events here and hold the scars, but we are moving forward.
