NIU Shooting

For those who don't know me, I graduated from Northern Illinois University in December, and still live and work right next to campus.

I have been meaning to write something about this for the past week. I just have not had the words. It is undescribable.

Usually we have some distance from national events. When Virginia Tech happened, I did not think it could happen here at NIU. We were a happy little school, with normal school problems. We don’t have people shooting the place up!

I was already on national news for almost getting run over by a monster truck. I don’t need to be on the news again. You usually know someone that knows someone, but when it happens right next to you, it really shakes you to the core.

This week has been an absolute hell; I have no emotions to express what it is like to have my classmates get shot and die. In somewhere where I have been hundreds of times before.

I have been really out of it this past week, going through everything in my mind. It is just insane to think about.

I went to the Memorial they setup the other day, that made me feel better, but I think that will be the last time I will visit the campus sadly, such a nice place.

This Sunday is the school wide Memorial at the large arena out here, all my friends and I are going. Therefore, that is going to be nice. Nevertheless, when Monday rolls around, I do not know what this school is going to look like.

As people are saying out here, Forward Together. I hope to move forward with my plans to get the Challenger going for the Hot Rod Power tour, even though I have lost a lot of drive to do it. And to move out into that big world and get a "real" job.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings, this isn't political, so don't make it one.

Do not forget to hug the ones you love.

Ryan