Eight years ago today, I woke up to my roommates standing around the television, staring in disbelief. All six of us worked at the newspaper, so the horror we felt in watching the 9/11 attacks unfold quickly turned into feverish discussions about how we would cover this. How would we localize this story? Who would we talk to? What would we do for art? We were in a working state of mind and didn't take time to process what was happening around us. I've said it before, I still feel guilty about that. It wasn't until nearly a month later when several of us went to New York City to do a series of follow-up stories, that the weight of the event truly hit me. After interviewing sources at NYU and Columbia, we got off the Subway downtown to meet up with the rest of our group. As soon as we hit the street we noticed that the air was still heavy with ash and smoke. More than a month after the buildings collapsed, people were still walking around wearing surgical-style masks. There were memorials all over the streets, overflowing with pictures, flowers, stuffed animals and handwritten letters to victims of the attacks. Finally, ...