Sunday in NYC

Normative history-graded influences are things that happen in ones lifetime in which they share the overall experience with the majority of their culture, though individuals may experience the event on their own level. The 'normative' part means that the majority of the culture experience, and the history part means that it's not a determined part of overall human development, but a specific event in history.

I learned about this in my recent Human Growth and Development class, and apply it to the occurrence of September 11, 2001.  Everyone who remembers 9-11 was influenced by it in some way.  I was still living in Rochester, Minnesota, and I still remember the events of that day, though it was so far and so inconceivable to many in the Midwest.

This morning, we walked around the site of the World Trade Center towers, and saw the new buildings being built.  They're very impressive buildings already.  You can see the recognizable curve of the larger building.  It was scary and sad to see the still gaping hole in the ground from where the buildings once stood. 

It is neat to see how they're attempting to keep the public informed of all that's going on with the buildings.

After we walked around the site, we walked past Trinity Church...

And then down to Battery Park, where the sculpture, The Sphere, that once stood at World Trade Center Plaza now stands, a reminder of how scary that day was for all of us.

After a nice walk around, we headed back home.  We wanted to make sure that we had time to relax at the end of the weekend.

Overall, it was a great weekend.  Lots of laughing and fun, and remembering how much we love to make eachother laugh!