I left New York City on Monday, 26 August a U-Haul, packed full of items I'd hoarded for seven years in studio apartments in the West and East Village. Curiously enough, I didn't feel any separation anxiety that day. I was about to embark on a new adventure: graduate school at MIT. I think panic was absent because, subconsciously, I was not really saying goodbye to the city. New York is just a stone's throw from Boston and I planned to visit often.

Now I have a strange feeling of displacement. I'd never lived anywhere longer than New York. My friends are there. My mentors are there. And the cliche is so true: an amazing, frenetic energy and beauty exists there like nowhere else. When that energy was radically altered by the attacks on 11 September, thankfully none of the people in my close circles were lost, at least as far as I know. But they and all my other friends and family around the world - those who lived or visited New York, and even those who never came to the United States - will forever be deeply touched by the memory of that day. Me too.

For everyone who comes across re:constructions, I hope it serves as a valuable resource for ideas and varied viewpoints, and also a place for constructive sharing and reflection. It's a site woven together by a special community of new friends and colleagues here at MIT. I applaud Henry Jenkins and Alex Chisholm of the Comparative Media Studies department for their sensitivity and for so enthusiastically driving this project. As I work closely with the whole team here, I'm feeling more and more at home.

Stephanie is a first-year graduate student in Comparative Media Studies at MIT.

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