skip this post if you prefer not to read about gore and violence.

the glc. graduate life center. this is a building on campus that has conference rooms, a larger venue for big meetings, a coffee shop, a theater and stage, a tv room and adjacent study room, and then on the upper floors grad student dorm rooms. i study at this place sometimes 4 or 5 times a week. over breaks, when most students leave, the building is locked (access is gained only if you are a current grad student -key card access), but i always go there because it is quite and there are couches and comfortable places to read.

then a fellow grad student decapitated another grad student at the glc less than two days ago. with a kitchen knife.

i am not sure what to say about it. i did not know either person but the building itself is very familiar and i can easily visualize the exact location although imagining someone using a kitchen knife to cut off someone's head is horrifying.

according to an affidavit filed with police, the killer was easily identified- smeared with blood, he was holding her severed head by the hair when the police arrived. i mean, what the fuck? seriously?

i am not recounting these events to make anyone sick.

i have not gone back to the glc since (i skipped a student government meeting there last night).

i was not here on april 16th, 2007. almost everyone i know here has some link to that day however. for me, it was never quite real because i only read about it from another country. these two events are rather distinct and in no way am i tying them together. instead, i am shocked that this kind of thing would happen on a campus where i go to school. in a building where i spend a lot of time. at no time have i ever felt threatened living in blacksburg, whether from undergrad days or now. i still do not. yet, there is something chilling about this situation. not sure what to make of it.