BLACKSBURG, Va. – Chemistry professor Joe Merola tried to give a lecture Monday, but looking out at 100 Virginia Tech students’ faces, and the sweat shirt he’d placed on the seat of a wounded student, he couldn’t do it.

“I lost it halfway through class,” he said. “I burst into tears and had to turn it over to the counselors.”

Students and staff paused twice Monday, at the moments when a week earlier gunman Seung-Hui Cho opened fire in two campus buildings, killing 32 people and himself.

Then they returned to class for the first time since the shootings to seek solace in what used to be routine.

They found little as they had left it.

Talking about the tragedy took precedence over classwork, with some 200 volunteer counselors on campus sporting purple armbands, and a counselor in every class where a slain or injured student had been enrolled. Students and professors shared personal stories.

“We kind of talked and hugged. There were tears and stuff,” said Paul Deyerle, 20, a sophomore from Roanoke who attended three classes. “It was good closure.”

Deyerle, who was close friends with one of the slain students, said he took comfort in the fact that one of his teachers, a graduate student, kept choking up during class.

“Ordinarily, professors are so stoic,” he said. “It was nice to see someone sharing what I was feeling.”