Although I'm doing my best to carry on in a normal fashion, I can't help but remain apprehensive and a little scared about my trip to England today. When I made my plans two months ago, I could never have known that London would become a major target for terrorism only days before my departure. But now that this is sadly a reality, I've adopted an almost quasi-fatalist mentality in order to remain excited about my trip.
When I was moving to my apartment in DC last weekend, I had a serious talk with my roommate, Dave, about how he was reconciling the daily fear of terrorism with his normal routine of living and working in a city that is seen as one of the world's most obvious terror targets. Much like in London, the Washington Metro is an extremely popular and widely used public transportation system that could attract terrorists who wish to inflict fear on masses of innocent civilians. Being from NYC, he has experience with this sort of fear and he explained how it was important to remain attentive, but not paranoid. As is often said, once you significantly change the way you live and think, the terrorists have won.
While I will surely be walking to class as often as possible in the fall, my trip to London and eventual residence in DC forces me to come up with some way of dealing with the threat of terror and not letting it greatly affect my way of life. It's tough though. When I rode the Metro to the airport on Monday, I couldn't help but look around anxiously for anything suspicious.
I'll report back on my trip to Europe when I get back next week. It will be interesting to see how people are taking it. As for me, I'll do my best to stay calm and go on with my trip as I had planned. If that fails, I'll go to an English pub and try to assuage my worries with a copious amount of good English Ale. The coffee might be bad in England, but I've heard the beer is incredible.
As for John G. Roberts, I'm still reading about him and I'll write a formal post on him in coming weeks. My initial reaction was one of relief. I have no doubt that he'll be confirmed, but that doesn't mean the confirmation process won't be interesting.
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