From the mundane to the historic, this has been quite a week! I started off the week with what felt like a mild cold. By Wednesday, I felt a lot better, though I still had a scratchy throat. I felt well enough to go to the symphony that night. It was my second time at the symphony in six days, and on both occasions it had been to see Mahler being performed.

Last Thursday, just two days after the attack, I'd gone to hear Mahler's Sixth. I'd thought it eerily prescient that the Sixth had been scheduled for that week, since it's the only truly tragic symphony Mahler wrote. It's a massive work, requiring the whole evening to itself, with no intermission. Michael Tilson Thomas, or MTT as he's almost universally called, pulled a beautiful, precise performance out of the orchestra, as usual. But nothing could hide the stark reality of the ending, which begins to fade into silence until the whole orchestra strikes its final, massive hammer blows of "Fate."

Wednesday's performance, on the other hand, took you back to the triumphant sounds of Mahler's First. I sat in the second row, hoping upon hope that my throat wouldn't turn me into one of those awful people who cough through the performance. Hoping too that my irrepressible head-nodding and leg-leaping to my favorite moments didn't make me look like one of those crazy people you sometimes see at the symphony.

I've heard this piece performed live numerous times, but I never grow tired of the experience. It was the first piece that I ever got excited about when I first started to seriously explore classical music in my early twenties. I won't bore you non music- lovers with a description of the work, but I have to tell you about the end of the finale, which has almost certainly the most stirring climax in the whole repertory.

Just when you think it can't get any more triumphant (or louder), he backs off a bit so that he can step it up even further the next time!

This week, I also had my first new film-class finally. It's exciting to be getting started on that. And I also had, finally, a first-round job interview for a company about which I'm really excited. So things are looking up there. As if all this wasn't enough incident for one week, I woke up Friday morning with no voice, and had to go to see my doctor. You should have heard me trying to make an appointment on the phone! I get a bit scared when my throat closes up like this, because on a couple of occasions in the past it has led to moments of acute panic where I can't breathe for quite a few seconds. Last night, I was almost scared to fall asleep, because that's when these moments usually arise.

I wish I could end this journal on such mundane personal notes. Wish it was just a normal week. But nothing is normal now. Day by day I'm realizing more and more, how serious things are for the country. This truly is a war, and, in my opinion, a very major war at that. I'm not sure that we are willing to face that reality. I mean, that whole geopolitical mess in the area around Afghanistan could destabilize so easily. The Pakistan government could fall anytime, and nightmare scenarios spring to mind; Iraq taking advantage of the confusion to march in and commandeer Pakistan's nuclear missiles, India getting involved, Russia's muslim former-Soviet neighbors getting pulled in. It's truly scary.

And unfortunately, that's not half of it. I hate to write this way, but it's important to myself that I remember, in the future, how I feel right now. For the first time in my life, I'm a little fearful for the future. I never felt this way about the nuclear scares during the Cold War; I wasn't really politically conscious during the Cuban Missile crisis, and, later, it always seemed to me inconceivable that the great powers would use their weapons. But now we're facing psychopaths with weapons of mass destruction. The attack on the WTC and the Pentagon might eventually be seen as minor in comparison to future attacks by bio-chemical weapons and rogue nuclear bombs. As technology advances, it becomes easier and easier for small groups to wage mass terror. And it's difficult to see how this can be stopped.

I do believe, though, that there is something we can do to minimize the risks, and, for once, I see eye-to-eye with the Bush administration. I was impressed with Bush's historic speech to Congress this week. Let's face it - it takes a hell of a lot of guts to stand in front of Congress and millions of TV watchers like that at such an important moment and deliver a speech like that. I was impressed, despite myself. He spoke with real passion and conviction. I thought that the analogy with Nazism was brilliant, because it put the terrorists in the right historical persective. More importantly, though, I agree with the mission Bush is setting out for the country; a war not just against Bin Laden, but against all of International terrorism. Because that's the only way we can ensure that we won't have to live our lives in fear of another dreadful attack. I wish, though, that Bush had been more explicit in explaining both why such a war is necessary, and how he intends to wage it. I was left with the unsettling feeling of big words but not real promises.

Still, I do feel fairly confident that Bush and his administration understand the scope of the crisis, and know how to approach it. I can't honestly imagine that Gore, had he won, would have been so willing to tackle the breadth of the problem. Don't get me wrong, I'm not turning Republican on you. And I never thought I'd find myself saying that I'm glad Bush is President rather than Gore.

But there it is - the Administration's strategy for the war on terrorism is giving me some sort of hope that we will eventually find a way out of this mess and return to something approaching normalcy. But it's gonna be a long few years ahead.