Deadlines and Dorm Rooms: New York: A Brief Interlude

Well, it looks like Fridays will usually be the day for blogging, but that was interrupted this week by a two-day trip to New York. My uncle died a couple of weeks ago, and my father came up to the Northeast to do the paperwork, so I came down to help, since I was already here. It was nice to be able to talk some; as I think I mentioned, my last week at home was a little crazy, so we didn’t really get the chance to chat then.

School isn’t that eventful yet. ROTC has lots of events happening, but we don’t start classes until next week. In Christian Impact, we haven’t started LIFE Group yet, and I’ve passed on leadership of the Worship Team to the juniors who will be in charge of it for about the next year (until they have to graduate and pass it on again – that’s the inevitable hassle with undergraduate organizations; you never have the same group around two years running). I’ll still sing if they ask me, but that’s a lot of planning I don’t have to do.

I did have a few classes. We started Naval Science class this week, even though we didn’t have the rest of ROTC activities. We’re studying the basics of moral philosophy (which I’m majoring in, among other things), so for once it’s the engineering majors who don’t know the concepts and vocabulary, while I’m semi-bored. It does lead to interesting discussions, though. I’m taking two seminary classes this semester, one on the Old Testament and one on the New Testament, both in Spanish, but since those are online, it’s just a lot of reading and writing papers. And finally, at Harvard, I’m taking a very enjoyable seminar class on Augustine to finish up my philosophy requirements for graduation. It’s just around the corner!

But for the past couple of days, I’ve been adventuring in New York with my father. And by adventuring, I mean going from one public building to another trying to get paperwork filled out. You see, when you’re trying to administer an estate:

\\ 1)      In order to have control of the property, you have to be the administrator
2)      In order to be the administrator, you have to have searched for a will
3)      In order to search for a will, you have to have the key to get into the property
4)      In order to have the key to the property, you have to have control of the property

As you can imagine, this was rather a hassle. It took a day-and-a-half, but we eventually got what we needed – shout-out to the helpful 84^th precinct NYPD officers. And once we did, we could meet with the lawyer and plan out the rest of the paperwork.

We met some interesting people along the way. My uncle worked at a bar, so we spent several hours in a dive bar chatting with the regulars (we had Sprite). And the warehouse where you needed to get the property key turned out to be where you pick up your stuff after getting out of jail, so we had some interesting conversations there. (This is also possibly the reason the warehouse staff seemed at times to be intentionally unhelpful.)

We also spoke with some of my uncle’s friends and learned more than we’d ever known about his life in New York. On Friday evening, we headed back to the airport. I said goodbye to my dad at his terminal, then headed to my plane.

But wait! The story isn’t over yet. First, they were re-doing the airport, so it took about half-an-hour to get from terminal B to terminal C. Then, when I made it through, I had to get through security. Never bring artificial sweetener through an airport security checkpoint; it took me nearly an hour. They took everything out of my bags, scanned them multiple times, X-rayed them all again, patted me down, called over two different supervisors, opened the still-sealed sweetener (my dad brought it from Texas; I couldn’t find it in Boston), ran chemical tests on it, and finally let me through ten minutes before my flight boarded. They were very professional and even pretty friendly, so another shout-out to the LaGuardia TSA people, but it was still rather a hassle. It’s also my excuse for not having this up sooner; I was going to write it while waiting for my plane, but I didn’t end up having time.

So that’s been my week; it’s been quite an adventure. It’s been a long two days, but I’m now in an Uber on my way back to Harvard, and the driver is playing the soundtrack from Lord of the Rings, so I’m feeling kind of triumphant and heroic. And I still have the weekend ahead of me, even though I kind of feel like I’ve already had it. So things are looking up. Until next time, then!

Pictures:

Hot drinks with friends - always a good way to spend a winter afternoon!