I didn’t expect this East Coast Swing to be a vacation, but I couldn’t have predicted it to be as eventful as it was. I figured I would be driving my mother around, considering she had broken her knee a few days before I arrived. Still I planned to try to get something productive done, either in terms of reading, thesising, or job hunting.¹
It was a disaster on all counts.
First, the multiple trips to NY were more draining than usual. I was supposed to speak at the bridge shul for a seudah shelishit, but found out last minute that it was cancelled. Then, the broken kneecap became a broken hip, and of course that rightly required attention. This isn’t a complaint, just pointing that the whole experience had been somewhat exhausting.
And for the coup de grace, I had to spend the night in Newark Airport.
It’s not that I missed my flight as much as my flight missed me. I ordered my ticket from ATA a while ago and booked an 8:06 PM flight back to Chicago. Somewhere between then and now, ATA either removed the flight from its schedule or just moved it earlier. In either case, I arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare only to find out that their last flight left at 6:12 PM. I hadn’t received any notification about the switch,² and the representatives were less than helpful. The most that they could or would do was to put me on the 6:00 AM flight Friday morning. For that, it didn’t pay to go back home, or even to stay in a hotel. I called their customer service from the airport and the person said that they should have offered a hotel stay, but they weren’t the friendliest of people here. At any rate, the best she could do was to send me a $50 voucher for my next flight.
Actually, the food court is open all night long and isn’t such a bad place to be. I might even get some reading done. They have wireless here, but it’s about $7 for the night and not really worth it.
I’ll post this tomorrow, and maybe something more if I feel like writing tonight.

1. I’m not including dating here, because although I’m not pessimistic, I’ve also learned not to expect anything to go in a particular way.
2. One representative muttered something about faxing it over, which is odd considering that I don’t own a fax machine.