So here I am in Colorado.
Drove all the way from Longview to Dallas without listening to the radio. Driving quite fast. The weather was overcast, so it wasn’t hot. Stopped at a McDonalds for some coffee, since I was having a hard timekeeping from yawning.
Got to University of Dallas around ten. My appointment with Dr. Gregory,head of the Interdisciplinary Philosophic Studies (IPS), the PhD program I’m interested in, wasn’t till noon, so I went up to the graduate admissions office and introduced myself to the lady there I’d talked to. She asked me if I had any questions about the program. I told her I didn’t know enough to ask any so tell me everything. She gave me an application for admission, a catalog, and list of apartments in the area. She said the Braniff program (the one I’m interested in), if you’re accepted, covers full tuition. Once she had said just about all she had to say, I thanked her and left to go see if the head of the politics department was in.
On my way over, I saw Dr. Dougherty in the lobby. I went up andre-introduced myself, since I met him at the Symposium a few weeks ago. Then continued up to the politics department, but the head wasn’t there and wasn’t coming in. Instead I waited till Dr. Dougherty came up and talked to him. He had a lot to say about the program. He seems like a really great guy.
While we were talking, a guy, who had popped into the graduate admissions office while I was there, appeared in the doorway. His receding gum line was smiling broadly beneath his sandy bleached beard as he handed Dr.Dougherty an extra copy of his thesis with a vein bulging arm exuding from a blue scrubs top. “Come here,” he grinned at me with squinty eyes,”It’s lots of fun. There’s a tree,” he pointed at the wall, “on top of the hill. It needs someone to sit in it.” I told him I’d keep that in mind. “Especially at sunset. It’s really pretty at sunset.”
By then it was noon, so I went up a floor to the English department. Ayoung professor was talking about the Odyssey special on TV with a couple of students. They agreed it sucked. I told them I watched the X-files instead, and one of them asked me, “Oh, yeah? What happened?” “Mulder sho himself.”
The young looking professor tried to help me, saying Dr. Gregory is always on time. I waited a while, then went downstairs to look for Katherine. She was at the library counter checking out some books. She introduced me to Sister somebody behind the counter. Then we went out into the foyer. “I’m worried about Margery,” she said, “I was supposed to meet her here at noon.” I went up to tell the young looking professor I’d be back later, then Katherine and I went tromping around campus looking for her illusive friend. Katherine introduced me to just about everyone we met.
When she found out Margery had taken off for lunch, leaving her luggage in one of the offices and would be back before five, Katherine decided we needed to go to lunch. We wondered if Margery and Dr. Gregory had disappeared into the same black hole. Katherine took me to this soup and salad buffet place. I told her I’d had 2 years of Greek. “Do you have a car?” I do. “Well, then,” she said, “you’re all set to come to UD then, with Greek and a car.”
We came back to still no sign of either of them. Then Katherine gasped and said, “That’s Dr. Gregory coming through the door!” Turns out Dr.Gregory had put me down for 2, while I thought she said “noon.” She took me up to her office and told me more about the program. It’s made up of three areas, Literature, Politics, and Philosophy. Everyone in each field has to take a certain number of core courses, a modern and classical language, and then however many hours of electives in your field of study. She talked about how the students from each department bring a different way of viewing the text with them to the classroom. We got into a little discussion about Plato’s Republic. I told her I majored in poli sci with concentrations in English and ILS, which is basically philosophy. I’d be choosing Political Philosophy as my concentration in this program only because I had to make a choice. She told me that this program dealt with the liberal arts and a lot of theory, so I should be aware that it isn’t like other programs at other schools. I told her that’s what I wanted.
Katherine was outside talking to a couple of other IPS guys, who she introduced to me. Then it was back to the library and another introduction to a guy in the politics part of IPS. He said he loved it,that it wasn’t 100 percent perfect because nothing can be. When I said Iwas going to wait a year, he asked me what I was doing. “I’d like to travel around the world, but I don’t know how far I’ll get.”
Just then Margery walked in. “Hi,” she said coming up to me after being greeted by Katherine, “I’m the person you’ve been chasing around all day.” “She’s going to travel around the world,” Larry, the guy I’d been talking to, told her. “Really? Wow!” “Well, I haven’t done it yet.”
We picked up Margery’s luggage, and then I followed them back to the house where Katherine lives, where I was introduced to Tess, the young mother, and her three small children. The oldest told me I was an eagle. I said I thought I was an evil iguana. “No, Joanna is an eagle in The Rescuers Down Under.” Katherine took us upstairs to her room/floor. She’s doing her dissertation on suicide in Dostoevsky and Faulkner, soher room is strewn with novels on the subject. I picked up one by Walker Percy and started reading it while Katherine got me a Sprite, which I acquiesced to, “if it will make you feel better.”
After Margery had to make a few phone calls, we left for Mikey’s Apartment. Katherine told about using a plastic bag and a marker to alter the big sign on the side of the complex where she used to live from”NOW LEASING” to “NOW LEANING.” She had very few nice things to say about Tower Apartments. “The ground shifts here, so they get big cracks in them.
Mikey is moving, so he told us to go through the pile of books on thetable he was giving away. I gleaned a whole stack of way cool stuff. “Mikey? Are you SURE you’re throwing all this out?” Mike came out of the bathroom with his face covered in shaving cream. “Mike, this is Joanna.” “Hi.” “Hi. Yeah, any of those books.” “Ooo! Here’s The Prince!” I found a copy in one stack, “Every time I come to Dallas, I geta copy of The Prince.” “Here’s the Communist Manifesto,” said Katherine. “Oh! Can I have that!” She gave me a worried look, “I don’t know…” “You have to know to fight,” I said. She handed the book to me reluctantly. But then I didn’t leave without getting talked into an unpublished translation of another of Machiavelli’s writings by Dr. deAlverez. I even got a copy of Aristotle’s Nicomachian Ethics with English on one page and Greek on the other.
We piled into Katherine’s Mazda as it began to rain. “See they’ve got anew sign for Tower Apartments. It’s even got a tower in it.” “It doesn’t go out at the top,” said Margie, comparing the effigy to the real tower in the middle of campus. “It’s not as tall, either,” I jibed. Mike and Katherine burst into laughter as Katherine said, “Yes, I think she’s definitely IPS material.” Margie just pointed a warning finger at me and tried not to laugh.
“Those clouds look really green,” Mike noticed as we headed into traffic on the highway. “And that looks like funnel clouds over there.” The usually talkative Margie became very quiet. I urged Katherine to get closer so we could get a better look. Then the one cloud that looked like it was definitely becoming a tornado dissipated. “Well, that one didn’t do anything,” I commented, “But up ahead looks hopeful.”
—Installment One of Jonah’s trek out west is completed. Please stay tuned for the continuation of this adventure.Jonah