Vintage Ike

The pilot comes on over the intercom and says that were getting ready to land in Denver, CO. I look down at my pre-printed boarding pass (thanks Joel) and notice that it lists my next destination as Bentonville, AK. Now, I haven't ever been to Arkansas, but when I see the letters "AK" on my ticket I almost poop. AK is Alaska last time I checked. Enter that pit in your stomach you get when you realize that you can't find your wallet- yeah that. So I attempt to calm myself down with some soothing self-talk: "don't worry; maybe it's a mistake; you'll figure it out; it'll just cost another 400 dollars you forgetful moron; how could you have possibly spaced out that detail!?" Soothing becomes scathing fast. I decide to swallow my pride and ask the flight attendant next to me about this scenario.

In attempt to save some face, I ask: "Do you know if there's a Bentonville, Alaska?" She looks at me like she can smell the poop I just made in my pants. She sweetly responds,"Honey, I don't believe that there is." Huge sigh of relief. She proceeds to examine my ticket and cross references the code on my pass with her little handbook and notices that I'm on a regional express jet and once again assures me that there are definitely no regional jet flights to Alaska. That is, I'm definitely heading to Fayetteville, AR. I think maybe Joel did that just to fuck with me (just kidding Joel). 

Anyhow, everything went smoothly. An easy 1 hour flight from Denver, CO and the smoggy mountains of the mile high city to the clear, blue skies of northwestern Arkansas. Chad Parsons- a fifth-year student in the program picked me up at the airport just late enough for me to call Grandma and Grandpa and tell them that I got in safe.  Chad is from a tiny town in Iowa nearby to Pella, IA (see how good I am with states now) which is where Grandma went to college. She, of course, upon hearing this detail wanted me to ask him if he knew about the tulip festival. He did. 

Everything continued to simply flow for the rest of the day. We dropped my stuff off at Chad's apartment. Met the girlfriend. Headed downtown to run some errands. Chad is working for a local private practice essentially as the secretary while finishing his final class and working at the University Counseling Center. He's busy. I just went along for the ride and picked his brain, enjoyed taking in the scenery of the area, and hearing another person's story of the Grad School adventure. Chad's kinda the opposite of me in the sense that he had to apply to like 20 schools over the course of 4-5 years to finally get a shot here in Fayetteville. He launches in to the story of his first few years here and I start to find out a lot about the impact an advisor can have on your life. His first advisor left after his first year. His second is being fired from the U due to his use of crank, meth, and other fun substances that have essentially rendered him psychotic. Well, I'm slightly suspicious of exactly how accurate all of this undoubtably slanted information is, but regardless- there's been some dysfunction down here in the AR.

More later.