| Previous: Framing Story | Table of Contents |
So let's back up a little and get to know our co-protagonists before we start doing experiments with them.
Bobbie entered the anthropology department office and looked around. Near the receptionist's desk was a rack of pamphlets, catalogs, and other informational material. A couple of students were sitting nearby, reading, maybe waiting to talk with faculty or counselors.
One of them looked like he could be a football player, although he looked like he might be a few years too old to still be playing for the university. He was rather good-looking.
He looked up and nodded absently, and returned to the sheet of instructions he was reading.
The receptionist was friendly. "Hello. May I help you?"
Bobbie returned her smile and approached the desk. "Yes. I'd like some information on graduate programs. I have a bachelor's in nursing from," and she named a well-known school with a nursing program, "and a master's in dance from," and she named another school with a well-known dance program (well-known among dancers, anyway), "and I'd like to pursue a PhD here in anthropology, with a focus on island politics."
The receptionist took a note in her log and said, "Well, I don't think we have a program specific to island politics, but we do have ongoing fieldwork in certain island countries. Let me give you some general information on graduate studies, and I could schedule an appointment for you with one of our graduate advisors."
"I would like that, please."
"My name is Melissa Burns, by the way. May I have your name?"
"Roberta Whitmer. I go by Bobbie."
Bobbie took the materials offered and sat down next to the maybe-football player
to read them. He looked up and smiled, and said, "Nice day, isn't it?" to which
Bobbie agreed. Then he went back to reading.
Mrs. Burns excused herself and left the office for a moment but was soon back.
"Miss Whitmer, do you have time now? Doctor MacVittie, who is one of our professors participating in island fieldwork, is available for a few minutes."
"That would be wonderful."
"This way, please." Mrs. Burns took Bobbie to a nearby office, where she announced at the open door, "Miss Whitmer, sir."
"Thank you Mrs. Burns. Please show her in."
Mrs. Burns stepped back to allow Bobbie to enter, indicating the professor with her hand. "Doctor MacVittie."
Bobbie thanked Mrs. Burns as she entered the professor's office and extended her hand to the professor. He shook it warmly.
"And thank you, sir. Please call me Bobbie."
"Nice to meet you, Bobbie. Please sit down and tell me a little about yourself and why you are interested in our graduate programs." He thanked Mrs. Burns with a nod, and she left.
They both sat down, and Bobbie introduced herself.
"As I mentioned to Mrs. Burns, I am a nurse. I'm registered as a nurse and certified as a midwife both in my home state and in this state. I have a bachelor's degree in nursing, and a master's degree in dance."
"Dance? In addition to that impressive list of qualifications?"
"I've liked dance and sports ever since I was a cheerleader in high school."
"Oh. So you already have a broad range of interests."
"Yes. I served a Church service mission in," and she named a mission that included a lot of island area, "and I spent a considerable amount of time in the islands there. I found life there interesting, and I've been doing some limited research in island politics on my own for the past year."
"I see. Do you have a curriculum vitae with you?"
"Yes, I do."
"May I look it over?"
Bobbie gave him her CV and he scanned it for a few moments, nodding and asking questions.
"And you're certified to fly."
"It's a kind of hobby. My dad encouraged me, and helped me get certified."
"I'd almost wonder whether your range of interests is too broad, lacking in focus."
He returned the CV to her. "This is all well and good, but you are asking to enter a field for which your training in physical education and nursing will have only minimally prepared you. Not only that, but you will find the terminology, and even the ways of thinking, somewhat foreign."
"I am aware of that. As I mention in my CV," she handed it back to him, indicating where she had briefly described her dance experience, "much of my work in dance involved ethnic dance. That and the languages I learned and cultures I experienced as a missionary were my springboard. I have read an introductory textbook in archeology, [textbook name elided], and I began, I think, to see how the four fields of physiology, archeology, linguistics, and culture interrelate. I'm not sure I agree with the four-field point of view, but I can operate within it."
"Okay, so we have one freshman-level class out of the way."
"I've been specifically preparing, reading more college textbooks on the undergraduate subjects -- cultures of the world, symbolism and symbolics, morals and ritual, family relationships, the anthropological view of physiology, psychology, economics, politics in particular, religion as a topic outside Ehyephoo-ism, quantitative methods, and so forth."
"Where did you find time?"
"I've been carrying a textbook with me whenever I go anywhere, including work. I learned to speedread a long time ago. It's not emotionally satisfying, but it gets the job done."
"Okay, I get the picture that you are not just daydreaming."
"I know I'm going to have to work hard to get ready for graduate level work. I'm weak in quantitative analysis, so I'm assuming I'll be taking that, among the other undergraduate classes I'll need. Hopefully, I can get by with just monitoring linguistics. I'm hoping I can get some suggestions for additional preparation before I start attending classes next fall."
This satisfied Doctor MacVittie, and they discussed some reading he thought might help outside of textbooks, and she promised to come back for more guidance.
Before ending the interview, he encouraged her to submit her application and promised to see that the appropriate members of the department reviewed it, and they shook hands, and Bobbie left.
On her way out, she stopped back by the department office to make sure she had the application documents, instructions, and other materials she needed. The maybe-football-player was not there.
At Mrs. Burns suggestion, she worked through the application forms, filling out much of them while there, so that she would have fewer questions to worry about when she returned home.
Then she returned to the parking lot. She had borrowed the family car for the three-hour trip south to the school, so she made use of some of the rest of the day looking around campus, looking at apartments in town, and such.
(Well -- roughly three-hour trip, as we might experience it if we traveled it in their world.)
While she was in town, she stopped by the hospital, to ask if they might be interested in hiring her part-time when she started school. Of course, there were no promises, but she was able to meet and introduce herself to some of the regular staff.
When she returned home, her mom was in the living room, reading a book.
"How did it go?"
"Well enough. I got my applications, met a professor, met some people at the hospital down there, and got a look at the town. Brought home a lot of paperwork."
"Meet any interesting guys?"
"No." She stopped and blinked here eyes. "Well, sort of. There was this guy waiting in the department office who was probably also getting ready to apply for post-grad work. He said hi, but that was it."
"He didn't hit on you?"
"No. Didn't ask for my phone number, didn't even introduce himself. Nice looking guy, too. Almost everyone I met was very nice. Almost as nice as being at Church here is now. Maybe I'll like it there."
And she spent her time after work over the next several weeks filling out the application forms, making another CV for the application itself, and so forth. About a month later, she had her application ready, and returned to the university to hand-deliver it and talk more with the professors.
Several months later, when she received her approval to start taking classes in preparation for becoming a PhD candidate, she gave notice at the hospital where she was working and got her dad to help her buy her own car.
Later, she went back to the university to talk more with the professors and make arrangements for an apartment off-campus for her first year. She met one of the women who would be her roommates during the coming year, a petite, active blonde named Kristie Person, who was finishing her bachelor's in physical education and was getting ready for master's work in education.
And she was able to arrange to be on call at the hospital as a midwife for emergency deliveries, and to work there on the weekends, to help stretch her savings and keep her skills fresh.
From the time she went to get the application forms and materials until she started actually taking classes was about eight of their months. (These days, in our world, that would be a rather short time. Then, in that world, it wasn't especially short or long.)
Sometime in the summer before grad school began, as we have noted, her mother showed her an article in the newspaper about one of the students who would be beginning graduate studies at the same time as she would. He was a former football player at the school who had spent two years as a professional player while completing his master's degree in engineering, and would now be seeking a PhD in the same field she was choosing, anthropology.
After getting his masters, he had worked for more than two years as an engineer, in the (then) new field of semiconductor fabrication. But the company he had been working for had failed, and he had decided to take the opportunity to pursue a new field.
His name was Karel Pratt.
The article had been picked up by the national press because he was an example of football players who were pursuing careers requiring advanced degrees during and after their professional football careers.
About this "mission" thing --
In the time frame this story is set in, many young, single Ehyephoot men would take two to five years out of the time young men would usually be starting work or studying at college, to serve as full-time proselyting missionaries. The Church was not yet emphasizing the idea that every young man should prepare for and serve a mission, but it was by no means an unusual thing among the Ehyephoot.
Serving a mission was and is an expression of faith in their Lord and in His Church, at least for many missionaries.
Young, single Ehyephoot women at that time were generally not encouraged to go on missions. Their first mission was considered to be in the home.
Unfortunately, there was often a bit of social stigma associated with women
who went on missions. Women serving proselyting missions were often considered
by the gossips in their home congregations to be "past their prime" days for
being courted -- or some such silliness.
A service mission was a little different, often being considered, socially
speaking, as a recognition of skills that the woman had developed. Single
women who had qualified to work as nurses or in other service capacities
would often be recruited to serve for a time in areas of the world where
medical and other services were needed and hard to get. A proselyting mission
was "for women who hadn't been trying hard enough" -- according to the wags.
But a service mission was obviously different.
On the other hand, in their fields of labor, the women who served as either proselyting or service missionaries were generally seen as the mortal equivalent of angels.
Just goes to show that gossip is a bad thing, even in a good church. Especially in a good church.
It would be several years later that women in general began to be encouraged to serve missions, and the artifact social stigma would begin to be erased.
| Table of Contents | Next: Introducing Karel |
You can find the original first draft of this chapter and various approaches I have tried with it here: https://free-is-not-free.blogspot.com/2016/05/economics-101-novel-ch01-introducing.html.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep it on topic, please.