Journeying to Dallas (pt. 2)

My trip to Dallas wasn't all business. I had some time to visit with friends and family which made it an enjoyable experience. On Friday, I met with my candidacy mentor, Joy, to fill her in on how the interview went and everything that's going on in my life right now. It was good to see her and visit with her. I haven't had much opportunity for that since moving to Atlanta. For lunch I met an old friend and former supervisor, Jorge. Before meeting him for lunch, I took the time to take a small and short tour of the SMU campus. It was the first time I'd been there since Darryl and I got married. They've done a lot of building there, and are still doing a great deal. The one thing that struck me, though, was how young all the students looked. The majority of students at SMU are undergraduates, whereas at Emory the majority are graduate or professional. Since the library I work in caters mostly to graduate students, I don't see so many undergraduates all in the same place as I did at SMU.

Friday afternoon I went to Canton to visit with my grandmother. My dad and Jill came up from Austin to visit, too. My uncle, Tim, has a job now, so I made sure I stayed later to see him when he came home from work. They have a new dog who is part German shepherd and part chow. She looks more like a German shepherd, even at 4 mos. old, and will definitely be a big dog.

Saturday I spent with my mom. We went to see "In Good Company" with Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace. It was a pretty good movie. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but it had a good plot line. I also helped her learn how to put digital pictures onto her computer and attach them to e-mails. We ate at Napoli's for dinner, one of my favorite Italian restaurants, and it was a good time. I had to go to bed fairly early for my 4:00 a.m. wake-up call that would get me to the airport in time for my 7:00 a.m. flight.