I had just moved onto the campus of The Ohio State University. I was walking around the campus when I met a female student (probably in her early 20s). We began talking and I asked her many questions about herself and she freely answered. When I asked her where she was from she told me "Wheatherford." I had been to Wheatherford before and remembered it as a small farm town not far south of Columbus.
She told me about a song group she belonged to which she had to attend shortly. It sounded as if the song group was a large group of people who came together to sing. I thought it might be interesting to attend, but she didn't invite me. Finally she told me she had to go and she simply walked away. As I watched her depart, I thought to myself that she needed to lose a little weight. I also thought over the way I had approached her and I realized I had probably sounded like an attorney cross-examining her.
I soon began walking around myself and shortly encountered a group of six or seven women standing on the grassy campus. I noticed the woman with whom I had been talking among them and I realized this must be the song group she had referred to -- I had expected it to be much larger. I walked past the group, but the woman didn't act as if she saw me. I thought she was probably embarrassed because the group was so small and she had led me to believe it would be quite large.
I continued on until I reached the dormitory I had moved into. My possessions were still not all unpacked, but I had unpacked some pictures which I used for making
collages. I sat down on the floor and began cutting some of them out. The pictures I was cutting out were small and colorful. After working with them for quite a while, I finally rose and walked out into the hallway where I could see some activity at a room on the other end.I walked down to that room, stepped through the door and inside found what appeared to be an art painting class. A black-haired woman (probably in her early 30s) appeared to be in charge of the class. She and I immediately began talking and part of our conversation was in German. I was unsure how she knew I spoke German, but I thought perhaps she had heard me speaking with someone earlier in the hallway.
She soon began showing me several paintings she had done. They were of a symbolical nature and I was quite impressed with them, but they immediately made me wish I had been working more on my collages, which I felt I had been neglecting lately. I asked her if she taught any other type of art besides painting. At first she didn't seem to understand to what I was referring. Finally I simply brought up the subject of collages and told her I made collages. She seemed interested. I began talking about the problems I was having with the collages and said, "I can't seem to throw myself into it."
I asked her if she would like to see some of what I had done. She seemed interested, although she expressed that she must quickly return to her class, and we walked into the hallway toward my room. On the way I explained to her that I only had one completed collage with me at the moment because I had been moving around. I told her I had made many other collages, but I didn't have them with me.
We walked into the room and she immediately saw the pictures on the floor which I had been cutting out. I pulled out a large cardboard box about a meter high and I showed her that it was also filled with pictures. It also contained many folders which had pictures arranged in different categories.
I began looking around the room for the collage I had with me, but I couldn't see it at first because of the clutter. Finally I saw it. It was turned around backwards sitting among some other things. I walked over, picked it up and turned it around so she could see it. She immediately acted as if she liked it, but when I set it up on something so I could also see it, I realized most of the pictures had somehow become unglued and fallen off.
I told her what had happened and I began searching for the pictures. I found some of them and began trying to rearrange them back on the hardboard, but I had difficulty putting them precisely where they belonged. I had picked up four or five pictures which were of the painted head of a woman, a reclining nude painted probably in the 1500s, a bare foot, a large apple, a small orange and a tree. I was disappointed because I couldn't seem to rearrange the pictures the way I had originally had them.
The woman walked over to the side and began looking at some of the other pictures I had cut out. I realized she might be an interesting person for me to befriend, especially since she spoke German. I said, "Und Sie konnen gutes deutsch sprechen."
She replied that she certainly did speak good German. That pleased me, especially since I myself felt so comfortable with the language. I continued, "Keinen Zweifel daruber?"
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