PHP syntax highlighting (editing .emacs to look for php-mode.el. from within ~ directory.)

[Miguel Ulloa]

OS: Solaris (Sun Microsystems Inc.   SunOS 5.8)
I have a restricted account given to me by school.
Emacs Version: GNU Emacs 20.6.1

I would like to enable syntax highlighting for PHP. 
http://www.miba.auc.dk/net-common/guides/emacs/config.php suggests:

If you program in PHP you will probably need php-mode. It can be turned 
on automatically when you load a .php or .php3 file with the following 
code to include in your .emacs:
(require 'php-mode)
(setq auto-mode-alist
  (append '(("\\.php$" . php-mode)
            ("\\.php3$" . php-mode))
              auto-mode-alist))

This however requires access to /bin/emacs/emacs-21.2/lisp/progmodes to 
install php-mode.el.  I do not have such access.  I was wondering if 
anybody knows how could I edit .emacs to look for my php-mode.el. from 
within my home directory.  Thanks in advance,

Miguel Ulloa
p.s. You can download php-mode.el from 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/php-mode/ I tested it under Windows and 
Slackware Linux.  It works ^_^…