Fallen Into Knowledge

Well, at this point I’ve done moved even though I am far from finished unpacking stuff. I am now residing in a house situated down a gravel road outside Scappoose. The house is on five acres in the country. It is very quiet. I have two cats to keep me company. One nice thing is that my commute is actually lessened: I have to go into town for school, but work is a cool three minutes away. more pictures of the new pad forthcoming.

When you’re a student, the year begins in the Fall. My year is beginning with change. The first change is pictured above. After over two years without a car, I am again a car owner. I bought a 2002 Jetta Wagon; it has the turbo engine, leather, the sport package with bigger wheels, the cold weather package with heated seats - in fact, it has just about all of the options available. Its comfy.
The reasons for the new car are three-fold:

• Instead of working for Multnomah Bible College this year, I will continue being a woodworker. Frankly, I can’t really afford to teach and be a student. Additionally, it must be noted that while a teacher I would escape from school to…school: the life of a teacher is similar enough to that of a student that I never felt like I got a break. Woodworking requires energy differently, now I can get home from work and feel like I can study. Which is nice.

• I am moving out to Scapoose. For slightly less than I am paying now (and I’m not paying much) to live in the Hawthorne District, I will be in a three bedroom house in the woods, with five acres and two cats. Interestingly, I will be commuting a bit less than now. It will be much further to school (which is two days a week) and much closer to work (three).

• 3. I don’t remember what I had in mind for the third point - except that any list properly ends at three. Ask your pastor.

And, of course, I’ve started school. I have three classes (really, not just rhetorically):

• I start with a class on Borges and Calvino. I was introduced to these two authors some years ago by Umberto Eco, whose writing is, in many ways similar to the other two. Both are nearly indescribable, and excellent. Taking this class will be like dessert.

• Second in the day is a class called “Post-Humanism,” taught by my favorite marxist feminist prof. At the end of his book “The Archeology of Knowledge,” Michel Foucault claimed - echoing Neitzsche - that humanism was dead. The class asks what it meant to be a human and what it now means to be a human after that claim. Do our perceptions change in a post-religious world, in a technologized society?

• Proust. specifically his 3600 page novel, “In Search for Lost Time.” When I was in high school I was told that “you know you’ve made it as a reader when you read James Joyce.” The person had his “Ulysses” in mind because it is such a daunting book. But I think, on the “hierarchy of daunting-ness” Proust has to be higher - if nothing else, because of its sheer size. With big books like this I need the help that a class’s structure can give.

Well, thats the update. Back to reading.

Yesterday I gets me an email from one of my profs:
“Please have read the rest of the mystic women writers, or at least up as far as the heretics.”
I tell myself to breathe:  this represents a large amount of reading.  I’m swamped, and its only week two.
And yet I still find time to completely remake my website.  Go figure.
This site was constructed using iWeb, the new app that is a part of iLife ’06.  Except for the photo galleries - those were made using Aperture.
Okay, now: Back to work.

“what do you do when you have a big project ahead of you?  You clean your house.  I have a big stack of papers to grade this weekend, you can be sure that my house will be clean by Monday.”  So said the Prof of my Milton Class.  Its true, at least for me.  I have a bunch of projects on the stove, but somehow, I feel like in order to focus I need to clean my space.
“Cleaning” quickly became “re-arranging” Today.  While it is certainly the case that in the process of re-arranging my space I get it cleaned in the process, for me it also means moving 1000+ books off their cases onto the floor in order to move the cases, and back again from the floor onto the cases.  More work than is sensible for just a cleaning job.
But, having done all of that, it feels better.  I think I have used the space better than I had before, I like being able to look at the trees from my desk, I feel that by un-cluttering my space I have cleared my head as well.
I have always been interested in the relationship between the physical space in which I live and my mental state.  How well I think life is going, how productive I am (or feel), my ability to relax and rest:  all of these seem to depend heavily on my living space.  Often, just a re-shuffling of the stuff in my physical space is enough.
It would be interesting to study how physical space affects people’s quality of life.  Is this just me, or is it a universal phenomena?
Okay, here is a poll:  Is your Living space subject to frequent or periodical re-arrangement?  Or, once you have put things in their places do they stay there until you move again?  What are your thoughts on the relationship between physical space and perceived quality of life?

okay, the tape is still up (the trim will all be white - and is under the tape) but I wanted to give those who do visit a look at the progress. Repainting all the trim and painting the kitchen are the next projects. Fun.

and here it is: the new pad. yes, some painting will be happening before move in day (next week sometime). The living area pictured will be a shade of red with white trim; I haven’t decided on the kitchen color yet but the seafoam/teal is not staying…

It looks like the waiting list for the Hinson House wasn’t as long as I thought. I’m Moving. This is good. The excitement is somewhat muted by the list of things that need done. But it looks like one more peice is falling into place. Praise be to God,