No more ITC !!!

For the first half of the semester, I have been taking a class called: "Introduction to Craft" or "ITC". It's basically woodshop class with an emphasis on traditional joinery techniques. I took the class for 1 credit hour (instead of 3) which means that it only meets for half the semester...
At first, I was a little disappointed that I had to do this (due to an overloaded schedule) but now that I don't have to meet for the class every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:30 to 9-9:30ish, I'm glad I decided to do it.

So, what did I do with my first real night off from ITC? I went to the mall with Lindsey...woohoo! I had almost forgot what it was like to do something recreational during the week! Here's a picture of our glorious meal at the food court:


(Notice the Japanese food with all the white sauce..as well as the remnants of a pretzel)

It was the most fun I've had on a weeknight since back in August when we would drive around looking for furniture for our first "home".

Oh, and in case you're wondering...here are a couple of photos of the box I made as my final project for ITC:


(Here it is drying after the final coat of finishing oil was applied the night before it was due.)


(This is a picture of the box on display along with some of the others at the review.)


(I designed the box -which had to fit within preset dimensions: 12"x5"x9"- as a house for our remote controls. Since we currently have no coffee table, we had no place to store the remotes except at the TV . . . which defeats the purpose.)


(Here is a photo of the box on the floor beside our futon holding our remote controls.)

Architecture School

Anybody wondering what kinds of things we learn in architecture school?

How about an excerpt from an assigned reading:

"Intuitively we may guess that the beauty of a building, its life, and its capacity to support life all come from the fact that it is working as a whole. A view of the building as a whole means that we see it as part of an extended and undivided continuum. It is not an isolated fragment in itself, but part of the world which includes the gardens, walls, trees, streets beyond its boundaries, and other buildings beyond those. And it contains many wholes within it -- also unbounded and continuous in their connections. Above all, the whole is unbroken and undivided. This rather obvious idea, though we may assume it to be true, does not yet have a precise counterpart in our professional or scientific analysis of buildings...
The general idea is that the wholeness in any part of space is the structure defined by all the various coherent entities that exist in that part of space, and the way these entities are nested in and overlap each other..."

If you actually read all of that...kudos, you now have a basic understanding of Christopher Alexander's explanation of "wholeness"...now, if you'll excuse me, I have to write a paper on how this notion of wholeness, along with the theory of centers, could begin to explain the varying degrees of "life" that can be found within all material systems. (PS- in order to do this, you have to free your mind from hundreds of years of Cartesian logic in which everything measurable can be deduced to its rudimentary machinistic method of operation)

What saddens me the most

I am saddened that the candidate I voted for was not elected...

I am saddened that the political party that most closely reflects my personal views will not be represented in the white house...

I am saddened that the political party that supports beliefs directly opposed to many fundamental Christian principles has majority control of the senate...

However...

What saddens me the most is simply this:

...that drinking fountains, buses, public places, restrooms, schools, voting booths, workplaces, politics, ......and now the white house..... have all desegregated before the Church.

It is time for Christians to wake up and become prayerfully and faithfully committed to freeing themselves from the bonds of segregation. The one institution that has been given the charge for acknowledging the equality of men, under the grace of God, since the days that Jesus Christ walked the earth, should have never become the last institution to do so...

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." - Romans 15:5,6

"For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body - whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body......But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." -1st Corinthians 12: 13-16, 24-26

"Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called 'uncircumcised' by those who call themselves 'the circumcision' (that done in the body by the hands of men) - remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit." -Ephesians 2

"But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of it Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, [red, yellow, black, or white], but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." Colossians 3:8-14

To the Church of Jesus Christ: Arise and unite as one body!