c. scott andreas // april 8, 2006
this month + an ethnography
April 4Classes end in four weeks — I have mixed feelings about this as I’ve about 30 pages worth of writing due in a two-week time span. I’ll leave it to you to imagine with what hope I expectantly await long nights of sitting with my laptop (the p-book is back!) writing about Deep Ecology, anthropology, analyzing persuasive texts, Zionism, and such. Look for musings here from time to time.
I’m conducting an ethnography in which I explore how Christians understand themselves and communicate this understanding to others. Specifically, I’m focusing upon the testimony as a discursive speech act through which Christians craft a narrative that defines the relationship between themselves, their past, God, and the church.
The form of the testimony fascinates me — though we often say things like “Just tell your story” or “It doesn’t have to be any certain way,” the testimony tends to take on a very specific structure and vocabulary. In fact, try this: Search Google for the phrase “I grew up in a Christian home.” Immediately, 15,900 results pop up; each of these is some form of testimony.
I’ll expand on this later and perhaps pose a few questions on which I’d love some feedback.
Until then, have an incredible week!
saving daylight,
c. scott andreas
a weekend of good eats
April 2Sorry for the slow update; things have been on the busy side here. That’s not to say that I’ve been eating nothing but salad and pasta. In fact, my roommates and I have cooked quite a bit this weekend.
First up is an incredible salad. I didn’t really have a taste for salad, but I had to design a poster for the Women’s Salad Supper at ECC later this month. I enjoyed it Friday afternoon; ECC enjoyed it Sunday morning and evening
Next are some stuffed peppers:
Here’s a bowl of fruit:
We also made guacamole, sweet corn, and burritos. No pictures of the burritos, sorry. We were too busy enjoying them to get out the camera.
Here’s some banana bread from earlier in the week instead:
Hope all is well with you; look for more soon.
All the best,
c. scott andreas
zoom !
March 22A view from one of Portland’s MAX trains at 3:30 am. I’ve set this as the background on my new PC in hopes of inspiring it (see previous post). Enjoy…
doctors and their worst patients
March 22Sorry for the lack of updates - strange days have found me.
22 hours of traveling our Oregon trail brought Darrell and I safely home, albeit in the late-1990s.
The hard drive in my Powerbook died shortly after I looked up the departure time for our train to the airport. I expect that it wanted to return to Indiana about as much as I did. It’s not that I don’t like Bloomington - in fact, I’m quite fond of it - it’s just that I’m anxiously awaiting my return trip this summer. Imago Dei has offered me an internship which I’ve gladly accepted. (a toast!)
There’s something satisfying about having a week-old full backup handy when losing a hard drive. Defiant of disaster, perhaps (I learned my lesson last time). A two-hour delay at an airport Starbucks gave me the opportunity to copy my vacation photos to a flash drive — the last life boat to depart from my fair aluminum friend. So I’ve lost nothing save a phone number. This is the first time an extended warranty has served me well.
Oddly enough, the desktop PC which I use for work at a nearby software company is out of commission as well. When it rains, it pours. I hope to pick up a new power supply soon.
In the meantime, I’m faced with a dilemma. I have a paper due this afternoon and no PC on which to type it. The library is full of them, but the sidewalks are covered in snow and campus always feels like a desert island. Enter this little trooper.
Last summer, I found him next to a dumpster. Nursed back to health, I’ve been seeking a home for it since. Blazingly fast, this “IBM Personal Computer 300GL” packs a 533mhz Celeron and 128mb of RAM. Thank you, Jessica Jones, for throwing this bad boy out. After cleaning out seven viruses, 670 pieces of malware, and all of your personal files (don’t worry, no peeks), it was downright usable. Consequently, I’ve a new primary PC for the next week or so. If anyone has a legitimate need (or knows someone who does) for a decent desktop workhorse (inc. monitor/keyboard/mouse), let me know…free to a loving home.
Stories soon. Until then, enjoy what spews forth from this wise old box.
hourglassfully yours,
c. scott andreas
portland photos
March 16My apologies for the rush and lack of updates. I hope to have some time to write later this afternoon. Until then, here are some photos. Most are taken on Burnside, though some are from the Hawthorne district.
more later…
-csa
portland :: day one
March 15I have been in Oregon for a day, yet it feels like I grew up here. Not that it even remotely resembles Columbia City (though it’s true - Porlanders have no accent). But it seems familiar.
Both of our flights were delayed last night. The second delay prevented us from catching a train to our hotel. I called Josh (the Arts director at Imago Dei whom I hope to work with this summer) in hopes of figuring something out. Upon discovering that our hotel was twenty miles from the airport and his house a mere two, he explained the situation to the family he lives with. He picked us up from the airport and offered us some incredible hospitality - we enjoyed a night with Josh, Tony, his wife, kids, and pets.
We had breakfast at a local place called Cricket Café, swapped stories about life, the universe, and everything for about an hour, and enjoyed some great pancakes and omelettes. Josh explained that Portland is a city in which people sit in coffee shops or bars (depending on the time of day) pretending to be angry about the rain. Darrell later explained that he did not see one thing about this city that did not somehow resemble my character. I may never leave.
My interview with Imago Dei’s executive pastor went well also - it’s always great to sit and talk with someone about vision, direction, and goals. To my surprise, he proposed an Arts / IT combo internship. I’d secretly hoped to do this all along but did not realize it was a possibility. Cool.
Afterward, I caught up with Darrell at a coffee place next to the office called Grendel’s. There was a dog sitting on a chair out front who seemed to know what he was doing. We grabbed our luggage out of Josh’s car and began what turned out to be a two-hour journey from the office to our hotel on Portland’s TriMet mass transit system. After walking 1.5 miles with our luggage to our hotel from what turned out to be the wrong train station, we sat down to rest for a minute. I hopped online to find a better way back to the office (I made it in just under an hour) and went back into town for a birthday party.
After a piece of cake, Josh and I got together in his office to brainstorm for awhile. There’s nothing like hanging a big sheet of paper on the wall and scribbling wildly with a marker. I can’t wait to see what might come out of it…but more on that later. We’ll be doing the same tomorrow morning. Also, the church’s Office Manager (who happened to have some random connections to Fort Wayne’s YFC group; cool) hooked me up with quite a get-togethers and projects going on in the church this week. I look forward to meeting some other members.
After a quick trip back to the hotel, Darrell and I grabbed dinner at a Mexican place, picked up some groceries for the week, and decided to call it a night.
Finally, two quick photos:
the first: I was surprised to find that US 30, which runs not one mile from my home in Columbia City, IN, also runs through downtown Portland. A quick glance at Google Maps indicates that this is in fact the same US 30.
the second: I’m told that Powell’s is the world’s largest book store; it’s several stories high and takes up an entire city block. I rode by it on a bus and just caught the corner of a sign for it as we drove by. Look for a more thorough exploration of this treasure trove later.
Goal for tomorrow: Pick up a “Keep Portland WEIRD!” bumper sticker.
grace and peace from the land of milk and honey rain and coffee,
c. scott andreas