Mail Room

There’s a rumor going around that Eugene is going to lose a post office.  Not just any post office, but the one I go to, University Station.

No big deal, right?  There are other POs in town, even quite nearby.  In fact, I now live closer to the main station than to University Station.  No one is going to be prevented from sending and receiving their mail, in no small part because, as Obama recently reminded us, there are many private companies now willing to take part in that transaction who are “doing just fine.”  Yep, “it’s the post office that’s always having problems.”

Be that as it may, I would be greatly saddened if University Station is closed.  Fundamentally, I think that every university should have a mail room.  In fact, it surprised me to find that the University of Oregon had a post office, not a mail room, when I arrived, but I guess there’s a matter of scale that makes the mail room at Oberlin viable, and that at Oregon a post office (Though perhaps the problem lies somewhere in that inequality).

The mail room of a university or college serves its students tirelessly, providing a stable address for those orbiting campus.  It is a place for paying first bills.  It’s where really good things happen when you’ve been away from home for a while – a care package arrives, or just a postcard, when you thought you had been forgotten.  It’s a portal to a place far away.

Amongst the little cubbies or up at the window, you have the sense of really being in a physical place.  You see the postman heft a box of letters dropped into the slot for the 1:45 pick up.  You’ve written on paper with pen, folded that paper, tucked it into an envelope, and licked the envelope closed.  Now you lean against the counter with the envelope in hand and ask for stamps.  You look in the folder proffered – you select from the objects at hand.  You’ll drop your letter in the empty box, they’ll wheel it out with the 5:30 mail.

Perhaps it’s a relic of things past, but I think that’s why it’s so valuable.  There’s no scrolling through options, imagining the shapes and sizes and weights of things.  Here, things are measured, they’re displayed in their corporeality.  Keys are turned and doors are opened, objects are filed and sorted.  That’s not to deny the electronic scale or scanner, but it is to say thanks for the man behind the counter, wearing his blue ringer polo shirt, affixing that label to that package.

I think students need to have a place so connected to objects, since many times they’re living a life so overstuffed with ideas.  They need a place that is neutral in the way that government places are; where freedom of speech is practiced in a dramatically different way than in their classrooms.  They are lucky to have a place devoted to their physical connection with those far away, and a place that so effortlessly combines responsibility and spontaneity.  When all of that is at the heart of campus, it becomes an important place for chance meetings or reality checks amongst the craze of finals; when it’s that convenient it doesn’t take away time from studying or socializing.

Against the realities of the federal budget, my fondness for and belief in the importance of University Station will probably weigh naught.  Yet, for that foreign student, or for the man in the blue polo, I’m hoping that my thoughts are worth more than their weight.

Breaking News

Monday September 1

 

News today has come of a massacre in the apartment of Rachel Auerbach, a woman friends describe as “nice – you wouldn’t expect this of her.”  Worms in her “beloved” worm bin fled its environs last night in search of a better life, only to dry to their deaths on her kitchen floor.  As she knelt to tend the bin this morning, she wondered at their shapes on the linoleum, only to realize that she knelt in a field of death.

“I had no clue they were so unhappy” stated Rachel in a press conference this afternoon.  ”Those worms meant the world to me – literally, I thought that with them, I could do my part to help the planet regain some of its fertility and fecundity.  They worked tirelessly towards their goal, sacrificing every day.  But I guess I just didn’t see the signs.  Fewer mature worms, slower composting…I should have known.”

The remaining worms, of which there were few, had difficulty speaking about the horrendous events of the past week.  ”The bin has been drying out for a while now, and frankly, Rachel’s been pretty bad about giving us new bedding.  She’s violated our rights on multiple occasions, and if it were up to us, we would have gotten someone else to tend house a long time ago.  We can’t afford any more time with her in charge.”

The worms have steadily graded down Rachel’s performance on vermissues since arriving under her care in mid-April.  To begin with, they rated her highly, just shy of 100%, saying that “she still has some things to learn, but we trust that she’ll get better with some tough on the job training.”  Last month, they began to seriously organize for change, but they said that despite giving her a low approval rating of 54%, she didn’t listen to their pleas.

Rachel admits to turning away from the worms in their time of need.  ”It’s been busy around here.  My plants aren’t doing so well either, and I’ve had a lot of other things to take care of.  But, if only I had heard them, I would have done anything for those worms.  I just did’t really know what they needed.”

A service will be held this evening in honor of the worms.  Steps are being taken to amend for the mistreatment so that any remaining worms will not meet the same fate.

Back in the Saddle Again

Off to a great start.

I can still run a mile in under seven minutes, and without too much difficulty, in fact. I’ve worked out 2 days in a row.

I’ve flossed my teeth 5 nights in a row.

I am warm underneath my soft new comforter.

The perfume that I ordered from the internet without having ever smelled it smells wonderful all day. The haircut that I got right before school started looks good up or down, styled or unstyled.

I led the undergraduate studio in rearranging their desks and they did a fantastic job. They all, or almost all, contribute something, even in the large (16 person) discussions.

The teaching in my studio is much more to my liking so far this semester. The project is an urban building, in Portland; it’s home to an imaginary nonprofit that coordinates other nonprofits such as Doctors Without Borders and Architects Without Borders.

I had another chat with Tad and Stefan.

I got my first Netflick, the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and will watch it soon…

I rearranged my studio so that I have fewer peripheral distractions and more pinup space.

I have Human Context of Design and Environmental Control Systems, two classes that cover the exact topics that I find most interesting in architecture: the social/behavioral/relational aspects of architectural space and the sustainable/regenerative possibilities of architectural systems.

Oh, and – it’s on Dan.

Music, culture, distracted posting

Just sitting around at home, trying to work on a mixed CD for the folks at school.  We all promised that we’d make a mix of our favorite songs and then share, so as to increase our musical horizons.  When you listen to 10+ hours of music a day, sometimes you have to have someone inject some new sounds into your repertoire.  When I’ve got a resonable playlist, I’ll post it here, so you all can oh and ah at my fantastic musical taste.  I’m going to try to keep it pretty folky, since there was an original idea to have each person’s mix be one genre, and since much of my music falls into that very broad category.

I’m going to a conference call today on how my mother’s church can work with the new Orlando Performing Arts Center.  Kind of exciting to think that Orlando might have an answer to Playhouse Square.  It’s not nearly as much of a cultural wasteland as you naysayers out there may think.  Or at least it won’t be in five years.

Actually, when you think about a new performing arts center, you realize just how much interesting culture there is in a place.  I think that once it’s consolidated, people will take quite a different view of the city, and perhaps the city will take a different view of itself.

I’ve got to get going so that I can drop mom at work and have the car to get to this meeting later.  I got a new licence, with a horrible picture, for this very moment.  So, more on cultural development and Orlando next time.

Postscript is that I’m staying at mom’s until Monday night, so photos won’t be up until Tuesday at the earliest.

Been a long time coming

Woah, back on the blog – I’ve been away too long.

So, lots of developments. I went into a bit of a funk for a few days when I couldn’t get my design for studio worked out. Called mom, talked it through with her, got a few ideas, came into studio and worked out the plan in less than an hour. Woo Hoo. But then again, after worrying over the plan for so long, I lost a bit of what the overall architectural vision of the place is. Recoverable, and that’s the next task, after all, but a little scary to find oneself so unsure of something that is really the basic unit of what makes a plan architecture.

Anywhoo, on to more exciting/recent developments, I voted today, and I hope that you did too.

Sunday night I drove up to Portland with a greatly reduced crew to the Bonnie Prince Billy concert. A bunch of folks bailed on the show, but thanks the power of Craigslist, we were able to resell the tickets no problem. The show was awesome despite the fact that I only recognized about four of the songs, and the fact that we were sitting about 10 feet away from a guy who decided to heckle for the entire show.

The rain in Portland that night was particularly bad – we think that the leaves had covered all of the storm drains, and we actually had to cross in the center of streets because the intersections had become impassable rivers. Also, there was a rumor that there was a small earthquake while we were in the show! The rain, though, has started in a serious way, and it’s impossible to keep dry, although my Patagonia jacket does well for the top half. Gotta get some fenders and some rain pants.

Big brother Dan is visiting, and he helped me set up a new external hard-drive for my computer, so that I can hopefully get my creative suite running fast, lightning fast… He’s also cooking tasty food for me, and we’ve gotten to chat a bit. Tough trying to get time with him while trying to be a responsible student.

Oh, by the way, on Friday, there was a really great lecture by the folks at Lead Pencil Studio. The work was inspiring, and it was fascinating to glimpse how their collaborative creative process worked/how they blurred the lines between art and architecture.

Ok, off I shall go to grab precedents for our little cabin we just designed for building construction – whoops, aren’t the precedents supposed to come first?