This Is Not a Frame - and Is

I have been meaning, for some time now, to publish this essay of mine, based on Foucault's This Is Not a Pipe, and Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe:

Enclosed in the framing essay is an earlier essay about Ferdinand de Saussure's Course in General Linguistics [Google Book link]. The poem that begins the enclosed essay was written while I was working as a missionary/English-teacher in Shukugawa, Japan, and the essay as a whole deals with epistomological and linguistic issues that I had begun wrestling with in my final year of high-school and which ultimately led me to convert to Orthodox Christianity.

Anyhow, without further ado, here is a link to a scanned PDF of the essay in question, "This Is Not a Frame - and Is". Enjoy!

More on Centraqua

I made a better map of Centraqua's physical geography. Here it is:

Centraqua: Physical Geography

We finished off the unit with a tourism brochure that outlined the following aspects of our "utopia"s:

• * Name
• * Map
• Pictures
• Culture
• History (excerpts from settlement histories)
• Main Tourist Attractions
• Timeline &/or Important Events (excerpts from explorer's journal)
• Important People &/or Achievements &/or Inventions
• Geography &/or Natural Resources
• International Relations

(We included 6 of the 8 non-starred items in our brochures.)

Most of the students seemed to enjoy it. One of them just told me this class was the most fun he'd ever had - he liked how it really got him thinking about all sorts of different stuff. I had fun too! More on Centraqua later - if I have time for it!

My Utopia: Centraqua

Well, I'm doing my "My Utopia" course again and I had to create an example country for my students. Here it is: Centraqua. Sorry about the blurry picture: I only had a VGA-resolution camera - basically a glorified web-cam - which didn't take a very good picture.

In Kelowna

I'm in Kelowna, at a training session for CoolPortfolio today, and then in Westbank for the very first Hewlett Family Reunion I've ever been to! Should be fun, although I wish it didn't have to mean missing church. It's especially sad to be missing Jesse's induction into the catechumenate. You are in our prayers, Jesse!

M.Div. Thesis In Progress...

Working on my thesis. Here are some of my notes. Anyone have any comments they'd like to contribute?


These notes are an attempt at outlining how I'd like the argument of my thesis to flow. Wrote them on a metal closet in our recroom...


The conclusion of my thesis notes, so far. This is the bottom of the metal closet - the circular scribbles in the middle are in permanent marker, courtesy of one of my two sons.

Cool Periodic Table!

Just noticed this really neat periodic table of the elements. The students at the school where I teach were using it.