Autobiographical statement applying to a co-op in Eugene: My name is Ben Eder. I come to you from Newport Oregon, via two years at Reed College in Portland and as many other places as I have been able to manage in my 20 years. We will not delve into the complexities of childhood, the main point being my good health and early encouragement of education and hard work. I was quite the student in high school, into Honor Society, mountain biking, Habitat for Humanity, the Outdoor Club and getting good grades. My college years thus far have been very intense academically, socially and physically. Working to my absolute limit at school, often studying to the point of visual hallucinations, spending all breaks from school working on a commercial fishing boat or covering more miles than a politician on the campaign trail. At the end of last year I began to feel tired in a fundamental way and decided to take some form of a break, at least from Reed. This decision was also heavily influenced by desire to take some classes I couldn't fit in at Reed, to go live in Chile, and by finances. Enter the coops where I decide to take some interesting classes at the U of O while preparing for likely travel plans. Interested in new things, desiring to have minimal negative impact in my environment, liking the concept of a large functional group of people working together for the benefit of all, and being pretty into the price and location of the coop houses, I submit this application for entry into your world. I take responsibility and commitment seriously. I'm clean, generous with what I have, very tolerant and generally a pretty good guy to live with. Oh, and about the goals, I have trouble forming them but I'm better at the execution and, in general, am pretty motivated, even when I can't come up with a good rationalization for why or where the effort should be placed.