Tweet, Tweet, Chirped the Little Bird

"I woke up this morning and there was no milk, I'm now starving"

Imagine getting 20 or so random messages like that sent to your email, phone, and updated on your desktop widget at least 10 times a day. Maybe you don't have to imagine it, because you are already a part of the twitter movement. I have defiantly withstood this onslaught on personal privacy that is called Twitter; I figure if I can not have a MySpace after all these years I can live without this. I have a couple of problems with twitter on a philosophical level and also on a more practical level. Currently twitter has been getting a lot of publicity on tv and the internet and these two articles point out some of the impracticalities and problems with the system the way it is set up now.

My biggest problem with twitter is my sense that there is no inherent purpose to it's existence. If the goal is to simply update friends on your status and what you are up too, I feel that Facebook already did it first, and has a larger more coherent platform to do this from. Also there is a little more accountability in the world of facebook.

My second issue with twitter is the idea that people feel self-important enough to believe that thousands of people actually care what you just ate or what you are doing at this very instant...and more importantly I do not understand the people that follow others and feel the need to be alerted every time a person burps, farts, or pisses. The whole system seems a bit needy to me, both on the poster and follower sense. I know the argument coming; what's the difference between that and what you are doing right now? Well the difference is, that I am not limited to 140 characters. Nothing of sustenance or real importance is going to get said there.

Thirdly, this "need to stay connected" is fairly false. As a first generation Facebooker (it came online the same year I started college) I remember when it was really exclusive and useful for meeting new people at your school that you would then meet in the real world. Now most people (me included) have more FB friends then they could have possibly have met or known. People spend so much time "connected" on-line that they actually never "connect" in real life. It's a mad world I say.

Fourth, and this one really butters my buns, it is exceptionally lame! Older people are getting on it thinking it is the new cool hip thing to do. In reality most young hipsters I know would just as soon shoot a text updating the friends that need to know something, opposed to twittering them; I mean there is already a Facebook backlash starting. Texting is much more targeted then any tweet can be.

Finally, to me twitter is like a large bathroom stall at a high school that is constantly getting updated. As a source of news there is no peer review or verification going on to make sure items are credible. As a device to keep up with celebrities or politicians, there is no way to ensure that it is them actually maintaining there tweets. There is a reasonable expectation that publicist and managers keep up websites and myspace, but to have someone ghost write your tweets is inherently counter productive to the spirit of the movement

So this is my rant on Twitter. I know it has very little, if anything to do with law school, but whatever. If you dislike this post you can comment, email, call, or even text me...but please, please, please do not tweet me. Thanks Keep Clawing Away...

Today's Moment of Zen

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910), in Christian Science

In politics, absurdity is not a handicap.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)

More Pic's after the jump

How freaked would you be??


Sometimes life just imitates life too well huh?


Do you ever wonder what games would be like if they were rated R?


Keep Clawing Away...

You Down Front

In a show of his political savvy and tech wizardry President Obama will be taking your questions today at 11:30am. A few days ago they opened up a long promised feature of the new White House website that allows everyday citizens to post questions blog style, and then vote questions up or down to be answered by 44 himself. Notwithstanding the fact that the top questions in several categories have to do with the legalization of marijuana I would like to know your thoughts on this new era of openness with the people. What intended and unintended consequences might be lurking behind this new "democratization" and openness of the Executive branch?

I personally think that the first and biggest benefit is simply an image shift from the Presidents immediate predecessor. That he is even taking the questions gives him the benefit of looking more open and trusting; it almost doesn't even matter if he answers the questions or not. Secondly, it makes all of his followers feel more involved. Even if your question doesn't get answered you have still trafficked the website and are more likely to watch the Q/A, thus getting informed through a particularly friendly filter of the president. Another benefit is that this tactic can only strengthen the "Cult of Obama", that is the people who may have never been involved in politics or the democratic party before, but feel a special connection to Barack. This gives him leverage when it comes time to do battle both with the GOP and also the DNC. Whereas in the past the national party could squeeze candidates through threats of withholding funds and legitimacy, it is now almost a complete 180. If Obama doesn't put his name to it, the voters will not see it as being legit

While this new super information highway directly to voters opens up a fast lane from the White House to the people, they should definitely be weary of a few pot holes. Not the least of which is, the more open you are the more we can see your flaws. The openness sword cuts two ways, not open enough and people start to get suspicious and distrustful; whereas being to open and allowing people to see you make mistakes make you seem less credible and more fallible. While it is true that all Presidents have been Human, and thus prone to error, no President finds it particularly pleasant to admit when his administration has been wrong or caught of guard. When you are under the spotlight you can only avoid a question so often before more and more people start to see that you don't know what you are talking about. By allowing this process to be so open, it would only take a small team of dedicated posters to get certain questions to the top of the list, ignore them enough and begins to be a story.

So yes, personally I'm all for this. I think it will be nice to have voters questions answered directly without the media filtering and telling us and the president what we mean. Often times the media ask what it wants to know, and assumes that middle America agrees, hardly the case I'd argue. What are your thoughts? Keep Clawing Away...

The Waiting Game

"Dear Marqus:

The Admissions Committee completed its review of your application and would like to invite you to be placed on the waiting list. The waiting list is comprised of top candidates for admission to the 2009 entering class who have neither been offered nor denied admission. To accept or decline this invitation to be placed on the waiting list, you must visit https://www.law.uga.edu/cgi-bin/admissions/waitlist.pl to complete and submit the requested information by April 15, 2009. If you do not accept the invitation to be placed on the waiting list by the deadline, your application will be cancelled and you will not be considered for admission from the waiting list"

You would think after months of having my application and having time to decide what they want to do with me they could come up with some kind of decision. So now this puts everything into a bit of a tizzy.

Here is the rub: I'm not sure what my decision would be if actually accepted to UGA now. I mean if Columbia came back in the next week and said they had a seat for me in their incoming class, the decision would be much easier; its the number three law school in the Country and it is in the biggest city in the world, no brainer. But this is different and I'm not quite sure what to do. I guess I should pro and con each school.

The Pro's of going to DePaul are pretty compelling. It is in the top 100 schools in the country for one and it has a bit of name recognition. Second, the school is located in one of the biggest markets in the world. Graduating from a school in Chicago would possibly open up a lot more opportunities then Athens, Ga. There is also the benefit of getting to live in Chicago, a city I have never lived in. On the flip side is the fact that I would literally be moving away from all of my friends and family. I know it would be hard to adjust to being in a new city by myself for three years, but I am more then sure I can handle it.

Looking at UGA, I find it very hard to see many benefits. I mean the most obvious one would be the fact that it is ranked higher then DePaul by a significant margin. It is number 33 on most list of Law schools, and in the south the name UGA has lots of pull. I mean the alumni association alone would be worth the price of admission. But I am kind of done with the Georgia scene for awhile, and the school itself is located in the middle of nowhere; though it would be easier to see friends and family. Also I would have to see what kind of scholarship they are offering, I mean DePaul has $60,000 on the table, they are definitely going to have to match or exceed that.

So my question to you is, where do you think I should go?? Keep Clawing Away...

Today's Moment of Zen

Before there is feeling,
Stillness is not increased.
Stillness is not there
Only when there is no thought
And no knowing.
After there is feeling,
Stillness is not obliterated.
It is not that stillness is absent
After there is thought and knowing.
This empty, aware, undimmed
Essence is what is called the Tao.

- Luo Hongxian (1504-1564)
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The longest living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime.
Keep Clawing Away...

SSDD Pt. 2

Soooo, Same Sh*T Different Day huh? Let me finish up the last post I was working on. I had identified three objectives to complete before going off and starting law school. I should recap before moving ahead; they were:

1. Put my financial house in order, and take care of any outstanding debt.
2. Spend lots of quality time with both friends and family.
3. Return my mind to the student setting, and become engaged with my soon to be environment

I went into great detail about number one the day before. I tried to get across the idea that you want to make sure you are taking care of any outstanding student loans either through deferment or through payment options. You want to try and find a job that is flexible enough to work with you but also allows you enough money for your living expenses as well as paying back some of those loans. So I guess now I can go ahead and continue with what I have been doing with my year off from school.

Probably the most important thing that I have been doing is rebuilding and strengthening relationships with both my family and with my friends. As any college graduate can tell you, the four to five years you spend there really changes you. Some people grow more then others, but at the very least, world views are shifted and now ideas are met and incorporated into your life. Some people this results in a reaffirmation of what they already knew and believed, for others they begin to incorporate new and interesting things into their life. The four years I spent in school made me more confident then ever in my own personal skills and ability. I feel more self-reliant due to all of the different situations I have been put in and come out of. What that means is that I have had to "reintroduce" myself to my family and some of my friends. I am really trying to make the most of this time because I know that law school will be extremely demanding and I wont have much time with them, especially since I will be out of state.

Before I was able to do that though, I had to evaluate myself and find out who I was. I did a little traveling and found myself at my grandparents house for a few months simply living. With no work, no school, and no friends around I was able to actually figure out who Marqus had become over the past four years. I was also able to evaluate myself compared to where I thought I would be, and where I actually was. I came up with a readjusted plan, and was more focused when I got back to Atlanta.

This new focus and adjustment to my life plans afforded me a chance to get back in the "school" mode and get ready for law school. I started working on my law school applications and doing research on different schools. Now that I am accepted I try to spend a little bit of time researching the city I will be in. I have found myself recently trying to read articles in papers and online to get back in the frame of critically thinking about information. I plan on taking the summer to begin reading the required material for the semester. So this is what I'm up too till August. Working, enjoying good times with friends, and lots and lots of reading...and oh yeah witting here as well of course Keep Clawing Away...

A Moment of Zen

So I think in an effort to keep this thing fresh and really offer off the wall stuff, everyday that I post I will try to incorporate a Moment of Zen. Yes like the Daily Show, it may be a video or quote or something totally random that I found today and wish to share. So here is today's moment of zen, you get two.



If students really have the
Intention to seek to be sages,
Then they must seek to focus
Their attention on this.
This is the basis for becoming
A sage.

-ZoZou Shouyi

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Darwin Award:

Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.

3 February 1990, Washington

The following mind-boggling attempt at a crime spree appeared to be the robber's first, due to his lack of a previous record of violence, and his terminally stupid choices:

1. His target was H&J Leather & Firearms. A gun shop.

2. The shop was full of customers - firearms customers.

3. To enter the shop, the robber had to step around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door.

4. A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee before work.

Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a holdup, and fired a few wild shots. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, covered by several customers who also drew their guns, thereby removing the confused criminal from the gene pool.

No one else was hurt.

Keep Clawing Away...

SSDD Pt. 1

As promised I am back. I apologize for my absences but life can sometimes get in the way of living if you know what I mean. Always have to deal with the "Same Sh*T Different Day".The life of a soon to be Law Student is always busy and requires lots of attention. With that being said I want to talk a little about what I have been up too, and what I think might be helpful for anyone trying to to figure out what to do before going to school.

I have personally identified three things I need to do before I go away to school in August.

1. Put my financial house in order, and take care of any outstanding debt.
2. Spend lots of quality time with both friends and family.
3. Return my mind to the student setting, and become engaged with my soon to be environment

Again this applies to what I am doing now, but I think it could be a pretty good rule of thumb as well. The most important thing to do is get your financial duckies in a row. You have just spent 3-5 years as an undergraduate and that had to get financed somehow. Personally I was on scholarship until late in my junior year so my own debt is relatively low compared to friends. Full disclosure, my outstanding dept right now is roughly $18,000. I used various student loans to pay for my apartment my last two years of college as well as tuition, books, and general living expenses. Looking back on everything I would have preferred to use one lender, to make repayment easier. Unfortunately for me I have four different lenders, two of which are private companies which makes it a hassle to cover all four of them at the beginning of the month. Which leads me to my next point under number one: defer student loans as long as possible while you wait to get into school. This was my biggest mistake, I was to lazy to take the necessary steps and now I have to struggle to stay current. Graduating into the current economy it is hard to find a job for people in my age range, and the jobs that are available do not lend themselves to lots of money.

So what kind of job should you get before law school? It varies from person to person, and you definitely want to do something you are passionate about and will enjoy. My advice is to get a job that keeps your mind stimulated, you don't want your brain atrophy in your time off from school. The summer after I graduated I worked as a camp director for teenagers in my home county. It was decent pay and I only worked five days a week, plus it played to my personal strengths of organizing, leading, and programming. When that was over I carried those skills and that experience over to working on a campaign for the local school board. As an Assistant campaign manager, I took those same leadership, management, and programming skills and implemented them in coordinating a campaign. This also married my second passion in life, politics, to things I'm already good at. After my candidate won, I was looking for a job that paid relatively well, a flexible schedule, and was not too demanding...I chose substitute teaching. It paid well, no weekends, and I could work when I wanted too. I was so good at it that the school I was at offered me a vacant 12th Grade American Gov't class to teach, which is what im doing now. I highly suggest teaching in the interim because it keeps the mind in the student mode: waking up during school hours, taking notes, and class discussions. I also get major holidays off without having to request them. Stay tuned for Same Sh*t Different Day pt 2. Keep Clawing Away...

Can't Forget about You

Sorry about the long absence, a more substantive post is soon to come this weekend. Keep Clawing Away...

What is and What is to Come

By dent of its properties, weblogs make for some of the most accurate, detailed, and quickest forms of biography society has ever created. It is almost to amazing to believe that with a few simple tools any person can document, editorialize, and publish their entire life story to millions of people around the globe in an instant. Consider this: the first western artist to have a bibliography written about him while he was still living (in fact he had two) was Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni...Better known as Michelangelo; yes that one.

One of his most famous works that survives to this day is his masterpiece of David. The piece was designed following the artistic discipline of diesgno, which considers sculpture the finest form of art because it more then any other form mimics Divine creation. Michelangelo often has the concept of "unlocking the form from within the block" attributed to him. It is said that he believed he did not create in the strict sense of the word, rather he was simply able to "free" the piece that God placed inside the raw block. His work David is suppose to represent the moments before the historical figure would take his place in the currents of history by slaying the giant Goliath. The moment after Conscious Decision but before...


...Conscious Action. This is where I find myself, or more accurately where I find myself at the moment. I have decided to begin this project and can visualize the end result, yet I am just now beginning the steps that will lead to the finish line.At this very moment 3YUDL is a mass of raw thoughts, templates, and future plans; yet I know that there is already a finished form inside that just needs to be unlocked. It's weird but if you can conceptualize time outside of this linear track we are on, it becomes easy to visualize 5,10,15 years into the future an older version of me reading back on this very post and thinking how silly and naive it is. Once the finished product is unveiled it is always harder to understand how it could have ever been anything other then what it is.

But we can not pierce that veil, and I am starring at what is now just an undefined blog, so shall we take out our tools and begin to free the soul of this block? I think we should.

1. First and foremost, this blog will serve as my primary memoir of: preperation for law school, life as a student, and the transition from Law Student to Law Practicioner. There will be many tales of DePaul, Chicago, and generaly the life of a law student.
2. This blog will serve as the main tool to opine about legal issues, political issues, and current event items that cross my brain. My passions tend to run towards the political and legal so the things that I talk about most will reflect that. I will do my best to put issues into perspective, show both sides, and make my own thoughts open and accessible
3. And Finally (since I like 3's) this blog will be a way for family, friends, and acquaintances to keep a rather clear window into my life as I undertake this rather stressful time. Going to school in Chicago means that I literally will be moving across the country, and any kind of face time with friends and family will be slim to nil at best.

I can not wait to look back on this post in three years time and see just how close I came to obtaining these goals. I often read over old xanga post and laugh at the person I once was; but it always helps to put into perspective the person I am today. So to you the readers, please enjoy this window into my thoughts and life; to you, myself (confusing I know) welcome back to this unstressed and untested time. Please try not to judge me too harshly, remember you have at least three years of wisdom and knowledge on me.
Keep Clawing Away...

Blahs, Blurbs, and Blogging

So now that we have been formally introduced let me talk a little bit more about this whole "Blog my three years in law school" concept I have going on. First off, I should note that I am not the first, nor will I be the best to ever do this. In fact a large impotence for me to create this project can be credited to the work of a gentleman by the name of Anthony Rickey and his wonderfully interesting blog Three Years of Hell to Become the Devil.

The first task I set about accomplishing before sending my application packets, was gathering as much information as I could about particular law schools on my list. So of course I read the whole top law school rankings website from top to bottom, and I also considered some of the information from the US World and News, but ultimately I was unsatisfied with the information they provided. Somehow all of the stats and figures felt too cold, too clinical, too sterile. Even the small blurbs about life at the schools felt incomplete. What I needed was the voice of a student, I needed to know not only what made the school great, but what were the tough parts as well; the little things that only a student of the school would know.


With this in mind I went hunting for the voice of my people; tech savvy, highly intelligent, articulate, and exhibitionist young adults. I just knew it would take five minutes with Google and I would have more stories, opinions, and commentaries then I would know what to do with. I expected to sift through countless blogs, jornals, and social networking sights trying to pick out gems of wisdom...what I found was a barren waste land of commentary. To say that I was shocked by the results of my query for "Law student Blog" would be a criminal understatement. Not only did I find there to be very few leads, but the ones that existed all seemed to be dated by several semesters and years. I had assumed that in this Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter age that most college kids live in; it would be easy to pick the brains and adventures of many a law student. This was not to be so.


The biggest help was the aforementioned blog TYOH to Become a Junior Devil. I found the author to be witty, engaging, and thought provoking. It helped that Columbia had been on my list of schools to apply to (Full Disclosure: They waved my application fee and invited me up for a tour. At the time of this posting I have yet to get a final decision). He seemed to do a great job of dispelling common myths about Columbia and law school, as well as providing a new prism to view the load that would soon come with being a member of the law community. He also provided lots of good information about what he felt were some of the best ways to maintain a current, engaging, and relevant blog. As you can see I have listened and incorporated some of those tips he left in my own creation.

You should know however that this is no mere knock off of an original product, instead you should conceptualize my blog as a creation of my own curosity, need for a memoir, and sense of a niche market. Of course I did reverse engineer his blog and decided for myself what I felt to be strengths to incorporate and weaknesses to avoid. I mean, must we have to reinvent to wheel everytime we wish to create a new car? So consider this an evolution of anything that has come before. This is not my first forary into the blogosphere after all. Starting in my senior year of high school and running continously up untill several months after my graduation from college, I kept an online blog which can be found here.

I often joke that my xanga was the longest running commitement I had ever had in my life. I shared most of my young adult life in those pages: triumphs, tribulations, loves, losses, and everything else that can be imagined. My former blog was a place for me to pour my soul and heart. This will not be the same, 3YUD represents not so much a break, as a continuation of that story. It is a new page, a new book even, yet it is still set in the same fantastic world which I seem to inhabit. While my xanga was filled with the day to day happenings of a young man transitiong from the security of home and childhood into adulthood; this represents a more confident and secure man who is sharing with his peers thoughts, comments, and critiques of the world around him. No longer is there the questions of "If I can, Should I, or What happens if"; 3 years under Depaul of Law is a running commentary on the life I will be living, not the life I wish I had.

Verbal Ambassador Keep Clawing Away...

The First Step...

...In a journey of a thousand miles, the first step commenced with one sentence

Dear Mr. Cole:

I am delighted to inform you that the Admission Committee, having reviewed and evaluated your academic accomplishments, personal achievements and potential for legal studies, has accepted you for admission to the College of Law.

And with that I went from being a recent college graduate looking for the next step; to a soon to be 1L figuring out how to prepare for what is coming. What is coming, you might ask. Well for the next three years of my life I will be "Under the Paw" of DePaul University School of law. Clever? Maybe, maybe not?

My name is Marqus Cole and you have stumbled, by accident or providence, across my newly created blog about the comings, goings, and general musings of your regular old law student. You might be asking yourself "Why am I reading this, and why is he writing here in the first place?" Two great questions, and please believe that I have asked myself those very same questions. The latter is the easier question to answer so I will start with it:

• There is a total lack of quality information about law school from the students perspective.

I have known since I entered my undergraduate school that I wanted to enter the law, but I was totally lost on what it would take to get there and how it would be once I achieved that goal. In this high-tech, fast paced, on the go society we live in now I find it unbelievable how hard it is to gain access to this hidden and wonderful academic enclave that is Law School. So here is my opportunity to fill a niche that I think is currently void. For those that want to know what it is like to be in law school, for those that want to reminisce on those long nights, and also for me ten years down the line; there should be some open and free record of what is going on. Which leads me back to the first question... Why read this?

• So you can get a honest, clear, semi-filtered peak into a world that is clouded by myth, urban legend, and simple falsehoods.

I can honestly say that I know maybe five people that have been to law school, three of them are only friends on facebook! The point being, a very small percentage of people my age go to law school and even less of them have time to report on what it is like to be a student. I do not delude myself into thinking that this will be the best reporting ever or that I will always have time to keep it up, but I can try.

So this is my introduction, a hand shake of sorts. In the very near future you will be hearing more and more from me as I get used to this interface and find more interesting things to talk about. I thank you for stopping by and hope you stay for the ride, it promises to be a great one. Once again, welcome to my life as I spend the next 3 Years under Depaul of Law...hopefully I can follow the tracks to the end.

Verbal Ambassador Keep Clawing Away...