Welcome to "The Den"

And with that...it's official!



I am now a "Chicagoian". Is that what they call themselves? Well whatever the name of a rose, it still smells as sweet. Which is to say, that I still have this sweet new pad here in Chicago. So a couple of quick things about finding a place,and having it ready for school.

First things first. Any place you decide to rent NEEDS/ nay HAS to be well within your budget. Granted Im getting $60K a year, of course I could stay in a place for $1200 a month and have no money on the side and make the semester needlessly tight. Or I can act like I have some sense and find a modest place. Being that this is Chicago (one of the larger cities here in the US) finding "a place" was bound to happen. The real trick was finding a place that was A) well within the budget B) had most of the features I need in an apt, and C) Had room for me to grow in. Lets take them one by one shall we?

1) So my place here is a 1bd/1 bath for $950. What that ends up meaning is that for that price I get a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom...and since I did research and spent time looking, i got the added bonus of an "extra room" which in reality is a sun room, but ill be making into an office (more on that to come). So there has to be +/-. For that phenomenal price tag on this large square footage I had to look well outside of the immediate area of the school. In essence Im compromising time in the mornings and proximity to the school for more sq ft for a lower price. To me that is a good trade off considering I made sure my place is off the Public Transportation that goes directly to my school.

2) Make a list of all the things you Need/Want in an apartment, and stick to it! You never know, you might find that dream place that has all the things you want. Ill be honest this place doesn't have everything on my list but it has most of it, and a few extras that made it worth it. For instance the kitchen here is not as large as I may have wanted and it lacks a dishwasher, but the space I lose in the kitchen I gain in an "office". Which is good because I intend to spend more time working then cooking anyway. Whereas originally I was going to have to put a desk in my room, now I have a fairly substantial dedicated work area that should help improve my concentration and productivity.




3) Room for growth is important to me for a couple of reasons. If you have ever had a place of your own before, you may have experienced a particular side effect: Leaving with more crap then you started with. When I moved from my last place I was amazed by just how much "stuff" I had. Now could I have been a scrouge and got a studio for 5 or 6 hundred dollars....SURE! Would I have had space to be comfortable and accumulate the inevitable junk that comes with living somewhere for 3 years...of course not. This place gives me some space to grow and also space to simply get up and walk around. Being able to move from room to room is often overlooked but essential part of making a place feel "homie".

So there you go, just a little bit about my new place. You will hear me referring more and more to the Den, and may even catch some pics soon. We are really getting closer and closer to the start of this wild ride, so you'll be hearing from me more and more.

Marqus






Keep Clawing Away...

Mid-Summer Eve

Testing, Testing, 1,2,3

Is this thing still on??

Hey world, Im back. Sorry for the delay, but I really did not want to bore you with the going's on of me, over the past few months considering they were not law school related. I am going to try my best to keep this blog strictly relevant to the shennagians of a law school student. So with that being said, lets back up for a quick recap and then move forward from there.


1)Since we last spoke in April, I finished my time as a long term teacher in Clayton County Georgia. The time spent teaching American government was really wonderfual and a true insight into the minds of young people and what it is I want to do for the rest of my life. I now am more certain then ever that I have a passion for helping young (especially minority men) find a path to upliftment in their life. I have come to realize more then ever that they need positive role models. They need to see a succesfull young black man that hasnt been to jail, or has two baby mamas, or sells drugs. So yeah I will continue to try to set a good example.

2) I have officially made the move to Chicago. Actually I made the move to Chicago about a month and a half ago. To be technical I'm actually living in the suburbs of Chicago up in North Chicago, but same difference right. I am spending the summer working in the AmeriCorp program. Yeah that AmeriCorp, im working with a non-profit called YouthBuild. I could go into a lot of detail about what I do and what the program does, but I wont. I will say that they focus on getting low-income and at risk youth a GED and job skills so that they can enter the work force. My Time here at a non-profit has been...eye-opening to say the least, and a good experience to have. It is definetely going to look good on my resume once it is time to update it.

3) Last but not least, I am here to update because tomorrow I will be moving into "The Den". Yes I finally got my own place in the city of Chicago. Also I have a couple of deadlines for the school that are coming up so ill be updating on that as well.

So in short: I am here in Chicago, I am tying up some loose ends for the start of term, and I am exploring my new city. You will hear more about these adventures as they come in. So yes it is time to go ahead and tune back into "3YUTP" cause I will be posting more regularly again. Enjoy, and I hope all has been well.

Marqus








Keep Clawing Away...

Forgotten but Not Gone...Yet

Hey I know it's been awhile since an update proper. I was on spring break for a week visiting DePaul and Chicago in general. When I got back to work, the school had changed the filtering standards so now I can no longer update during the day. When you consider I'm teaching for 8 hours a day, then grading papers, then making lesson plans, then trying to squeeze in time with friends, family, and my life....you get the point. I will have a lot more time in the coming weeks though. I mean hey! Ill be be in Chicago by the first week in June. So yeah full steam ahead! Keep Clawing Away...

Spring Break

I know its been a couple of days since my last post, let me apologize because it will be a few more days before I can give a full account. First of all I have been trying to wrap up the classes I'm teaching before my kids go on spring break. So right now it is a lot of grading papers, projects, and getting lesson plans ready for when we get break.

Also there is the not so small matter of getting things ready for my road trip Thursday-Monday. Saturday is "Admitted Law Student Day" at DePaul so I decided to head up there a day early to get the lay of the land and look at some apartments near campus. Saturday I will spend at the school, then i'll drive to Ohio to spend some time with my grandparents before coming back to the ATL. So yeah please try not to miss me too much, i'll be back with stories, thoughts, and pics...hopefully. Take care Keep Clawing Away...

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...