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8.27.2004

Six Days (Part 4: How to make friends on the internet)

Joni wanted to be mentioned for her loyal readership of my website. I don't know the exact time she started reading, but I'm pretty confident she was the first person outside of my friends in real-life land who still reads continuously. Eva also continues to send me traffic even though we've never met and our life stories are so different. There are people who live in Columbus who I've never met who read this blog, and whose blogs I read, and there are people across the Atlantic Ocean in the same boat. My collection of links (mostly towards the bottom) is really an archive of the friendships and connections I've made that without this tool I would never have come into contact with. (That sentence does indeed end with a preposition.)

The part of zipsix.com that is most difficult to describe is the kinship I feel with people who I have exchanged instant messages and e-mails with but never seen. I don't feel that my writing is particularly interesting, but I can't deny that there is a certain comfort gained when reading about another person's experiences in their words. I may have been alone at times on my trip through law school, but there were always un-met friends authoring other law school adventure stories who I knew were listening to me just as I was listening to them. But it wasn't necessary to even share a common experience, because human emotion is universal. The key to making friends on the internet is the ability to find humor in the honest expression of one's story.

This week another 1L class entered the front doors of Drinko Hall like they will over and over again for three years. Many of them have started their own online journals: each with a different style, and a different purpose. (A semi-complete catalogue of MoritzLaw blogs can be found at Chris Geidner's website.) When I started as a 1L, my website was the only one being authored from the computer connections within the Drinko Hall walls. It was the uneasy prototype of how to write an Ohio State law blog. The genre has since been revised and perfected. Chris has plugged his seemingly never-ending energy-supply together with his journalist's training to author Law Dork, a blog that has gained notoriety throughout the entire law blogosphere. Law v. Life is an anonymous blogger entering her third year who writes about what surrounds her in the same way that I did. Even though she's anonymous, after a little detective work I tracked her down and we became friends (though I had to keep her secret-safe, which I think made her a tad uncomfortable.) I love her site because it's written intelligently and with a voice you can hear through the text. Finally, Mike Shecket entered our small club and used his naivete as a 1L to digest what was going on around him and add small punchy updates about things that were fully because of their ridiculousness.

One from the four of us, there are now at least five blogs authored by Moritz Law professors, and a good seven or eight more by students, including by special-designation, Mediocre Law Student, who despite the title, writes incisively about politics and has his work cut out for him by the tempest of Moritz's resident Ann Coulter, whose site you can discover on your own. But even if you never do, you should know that I leave the blog here after four years in a better place for internet writing than where I started it. There's a great abundance of amateur and professional writers begging for you (sometimes not so subtly) to read their stories. And if the law was your least favorite part of zipsix.com, there are plenty of twenty-somethings out there too trying to find their own way writing every day and hitting "publish."

Many of you know me personally. If that's the case, reading someone else's site won't fill in for the way you used to keep up with what I was doing. I understand that. I'm very sorry that I have to stop blogging on zipsix.com -- I feel like I am zipsix, and as such it will remain on the internet hosting pictures, notes, and prose I'm not uncomfortable being attributed to me. But in three days the blogging will stop here. It's been a wonderful four years telling you my story. I'm lucky to have made as many friends, internet or real-life, along the way.  
.. | @ 8/27/2004 10:53:41 PM » » (talkback)
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8.26.2004

Six Days (Part 3: A peculiar journey through law school)

What is law school?
Law school is the cause of a great many words written, tears shed, pain suffered, smiles enjoyed, and questions asked. Law school is what's going on in the background while those with intellectual talent try to decide (and report) on what's happening to them. Law school has very little to do with fifty minute class sessions. Law school teaches you about yourself. Law school presents challenges; it shapes opinions. Law school creates and destroys interpersonal relationships. Law school is an unyielding and ever-changing three year journey.

Why are people in law school obsessed with law school?
Law students are surrounded by other law students and nobody else. You don't intermix with the University's general population. And, what's more, you're measured as a success by your ability to best your fellow classmates come exam time. Law school is an echo-chamber. It's absorbed by its inner politics both at the student and faculty levels. Law school administration decisions become opportunities for debate and change. At Ohio State I was involved with Student Bar Association with dealt with two large issues in my last year: a controversy between the Christian Legal Society and the OutLaws, and the debate over mandatory use of exam software during finals. Neither topic of itself is earth shattering, but it mattered on both a large and small scale to those of us interested enough to join the debate. The imposition of exam software had to do with our struggle to be regarded as professional students, and with a presumption of guilt attributed to all exam takers. But if you aren't in law school, it's really of small consequence.

My friend Brian from U of I would send my two or three emails a week about interesting developments in politics or news. Unfortunately I didn't have the time or energy to engage his point of view the way I would when we were roomates. I was being consumed by that which surrounded me. So, law school is much more then a place you are for eight or ten hours a day; and it's more than a collection of classes or classmates. It's nearly everything you are and care about for three years.

How do you survive it?
Survival of law school is wholly about attitude. You can survive anything with the necessary mental strength. The first year is the most critical and unnerving year of law school, which is unfair since the students are in such a poor position to handle it. During first year I think there's an overwhelming need for validation of one's work effort and value as a law student; and yet there are no grades or evaluations until the very end of classes. The first semester is the great unknown. People are worried about where they stand and whether their responses are received as intelligent, and how they're thought of among the class.

But none of that is important in the long run. What you need always is the strength to continue, because falling behind in course work is costly. And to gather up the strength to continue you need several of the following things. First, you must have one great friend at all times. That person doesn't need to be the same the whole three years, and they don't have to be in law school, but there has to be some person who will take your calls. Second, you should have three or four other friends to go out and have some fun. Once the class divides up into cliques it's nice to be in one. Third, have at least one interest outside of school. For some this is just daily exercise. I remained addicted to following team sports, which probably wasn't as good of a choice as my interest in music or but it did the job.

Was it worth it?
Absolutely. By third year I loved law school and I knew I was going to miss it while I was working. But my case isn't typical. Most people just appreciate the people they've met and the skills they've developed and take those positives for what they're worth. While I dealt with sometimes prolonged doubt about self-worth, the academic pursuit filled in to keep me company. I enjoyed the debate in class, and I developed some great relationships with a few faculty members. And what a story I have to tell. It's all been written down here (though mostly in code.) It was three years of everything in between joy and emptiness. So, if you're just starting out as a 1L, I'm jealous of everything you'll be experiencing. You would do well to keep a journal, whether online or not, because this really will be an interesting time. You'll feel empowered and nerve-wracked at the same time. Just remember that it's a three year journey that is full of changes, and with the right attitude you'll make it through.  
.. | @ 8/26/2004 05:59:12 PM » » (talkback)
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8.25.2004

Six Days (Part 2: The pleasures and pitfalls of writing)

It's interesting to me to watch the first few weeks of a new blog that's burst on to the scene, whether it be a Moritz blog or not. Some people write Livejournal or Xanga sites, and they invariably update themselves and their friends about their everyday lives and the gossip that's developed between a small group of young people just bouncing off of each other. It's a completely different story for the people who have updated to Greymatter and write day after day about their profession or their art.

This site is a loose hybrid of teenage-girl-like squabble and occasional thoughts about the law or politics, but it was always pretty personal. And in four years I learned some tricks about writing in a public forum about private feelings. First, ambiguity is a necessity. Ambiguity also gives a sense of poetic sensibility; it's a gloss-finish on what has actually occured. But often there is no substitute for writing, "Person X is tormenting me in ways 1, 2, and 3, and until I learn to deal with the rejection of my past (Persons Y and Z) and make changes &, $, and #, I will continue to feel ashamed and depressed."

I decided when zipsix.com became a semi-popular page to write with the aid of a decoder ring. The problem I encountered was that the people I was writing about already had sent away for the ring and had been decoding my thinly veiled messages for some time. I'm not as clever as I think I am. So, I suffered from bizarre, clouded writing that was easily decoded for it's message but still a chore to read.

And still there is something driving me to write. I've always felt a creative force: from crayola markers on paper to music notation and web work. I would realize throughout my day in law school that I had something to say about the way things were happening at home, or school, or in my personal life. Or I felt compelled just to convey my excitement for sports. But I've also been trying to just get it all down; to save it for later.

My website is my picture box. After four years some of the pictures are blurred and I can't remember for what reason, but sometimes I know exactly why I added ambiguity to my language, and I remember clearly the underlying thought process. So, for me, sometimes going back and reading all this is like a reunion of my memories.

Unfortunately, I've arrived at a time in my life where the pull of personal attention, complete with a card catalogue of the past, isn't something that should be readily available for public consumption. I'm associated with this website through and through. Any google search of my full name will show you that this site shows up as results one through four. So it's time to present a more professional front in my public persona, but I've had a wonderful time documenting my own life in my own words while this lasted.  
.. | @ 8/25/2004 08:32:26 PM » » (talkback)
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8.24.2004

Six days - (Part 1: The History of zipsix.com)

If you're following me around the globe vicariously, I'm now at the Panera Bread behind Town&Country; in Kettering, OH. So, yes, I'm back. And yeah I still intend to close the site down in six days.

But before I do, I want to take this last week to talk about what the last four years have been like in terms of personal and professional growth. I realize that such an undertaking is probably too large, but here we go anyway. Today I'll just fill you in on how all this got started.

Sherin Bennett came into my dorm room freshman year at Illinois with thirty pages of instructions from the computing department about how to utilize the free webspace the University granted to every student.

I built a small collection of writings that included a "State of Myself" complete with a score out of one-hundred to measure how I was feeling. There was a list of things that I had done, and some that were entirely made up called the "History." It was mostly filled with inside jokes about my freshman year friends. There were six of us, and people on the outskirts who we would see from time to time. I met a girl named Amanda L. on the internet who introduced me around to friends she had made at some sort of summer music camp. My friends were Dustin, now educating the miscreants of greater Seattle; Sherin B. now living in NYC chasing her dream, Amanda, who we lost contact with by junior year; Beau, Dustin's roomate who is married and living in Central Illinois where he teaches and coaches football; Capt. Andy Roesner, who I nicknamed "Captain Andy" for some unknown reason and who introduced me to the fun of a Phish concert, and whose laugh was a complete body movement and really, really crazy; and I was the sixth. Later that year we met Erin and Beth, Jessie and Kara, Russian Dave, Ami J., J.S.Feinbe, and people like Marla Fershl, who probably doesn't actually exist but whom I declared my enemy early on for the purposes of a really great story. (Dear God, she actually does exist.)

I can't believe how much I miss freshman year now that I'm writing this.

But anyway, the first project was called SAO: Steve Abreu Online, and it was punctuated by pictures of cute, innocent, Britney Spears who at the time wasn't the same person who she is now. The most popular part of the site was the Prissy List, which is just strange. Anyway, some of these things have been saved and you can read my 1997-8 attempt at humor here.

SAO stayed up for three years before I came across blogger.com, about three years before the blogging craze. I wasn't one the pioneers, but I am the founding-father of Moritz blogging. But actually I started blogging in the summer before my senior year of college, which only lasted one semester because I graduated early. In the spring I was working at a retail store called Gordmans, because I just missed out on a really great job with the City of Urbana, which looking back on it, I probably wasn't qualified for. My first real week of updating in February of 2001 includes the contents of the rejection letter. And after that it was pretty much a day to day account of my anxiousness about leaving wind-swept Illinois for law school. The first few months of blogging are so cute, because it was basically just all for me to read. Well, me and Melissa (pookiebear) to read, although we were breaking up and getting back together. (But just until New York Times girl walked into my life so that we could live happily ever after.)

There's a post about the decision to go to Ohio State law. But, probably the post that typifies my attitude in those early days describes my situation this way:
Today during my fifteen minute break at Gordmans I sat outside on the concrete in the shade and let the incessant Illinois wind mess up my hair permanently. And then this thought occured to me: The wind always blows through here.... Like its in a crazy hurry to just get somewhere else. And after four years of fighting the wind, I'm ready to let it take me somewhere else.

Then I finished my Pepsi and went back to sorting clothes.


So that's the prehistoric history of zipsix.com. It all began as an inside joke collection amongst friend and morphs into a running complaint about my job, a discussion of soccer, and a summary of my sentiments. But then I started to build an audience....  
.. | @ 8/24/2004 02:03:49 PM » » (talkback)
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8.20.2004

The tourists and tourist's shops are a long way from Dalston Junction

It's hard to explain my trip as a whole because it's been a set of excursions around town and down south to Brighton. Only in the last few days have a I fought the crowds of slow-moving tourists around Covent Garden and Westminster Square. Most of the time tony and I were on double-decker busses up Kingsland Road from Liverpool Street Station past Hoxton through Dalston all the way up to his flat in Stoke Newington. The route is lined with little shops with amusing pro-American names. The are three or four "American" nail shops, there's an Orlando Fried Chicken, a Tennessee Fried Chicken, a Dallas Fried Chicken, a Kansas Pizza, a Fried Chicken Pizza Hot, a City Best Kebab in Town, and so on. But it appears that the health board in Ohio would shut down at least half of them if they had a chance so I'm not going into any of those places.

Tonight is my last night on the couch before I hope and pray the airline strike does not affect my return flight to Cincinnati. I need every day between now and work to mean something.  
.. | @ 8/20/2004 01:45:32 PM » » (talkback)
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8.18.2004

Rainstorms and BBC 1

I only have one measily channel of Olympic coverage while everyone with cable back in the US who has basic cable has 3. But I'm not jealous. We've been experiencing delays in service on the Circle and District lines all week and if it wasn't for a tour I promised to take today I would be just pleased enough to stay in.  
.. | @ 8/18/2004 07:55:41 AM » » (talkback)
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8.16.2004

An update

I have a small promise that Tony and I will play for Dominator of the World again this week which is all I have since I lost after missing a very difficult shot by about three millimeters. I blame the goofy glass of Pimm's we drank while wating for our table in the pro-English place.

Tonight was Tony's last day off before he had to go back to work on a big project so I'll be on my own in the next week going to museums and stadia. But, I'm half ready to go back and enjoy the last two weeks of non-work freedom. So I'm still having an excellent time running around, and trying to figure out this last transition phase of my life. I'm just not in the mood to type about it now.  
.. | @ 8/16/2004 05:54:17 PM » » (talkback)
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