Monday, March 16, 2009

(Actual) Things I Thought While Judging The Mock Trial Competition For A Second Time.


Every year I volunteer to judge the high school mock trial competition. Ordinarily, I only do one round but somehow, this year, I ended up judging two rounds -- which means that I saw high schoolers present the same 'mock trial' four times. Granted, each team presents the situation a little differently, and I want to emphasize that I do pay attention, because it's important. But when I've seen it a couple of times before, and it's early on a Sunday morning, and I was up late watching the second-to-last episode of "Battlestar 'Why Is The Admiral Shouting, Now'?", my mind tends to wander.

Here's where it wandered to, in order:

There are two kinds of people: The kind who will simply hold a door to the Courthouse open as a crowd goes through the door, and the kind who will examine the door to see if there's a way to prop that door open so nobody has to hold it.

* * * * *

No, wait, there's a third kind of person: the kind who will examine the outer door to the Courthouse lobby to see if it can be propped open, realize that it cannot be propped open, and then, upon reaching the inner door, will examine that door, even though it's identical, to see if maybe things have changed in those few feet and this one can be propped open.

* * * * *


Ooohh. Hazelnut cream cheese.

* * * * *

A kid quoted "the English novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton." Isn't that the novelist who's name is on the annual contest for terrible but fake opening lines to hypothetical novels? I wish I had my computer here to Google that. Although some of those opening lines were actually, I thought, pretty good.

* * * * *

One kid has a cast on. I sort of associate "having a cast" with "being lower class." But that's probably not fair. I had a cast on once. But maybe we were lower class?

* * * * *

You know what's a funny name for a nut? Filbert. I wonder if a comedian ever said that.

* * * * *

Does this count as "forensics?" What was "forensics?" I never knew anybody who actually did that.

* * * * *


It's already eleven o'clock and we're not done with the first trial. This is never going to end.


* * * * *

I suppose the metaphor this team used in their opening statement that this case is like a "dripping faucet" is meant to be effective, but it really only just reminded me that the downstairs shower is dripping worse than ever. I bet that house that we saw yesterday that was for sale doesn't have a dripping faucet. It better not, for $549,000. I wish that guy would buy my book so we could get that house and I wouldn't have to fix my faucet.

* * * * *

What would it be like to have a really well-paying, but really boring job? Suppose that for 9 hours a day you had to listen to boring speeches -- you couldn't read, or surf the internet, or nod off, or color, or anything; you just had to sit and listen -- but you made a ton of money doing that simple but tedious job. Would you do it? I don't know. I can't make up my mind.

* * * * *

My feet are cold. I wish I hadn't worn my brown shoes.

* * * * *

I should change the way I write my capital "I's". But if I don't put that little crossbar on the top and bottom, they just look like a lowercase "l." I'd better leave it.





Colon


1 comment:

lisapepin said...

"My feet are cold..." You need to have someone who knows how to knit make you a prototype of your business leg warmers. The Chillblaines were a good idea. You need to patent those babies.

Also: "caste" has to do with being lower class. "Cast" just has to do with being clumsy or in the wrong place at the wrong time. Though either could make an excellent niche market for your leg warmer company. Think about it.