Not used to being at home and awake at this hour

Well, off to jury duty.

I'm dressing slightly more conservatively than I had planned; I couldn't put a truly hippie-dippy ensemble together that still fit my internalized Southern standards of what is decent to wear in a courtroom. (I want them to think I'm a flaming Socialist leftist weirdo, not a stoner chick who doesn't know how to dress!) But the octagram is prominently displayed, and I am wearing glitter.

Hopefully, I'll be back in the early afternoon, having been deemed unfit to pass judgment on my peers.

If "evaluation" really is at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy (I feel about Bloom the same way memeslayer feels about Gardner), and most of the people who are on juries haven't graduated from college, no wonder our legal system looks the way it does . . .

Not used to being at home and awake at this hour

Well, off to jury duty.

I'm dressing slightly more conservatively than I had planned; I couldn't put a truly hippie-dippy ensemble together that still fit my internalized Southern standards of what is decent to wear in a courtroom. (I want them to think I'm a flaming Socialist leftist weirdo, not a stoner chick who doesn't know how to dress!) But the octagram is prominently displayed, and I am wearing glitter.

Hopefully, I'll be back in the early afternoon, having been deemed unfit to pass judgment on my peers.

If "evaluation" really is at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy (I feel about Bloom the same way memeslayer feels about Gardner), and most of the people who are on juries haven't graduated from college, no wonder our legal system looks the way it does . . .

Civic Duty Done

Well, after all the worrying, that was anticlimactic.

Got there almost an hour early, and was told to leave and come back in half an hour, so I walked down the street to get breakfast. When I walked back, it had started raining, and I got mud all over my shoes (there was a construction site between the courthouse and the nearest fast-food place, and they'd torn up the sidewalk). So I ducked into the bathroom and cleaned off my shoes with paper towels, not wanting to track mud into the courtroom. This caused the lawyer who walked in while I had one shoe in the sink to look at me funny. Then I waited for about 45 minutes, as the rest of the jurors arrived. Finally the judge addressed us and announced that of the hundred-and-some-odd cases on his docket, it looked like there were only 3 left, and he was hopeful that they could all be resolved quickly. In the meantime, he was going to have to perform a justice-of-the-peace wedding, and would we mind serving as witnesses?

So we watched this cute young Hispanic couple get married by the judge (gods, it looked like they were only 18 or 19; they could have been two of my students, almost; I hope they knew what they're getting into), and we applauded for them. I'd never heard the marriage ceremony in Spanish before. The judge got his bailiff to take a few photos afterwards.

Then the judge called in one of the cases, which was a civil suit, and they told him that they were close to reaching a settlement. The judge talked to the bailiff again, and told us that the civil case was the only one left - both of the other two had either plea-bargained or rescheduled their cases. So we got to watch another JP wedding (an older couple this time, maybe my age or a little older than me, one Hispanic and one Asian, it looked like) and applaud again.

Finally, the people in the civil suit came in to discuss some stuff with the judge, who basically told them to make whatever compromises they needed to to get this resolved, because they were almost guaranteed to get a better settlement from the insurance company they were suing than they were going to get awarded in court. They went back to the conference room, and the judge decided that since they were so close to settling he'd go ahead and dismiss us. So we all got our official judicial letter that says we served our civic duty for one day in court, signed off on our $6 check (you're allowed to donate it to CPS instead, which I did - $6 isn't worth going to the bank for, really), and left.

I took the bus back downtown to where the Spouse works. I had forgotten my umbrella, and the bus took 35 minutes to arrive, so I got completely soaked. While there, I practiced actually using small-talk with the other lady (and African-American woman in a nurse's outfit) at the bus stop, which was approximately the same level of discomfort for me as total silence would have been. I think she was more comfortable than she would have been if I'd been silent, though, so that's some small improvement. It took almost an hour on the bus, so even though it hadn't been that late when I got out of the courthouse, I just waited around at the store and then the Spouse brought me home - if I'd taken the bus out to the school, I'd've arrived at 3:00, just in time to leave. *Grrr*

I had a headache from waiting in the rain, so I took a nap after getting home. That may have been a mistake; it doesn't seem to have helped the headache. I don't feel like I'm getting sick, though, even after getting soaked, so that's good.

And I won't have to worry about getting called up again for 3 months, at least. And the sub system said I got one of the experienced ones, at least, so I shouldn't find anything in disarray when I get back. So all's well that ends well, right?

Oh, and now two of my kids have IMed me to let me know how the sub was. :)

Civic Duty Done

Well, after all the worrying, that was anticlimactic.

Got there almost an hour early, and was told to leave and come back in half an hour, so I walked down the street to get breakfast. When I walked back, it had started raining, and I got mud all over my shoes (there was a construction site between the courthouse and the nearest fast-food place, and they'd torn up the sidewalk). So I ducked into the bathroom and cleaned off my shoes with paper towels, not wanting to track mud into the courtroom. This caused the lawyer who walked in while I had one shoe in the sink to look at me funny. Then I waited for about 45 minutes, as the rest of the jurors arrived. Finally the judge addressed us and announced that of the hundred-and-some-odd cases on his docket, it looked like there were only 3 left, and he was hopeful that they could all be resolved quickly. In the meantime, he was going to have to perform a justice-of-the-peace wedding, and would we mind serving as witnesses?

So we watched this cute young Hispanic couple get married by the judge (gods, it looked like they were only 18 or 19; they could have been two of my students, almost; I hope they knew what they're getting into), and we applauded for them. I'd never heard the marriage ceremony in Spanish before. The judge got his bailiff to take a few photos afterwards.

Then the judge called in one of the cases, which was a civil suit, and they told him that they were close to reaching a settlement. The judge talked to the bailiff again, and told us that the civil case was the only one left - both of the other two had either plea-bargained or rescheduled their cases. So we got to watch another JP wedding (an older couple this time, maybe my age or a little older than me, one Hispanic and one Asian, it looked like) and applaud again.

Finally, the people in the civil suit came in to discuss some stuff with the judge, who basically told them to make whatever compromises they needed to to get this resolved, because they were almost guaranteed to get a better settlement from the insurance company they were suing than they were going to get awarded in court. They went back to the conference room, and the judge decided that since they were so close to settling he'd go ahead and dismiss us. So we all got our official judicial letter that says we served our civic duty for one day in court, signed off on our $6 check (you're allowed to donate it to CPS instead, which I did - $6 isn't worth going to the bank for, really), and left.

I took the bus back downtown to where the Spouse works. I had forgotten my umbrella, and the bus took 35 minutes to arrive, so I got completely soaked. While there, I practiced actually using small-talk with the other lady (and African-American woman in a nurse's outfit) at the bus stop, which was approximately the same level of discomfort for me as total silence would have been. I think she was more comfortable than she would have been if I'd been silent, though, so that's some small improvement. It took almost an hour on the bus, so even though it hadn't been that late when I got out of the courthouse, I just waited around at the store and then the Spouse brought me home - if I'd taken the bus out to the school, I'd've arrived at 3:00, just in time to leave. *Grrr*

I had a headache from waiting in the rain, so I took a nap after getting home. That may have been a mistake; it doesn't seem to have helped the headache. I don't feel like I'm getting sick, though, even after getting soaked, so that's good.

And I won't have to worry about getting called up again for 3 months, at least. And the sub system said I got one of the experienced ones, at least, so I shouldn't find anything in disarray when I get back. So all's well that ends well, right?

Oh, and now two of my kids have IMed me to let me know how the sub was. :)