Mock Trial Weekend in Detroit

After enduring two months of learning how to mock trial, I was sent by plane to Detroit to actively participate in a mock trial competition. Our case was a thinly veiled Oscar Pistorius story using How I Met Your Mother names. I, of course, got to play the defendant in addition to my responsibilities as prosecution closer and expert-witness examiner.

Team D (from left to right): Jessica, Nik (our wonderful coach), Caitlin, Travis, and Me.

We arrived in Detroit last Wednesday and were immediately struck by how not-bankrupt the airport and the immediately surrounding area looked. Then we realized that the airport was about a half hour from real Detroit, where we would be headed.

This is more like it.

When we got to the downtown area, all of the buildings were beautiful but something seemed... off. We slowly realized that there were just no people around. None. We were in the middle of what looked like a large downtown metropolitan area, and there we were the only people. We sauntered across a six-lane highway while the red hand was on. It was like a zombie movie. A very dull zombie movie. We were hungry so we went into a large sports bar. It was not late, but we were the only people there. When we walked in there was some loud rap music, but when the bartender saw us he changed it to quiet Bon Jovi. I'm not sure what to make of that. 

A view of our bar in the daytime. Note that we are right in the middle of downtown and you can see one whole person in this picture. 

A view of the "People Mover" (two-car monorail) tracks and the GM Renaissance Center.

Apparently Detroit refers to itself as "The D." I don't believe that has caught on outside the immediate area.

Closer view of the GM center, which was pretty great. 

View from the top of the GM Center. You can see Canada over the river.

Anyway, my team was great and we had a lot of fun. We won two rounds and lost one, which was probably my fault for using the wrong inflection in a sentence about the nature of intent. That was almost good enough to break into the top 4, but we ended up in 5th place. For a team full of first-timers, it was a very good result. Hopefully I will have another opportunity to do a trial next semester.

Now it's time to do all-Cabaret all-the-time. We go up next week!

The Mystery of the Ossicles

First off, I suppose I should talk about the ENT appointment that I had last Monday. I just got the official results back this Monday, and, SURPRISE, we continue to have no idea why my right ear sucks so very slightly. My right ear and Stonehenge- mysteries we may never solve.

The diagnosis, though, is that since there is nothing to explain the hearing loss, I may have had something percussive happen near or in my ear at the exact wrong time that caused one of my tiny ossicles to move the tiniest bit. If I absolutely had to, then technically I could have a minor surgery that complies with all Navy regulations and that would let me join in 120 days. I say "technically" because it is clear that lawyers did not write the Navy's medical manual and the procedure that they say they allow is more like ten different procedures that all happen to have the same name. Well, I am appealing on the basis of "this is dumb" but am also requesting an advisory opinion as to whether I am correct in my interpretation of their regulations.

In the meantime, I have been going on some fun job interviews. I had one this morning, actually, with a judge in Maryland. We talked about law for about thirty seconds and then we spent the remainder of the hour discussing musical theater and Battlestar Galactica. Boy am I glad that I learned all that law to prepare for interviews for legal jobs. (But really, I'm very happy that I finished Battlestar Galactica in spite of a couple lackluster seasons because the judge was a HUGE fan and apparently requires all of his clerks to watch the full series as homework.)

I leave for Detroit tomorrow and will hopefully do a writeup of how the competition goes, but until then here's a picture of my costume design for Cabaret. I may or may not end up looking anything like this, but I really like the concept.

SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING

I was only 9 or 10 when the last government shutdown happened and was not aware of it at the time, so the current shutdown is fascinating to me in a morbid gallows-humor sort of way. It would be more entertaining if many of my friends didn't work for the federal government as "non-essential" personnel. The big problem with "non-essential" is that a lot of it works out to "newer" and hence "lower-paid" and hence "people-who-actually-relied-on-their-paychecks" personnel. Then again, there is a bill in place that will get them paid after this is all over, so I suppose they'll be fine.

What has been most interesting, from a structured negotiation point of view, is the framing that has been done surrounding the shutdown debate. It's all very Roshomon, and I would enjoy it a lot more if it wasn't actively wasting billions of dollars and stopping me from going to all of my favorite museums that I always intend to but never actually have time to go to.

Last Monday I went to Emelie and Nathan's wedding. I've been friends with Emelie now for over a decade, meaning it has been over ten years since she was Sandy and I was Eugene in Woodberry's production of Grease. The wedding was beautiful (perfect weather, great location, and I got to sit with some old friends) and it was so nice to see her and her entire family again. I used to entertain her youngest sister when she was five, and now that sister is in high school and is, in fact, basically the same age that Em and I were when we met. I advised the sister to be especially nice to the people she meets this year, because some of them will likely be at her wedding.

The show is progressing nicely- I don't think that I have been a part of such a uniformly talented cast in a long time. The singing (not from me, but from others) is going to be spectacular. Kelsey and the Kit-Kat girls have bonded and she is starting to be a real theater person (one thing that she told me she would never, ever be).

Mock trial is also going well, though I did make a mistake in the most recent draft of my closing argument. Our case is about a man who has to wear prosthetic legs and who may or may not have murdered his girlfriend because he may or may not have thought there was an intruder in the house, and in the middle of my closing I was rising to an emotional and rhetorical high-point when I yelled "It just isn't reasonable to have that sort of CRIPPLING fear."

This is why we do multiple drafts.