(no subject)

I have jury duty today. Lydia is submitting a grant that's due tomorrow. This is what you call suboptimal timing.

I am just praying that because I am a hugely pregnant highly educated white psychologist and recent crime victim (burglary), no one will want me on their jury.

Fortunately, there is a quiet jury waiting room in addition to the one where they play Muzak, allow conversation, and plan to show movies. Also fortunately, you can buy wireless connectivity for $5.95 a day - a real bargain when you're going to need to be sending grant bits back and forth to your boss. Also also fortunately, there are multiple outlets for people who need to recharge their laptops.

Unfortunately, my work e-mail website is down, as it frequently is. The access website periodically - well, frequently - reverts to "under construction." Why, I have no idea. How long, I also have no idea. Also unfortunately, it turns out that if you are excused from a particular jury by the judge during voir dire, you don't get to go home. You have to go back to the waiting room and see if another judge wants you later. So my relatively low juror number is no help at all.

When I got here this morning there was a very long line of people waiting to go through the metal detector. Then they put us in a room and had us watch a video about jury service. It began with hilarious clips from old movies showing courtroom confessions, proceeded to warn us that our trial wouldn't really be like that, and finished with an explanation of the roles of all the people involved in a trial and the critical importance of jurors to democracy. Fun stuff.

Updated to add: They called me for jury selection just as I was finishing the previous paragraph, which is why the entry ended so abruptly. I was in the courtroom for about an hour and was dismissed for cause because that my pregnancy makes jury service a hardship. Sadly, that doesn't dismiss me for the day, even though I will be incrementally more pregnant each subsequent time they try to empanel me. Still, at least I'm back where I can work.

More jury duty.

I am bored. It's hard to focus on work in the jury waiting room. The work e-mail site is still down. They haven't called a jury panel in the last hour; I don't know if I'll even be called again. But I'm stuck here until they let us go home.

Say something entertaining?

Well, that was a fun civic experience.

I am free from jury duty for another year.

In contrast to Michael's jury duty experience, in which he sat in the juror's waiting room all day long and was never asked to stir, I went to jury selection for two trials. ( Read more... )

It's a shame that my jury service came at this particular time, because I would actually be happy to serve on a jury. I think it would be interesting, and I also think it's my civic responsibility. But not the day a grant is due. And not when a baby is grinding his head against my cervix on a regular basis.

Well. I'll have other opportunities.