Passing Judgment

I don't think I've ever mentioned before on here that I do Mock Trial.

There's a story there. Back when I started my university career, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, and then a judge, and then a Supreme Court justice. Use of the past tense intentional. Perhaps I will still go to law school one day, but not right after graduation. That's not at all unusual these days, or so I am given to understand.

Anyway, the point of this is that I still do Mock Trial despite no longer wanting to go to law school. And in some strange sense, it's still fun. I say "in some strange sense" because honestly, it's a lot of work to handle Mock Trial, even as a witness. Catch me at the wrong moment (especially right after practices!) and you'll find me in a really foul mood.

Part of it has to do with the fact that Mock Trial isn't actually trying to replicate a trial. Well, it is, but it's also a performance. And the people that you find to judge that performance will not only often share a specific set of expectations and biases (they're mostly lawyers, with all that that implies), they'll also each have their own little pet peeves and preferences. One judge will consider a certain performance flawless and give it a 10; the other will spend five minutes after the trial pointing out all of the flaws in it after having given it a 6. And sometimes I feel like there's a little too much focus on those numbers, which is all the worse considering that the idea that this is judged objectively is frankly ridiculous in so many ways.

Why do I still do it, then? Of course it's no fun to sit around for an hour having every little gesture critiqued in different ways. (And even that is an exaggeration, although not by much.) And despite my apparent dislike for it, I'm still here. I'd have to say that it's because just like anything else, when everything comes together and works like it's supposed to... well, it's fun.

Perhaps this is too obvious? Passing judgment on something so quickly, just because practices tend to get onerous sometimes, really doesn't make sense. I'll be at a tournament this weekend. And we'll see what happens there.