Jury Duty

Today's the day.

First, a word about my life etc: my last final was the Friday before last and I moved back into my parents' house that same day. (Done with my first year of college, woo.) So I've been home now for a little over a week, and yesterday conflict had already started to ignite. Probably more on that later. Suffice it to say, being here at the courthouse is preferable to being home with my mom right now.

Okay, so I was summoned for jury duty at the very end of my winter break (when I was only 18–I didn't expect to get a summons so soon), and I deferred it until I got back from school. I didn't quite know what to expect. It's about 10 right now, and I've been here since 7:40. I'm sitting in a room with about a hundred people, most of whom are either on their laptops like myself or watching some sports thing on TV. It's pretty quiet right now, but earlier a judge came in to talk to us and we had to watch this video that was actually pretty informative. In an attempt to give a "fair and balanced" summary of jury duty, I'll list the pros and cons for you:

Pro:
–The chairs here are wicked comfy. I mean seriously, they're these huge padded black leather-ish chairs with a little bit of bounce to them. The only way this could be better is if they spun, but I would probably have made myself sick to my stomach already if I'd been in a spinny-chair this whole morning. I know for a fact that these chairs are new, and they used to have these shitty blue plastic chairs here instead. Okay I'm rambling now. Sorry.
–Pretty good wi-fi here. I haven't tried watching Netflix or anything yet (and I've been here more than two hours, so that's some kind of record for me), but it seems to be pretty fast.
–I've actually been really productive. I thought I would just watch Doctor Who or something, but I've actually written several pages of a play I just started working on, sent out several emails trying to get babysitting work for the next few weeks, and have organized some of my files and documents better. Part of me worries that if I try to start watching something, I'll just fall asleep. Which would be really awkward.

Con:
–I got up at 6:25 this morning. I honestly can't remember getting up that early since I was in high school. (Just one of the reasons I love college–I haven't had a class before 10 a.m. all year.) Which is kind of funny, because the courthouse I am currently sitting in is literally like four blocks from my high school. I had a hard time getting to sleep last night (not unusual), so I'm running on about five hours of sleep and some granola right now. And lunch isn't for another two hours...
–I'm probably going to be here until five p.m., and I only get paid $10 for the day. Which is better that I'd make otherwise (I work at a summer camp that doesn't start for weeks, so I'm not currently working)
–The fact that I have to go to my job in a few weeks means that I can't get put on an interesting case (like a murder), because those trials can last for weeks. If I get put on a case at all, it'll probably be some boring traffic thing–which I'll still take it seriously, because this is someone's life.