the duty of a citizen

So I just finished my first "real" important duty of a citizen---jury duty. At first I thought, man this is gonna be boring, I'm just gonna sit all morning and do nothing because that is what i've heard it is like. BUT I got "picked" for the 21 seats in the "round one jury." That basically means i get a different chair and then the lawyers pretty much ask you a bunch of questions that all sound the same to see if you or anyone you know is a part of ...... or if you have ever been involved with...... It was a pretty interesting case. Then after the 21 round, each side can strike people from the jury alternating back and forth until there are 12 and an alternate left. Well....I got picked! At first i was kind of excited like i was popular and then i realized that I probably just got picked because all the other people were either too experienced with what the case was about (home buying/coorporations/landlords/contracts etc) or just plain strange:) haha...

So then they take us back to the little jury room where we are finally told to go to lunch. Oh and by the way they told us it would be about a 2 week trial (till next thursday at least)!!! Thats long! So we were told to be back by 2 and we got back and waited in our little room...doing nothing. I talked with another girl who was young and a kindergarten teacher about school stuff for a while so that was nice, but all in all i was just bored. Finally they let us just go home b/c of something they needed to figure out.

So Tuesday morning we show up and wait.....a long time, but this time i was prepared with a book!:) After a few hours of waiting the judge finally tells us there was a "hiccup" in the evidence and instead of proceeding they are going to take that to the appeals before going on with the full trial. He thanked us and sent us home.

So now i am home... And i am glad to get back to school b/c i was not looking forward to how much i would be missing and then actually making some sub plans since i would be gone.

All in all i thought the whole thing was kind of fun. I wish I could have seen the whole process of a trial and deliberation. It feels like i was a part of something important, and that is nice!:)