Today I did something that every person with a driver's license must do at least some point in their life: showed up in court for JURY DUTY. I know it's my civic duty as a U.S. citizen and all that, but it came at a slightly inconvenient time. Fortunately, the day went rather smoothly!
So I received my summons the DAY that I returned home from college (ironic, eh?) and was not looking forward to this day since it falls in the middle of my time-dependent internship. I mean, I've heard horror stories of people getting assigned to week or even month long trials, and I just couldn't afford that with the projects that I have going on at work. Needless to say, it made me a little nervous and edgy as I was driving to the courthouse today. When I got through security and signing in, I sat in a room full of rows of chairs and a few tables with a few hundred people already occupying most of them. I pulled out my book, not knowing what to expect next since this was my first time getting called to the circuit court. About an hour later, a man came out from the offices and started explaining the processes involved with jury duty. It was actually rather interesting; he started off with a brief historic overview of how "jury duty" came to be and why it is important that citizens are trying their fellow citizens for various cases. The one thing I appreciated the most is that he consistently thanked us for being there, for taking the time out of our busy schedules to fulfill our duties as American citizens. It was rather uplifting and made me feel better about the situation as a whole.
So after his little spiel, I went back to my book waiting for my number to get called, but I actually ended up having an interesting conversation with the woman sitting next to me. She talked to me about her kids, I told her about school and work, and a couple other random things. It really made the time fly by. Before I knew it, numbers were being called again. But this time, it was for dismissals. Apparently, none of the cases that were argued at court today were going to require juries, so we were all free to go home! I feel so lucky for avoiding jury duty altogether, but I'm a little bummed out I wasn't able to go through the interview process with the lawyers and whatnot, just for the sake of HAVING that experience. I shouldn't complain though, it's bound to happen at another point in my life I guess. :P
I guess the lesson I learned from all of this is not to go into a situation with a bad attitude, despite what everyone else around you says. You never know when you're going to get lucky :)
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