Oh my god the weekend was brutal. Actually it was equal parts excruciating and fantastic. I took part in the world's largest moot court competition and was part of the most difficult regional round, the Northeast Regional. You can guess why it sucks nuts that hard, and luckily I didn't get screwed to the wall by Harvard, Columbia, BC, Cornell, etc. We went up against four other schools with which I was less familiar, but I shall refrain from naming them.
The first round we all thought we did great but it turned out that while we had a better memorial, the scoring on the arguments (the oral part) was totally in their favor. It was surprising. Although then they won top ten memorial. WTF. A lot of the scoring felt like that. Lots of WTF. Not that we had any business making it to the final rounds, mind you.
That was some motherfucking exhausting, stressful shit, though. The first day was hard--watching two of my teammates go first and having a fairly docile bench, then going in the afternoon ourselves and (we all saw this part coming) having a relentless bench--one guy in particular clearly relished pressing things and being an all-around dick. I really didn't mind him, to be honest. Especially after what I saw the next day.
So the next day my partner E and I got the fairly nice bench--one guy really liked me and I got the highest scores all around. (Not that they were awesome scores, but still. WINNING.) Oh, and apparently I made opposing counsel cry. :/ I don't think I REALLY did--I think she made herself cry. And she's YOUNG. But I was told after our round that she was in the loo in tears. I had called her out during my round on facts she had mis-characterized (and using that word) which is a fairly diplomatic way to do it. And it wasn't even that big of a deal. Who cares? But they got up on rebuttal and tried to distinguish it...yeah, the judges were like, and how does that even help your case? They brought up two other boring points and we, in turn, simply waived sur-rebuttal. (Which is the equivalent of saying they didn't have anything worth responding to.) IT'S NOTHING PERSONAL, GIRL.
But what might have made ME cry was the following round my teammates endured. One guy, one judge, was just a flat-out asshole who clearly loathed the applicant position. He was somewhat harsh to the other side as well, but nowhere near to the extent he was with us. I have the utmost respect and admiration for both my teammates for getting through that round with grace and dignity. Even though when D sat down he said that for the first time, he physically wanted to vomit.
But honestly, as we sat in the law firm conference room to hear the top results, I looked at E and said, "If we make the next round, I am going to cry/kill all of you." I'm pretty sure we all felt the same way.
We did not make it and promptly headed out and got a really good bottle of champagne for 3 and a soda (E does not drink).
We went back for the score reports and drink ceremony around 8:30 and somehow wound up at dinner with some fairly annoying people. My teammate M was already quite...um...well, she was very inebriated. And they were annoying her. So she was directing her attention to her phone and would frequently head outside to text. The one annoying girl leaned over to me and said, "Is she devastated about losing?" I am so proud I kept my shit together. Though the four of us did have a good laugh about it in the cab later.
In fact, I told this same girl that before heading to the ceremony I had been loving the chance to curl up in the giant hotel bed and watch House and The Closer on TV. (She seemed delicate, I omitted the part about my flask.) She said, "I still can't watch TV yet, I'm too devastated." And in all honesty, this was a team that we--we who were not even all that good--had totally creamed earlier. Again, age is everything. PERSPECTIVE, HONEY. GET SOME.
I think one of my favorite things was having dinner with D's parents the second night of the competition. D is half Chinese/half Korean and his parents live close to the city, so they came in and took us for Korean barbecue. It's the closest I can get to Don Don's without flying to Japan. And of course, it's Korean, so there are tons of side-dishes and it's different because you put the meat in a lettuce leaf, roll it up, etc. OMFG IT WAS SO GOOD. And his parents were really, really lovely. ADORABLE. And our coach (who had to leave half-way through the last day, so she missed out on champagne!) is also Korean, so she didn't even pretend to make a show when the parents paid for everything. (Particularly given our lame stipend the school gives us, I was very thankful!) And the restaurant was filled to the brim and I didn't see a single white person. I SHALL go back!!
Ok, this was my break and now I have to go desperately prep for a motion to suppress. :/
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