Looking Forward...

Well, we did it! Congratulations to everyone--you've worked hard and come a long way!! I'm very pleased to have another two weeks to continue polishing and improving. Anyone feeling like seasoned competitors yet? ;-)

Laura, thanks again for a hilarious and slightly insane morning-of post...that was pretty awesome!

One more thing--I'm sorry to hog all the awards. I really am. Believe me, I would be very happy to have one of my co-counsels win the award over me!! So go for it, guys. :)

Happily,

Sarah


P.S. State assignments aren't out yet, but should be pretty soon. Pure fun-ness there!
And also, you should join Facebook and search for the "Olivia Davidson Washington Mock Trial Club" page that I just created!

Morning Report

Hello All!

Its early morning day of Regionals, and I have decided that 5:30 AM is a bad time to get up! I am drinking my chocolate milk, and very glad that I packed last night. At the moment, I am too tired to be nervous. We must be crazt to want to get up at this hour. At least it didn't freeze last night.
Okay, things left to do

• Banned from saying yeah, yep, sure, right or nope.
• Banned from going bac upstairs to lay in bed.
• Required to get into Suit.
• Required to take care of Clea and Brooks.

I'm trembling! Or is it shivering? Or am I still asleep?

I must go get ready, lest I be last at our rendezvous spot.

"...stricken from the record..."

The peculiar verbiage of courtroom procedure dictates the unusually frequent use of the verb "to strike".

Thank you for enduring that superlatively boring introductory sentence. To reward you, here's an interesting sentence: 22 3/4 years in prison.

(Sentence...sentence...get it? Equivocation? Yeah?)

As I was explaining, we say "stricken" (the past tense of "to strike") without difficulty about ten billion times in every trial. However, problems arise when the judge is both (a) able to speak (unlike Mike) and (b) not used to being the judge (also unlike Mike!). In these cases, the judge often utters unusual phrases like, "Yes, so...uh, stricked," or, avoiding the problem,"Aren't you satisfied? You won the objection, dude!" Of course, we all know the correct reply: "So strack!"

Similar quandaries arise when the judge attempts to avoid inventing bizarre tenses of "to strike" by forgetting about the motion to strike, and the attorney must remind him or her of it. Real mock (!) trial judges shudder to hear such unusual constructions as, "Your Honor, will you stricken the testimony from the record?" And the ever popular "Your Honor, is the testimony stricked?" Once again, the correct reminder is, "Your Honor, is the testimony strickened?"

Confusingly,
Sarah

P.S. I have been informed that this post is somewhat confusing, so I'll just submit for your consideration that people (but no one on this team) actually do say things like "So strack", and I was just humorously and lovingly pointing out that that's not exactly the right way to say it. :D

Regionals Assignments!!!

Go to here to view the page. 10 different teams in Scioto county this year.

Sylvania Southveiw had 3 teams, 2 advanced to regionals. Indian Hills had 4 teams, 4 teams advanced. Oak Hills had 4 teams, did not have any teams advance. (not surprising, really. Hamilton county had 46 teams listed! I am surprised all 4 of Indian Hills teams advanced.) Upper Arlington had 4 teams, 3 advanced. Archbishop Hoban had 5 teams, 2 advanced. There were so many Marylands listed under districts, I am not sure who are the ones to be worrying about.


Everyone should vote on the fallacies, I think were as far as we'll go :(

Laura

Awesome People!

Hey Team,

We did a great job. Sarah won Outstanding Attorney!
Jenny was the somewhat evil Dr. Brody! Lydia won
Outstanding Witness! James showed Federal
Hocking that we people who meet in a double wide
in the middle of a cow pasture know what we are
doing! Aleithia kept time and was an awesome
team member! Sarah won Outstanding Attorney,
again! Christian won Outstanding Witness! Aleithia
was a great bailiff! Simeon had the lint roller!
I ate pizza!!! I'll see you all at the party!!!

Laura

Oh, and we are advancing to Regionals.

YAY! Two more weeks of pressure building!!

Early Morning, Day of Districts

Good morning,

IS any one up yet? Well, I sure am. Like Sarah, I
prepared yesterday, collected my stuff and
dumped it in my bag, then collected myself and
and dumped me in bed. Not that I slept very well,
though. Now I am off to a cold pizza and chocolate
milk breakfast and get ready to go.

It's currently 6:30.
I am currently the only one awake at my house.
I just made a copy for presentation of our quotes.

I had better get ready,
Laura

OH MY GOODNESS! WE ARE GOING TO
COMPETITION TODAY!!!!

Drumroll...

It's finally here!! The night we've all been waiting for!!! The night before competition!!!! Are you excited now? :) As you can probably tell, I'm very excited. I just memorized my statements and rebuttal and gave them repeatedly to the mirror, which now knows more about Taylor Henlacks than it ever wanted to. And I entered in my final changes, printed out my final copies, checked my notebook three times, collected my legal pads from around the house, gathered up my pens and pencils, charged my iPod, found my water-bottle, implored God for help, downloaded all my documents to a flashdrive and uploaded them to Google Docs and shared them with both of my accounts in case I forgot anything...what else did I do? I'm sure I'm missing something...


So anyway, I'm pretty pumped about this trial thing. Bring it!!


By the numbers:
Fallacies: 4. I think we're done here. :(
Quotes: 130 (We're going to show them as a slideshow during the post-mock trial party!)
Days to competition: 1! One day! YEAAAAAAAH, WE MADE IT!!!!!!


Sorry. I'll try to contain myself.


Sincerely,
Sarah
(There, how was that?)

Groundhog Day, etc.

It's Groundhog Day! Punxsutawney Phil has--fortunately--predicted an early spring. (So did Buckeye Chuck!)


If you're feeling jumpy on Thursday night, come on out to MemAud in Athens and hear me play banjo with the OU Wind Ensemble! (Banjo. Wind ensemble. Uh-huh.) It'll be fun, and it's free, and you can still have time to fix up your notebook and pack up your stuff before going to bed early and getting up early and DOING A TRIAL on Friday. Oops, was my stress showing? ;)


So anyway, I've discovered that the defense will play Fed Hock in the morning and the plaintiff will play River Valley in the afternoon. Hopefully that'll be helpful in scheduling rides and inviting people and stuff like that.


One more thing:

Ahhhhh. I feel much better now. :)


--Sarah


Fallacies: 4 (Yay! Sort of.)
Quotes: 123
Days to competition: 2