~ the human emotion, anger ~

Something funny happened earlier this week, and by "funny" I mean the opposite. Actually, there were numerous funny things, but in this writing I would like to focus on one of them which I have not had the opportunity to relate to anyone yet because of my preoccupation with the other main funnyness.

Monday was the start of a very. long. week. I got up at the ridiculously early-for-me hour of 6:00 a.m. to work on my two research papers that are due this week. I say! Two research papers due in the same week is awesome! Then I went to work, where I remained for ten entire whole hours without taking a break. Then I went directly to the university where I sat in class for another three hours. Because of something that happened at the very end of this class, I ended up staying up very very late working on my blasted research paper, couldn't sleep, and got up at 4:00 the next morning to continue working on it.

But that is beside the point. What I would like to focus on was the funny thing that happened during the class. Now, keep in mind that I am not what you would call a "fan" of this class or of the professor due to the incredible boring factor. I dread Mondays because of this class. Okay, so after the clock struck the time of six o'clock, the professor called the class to order and announced that the structure of the class would be just a tad different than normal. He then informed us that we would be holding a mock trial and that each of us had ten minutes to prepare ourselves. In this trial, there was a set of attorneys, judges, constitutional law experts, and the media. The attorneys were to give an impromptu speech about a case using what we've learned in the class and then answer the judges' questions. The constitutional law experts and the media had to comment on the attorneys' analysis. It was the attorneys who had to do the most speaking with no preparation or notice, had to then answer everyone's questions, and were put on the spot for the entire class. What you might find interesting is that this is not a constitutional law class or a class that has anything to do with the law...so it was 'funny' that we were required to participate in this impromtu mock trial.

At any rate, the professor selected me to be one of the attorney's to stand up in front of the class and give this spontaneous speech relating a case study to everything that we've gone over in the class. The professor had encouraged the judges, law experts, and media to try to be particularly ruthless in their questioning of us four attorneys. Due to my overachieving, I was able to perform quite well (and several members of the class have subsequently approached me to tell me what a good job I did) but the impromptu-ness of the task and the lack of preparation made me feel quite uneasy and nervous. I felt very badly for one of the other attorneys who is much more shy than myself and she did not do well because of her nervousness.

I felt that it was exceedingly unfair of the professor to place us into those positions, but it was only one demonstration of his unreasonableness. Anyway, I have spent this week getting no sleep, working overtime at the job, and trying to rewrite my research paper for the class which is due tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. I have felt extremely overwhelmed, stressed, and screwed. The end.

Posted by jennifer at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)