The two most feared words in the english language... JURY DUTY

There must be five hundred seats in here. Five hundred seats half filled with sleepy-eyed, mumbling people. People that were picked this morning to serve their civic duty and drive into the city at the crack of dawn to wait. Wait to be told to go home or wait to get picked to be a juror.

This is my first time having jury duty. First time to serve, fourth time to get summoned. I've avoided such a thing in the past with full-time student status. I'm not as annoyed as some might be. I am thinking of this as an adventure.

The adventure began this morning at 5:15am when I heard a horrible screeching noise. I slammed my radio until it went off and then I fell back asleep only to be awakened moments later by my phone alarm going off. My brain waged a war with the rest of my body, thinking "15 more minutes isn't going to make you more rested... just get up now before you spend the next hour hitting snooze" (like I do every other morning). By 6:15am I was ready to go, only to hear my dad just getting up and getting in the shower (its not fair that men only need a few minutes to get ready in the morning and I take an hour). We left the house right at 6:30am and headed toward the city.

My dad is SUPER awesome for driving me to jury duty this morning! He deserves a metal. Especially because I got us a bit lost. Apparently the exits are not the same coming in from different directions. Oops. After a few wrong turns and a few crossed lanes, we made it to our exit and finally to the building I was to be in for the rest of the day. Dad dropped me off and there I was in the big city all alone... 45 minutes early... slightly intimidated. I walked over to a hole-in-the-wall diner and ordered breakfast and then headed inside to check-in.

Then, panic! They took my camera! I forgot I had it in my bag and when I went through security, they put it in a bag and wrote my phone number on it. You can have a camera phone or a computer with a camera in it but if you have just a plain old camera, they have to take it away... nice.

So here I am , sitting in the Jury Assembly room about to watch a fascinating movie about why this is so important. I have to say, the people watching is pretty interesting. I'll keep you updated on whats going on.