Compliment or Unflattering Comment?

Today I had to do my first oral presentation in law school. It wasn’t a very big assignment; in fact I had forgotten about it until last night. Today I was preparing for it every spare moment I had. Finally 3:15 came around: my Global Lawyering class had begun. Following the syllabus for class, the professor gave some instructions regarding our last assignment then we were split up into groups and each group was assigned a “mediator.” The oral presentation that we had to do was a mock mediation opening statement, and the mediators were mostly second year law students.

One lucky group was assigned with the professor as their mediator. Sure enough, I was assigned to that group. I had prepared all day, but upon seeing that I was going to have to present in front of Professor Franz I immediately forgot everything I had prepared. To top it off my group was one of the smallest, and included our section’s resident genius, Therese Vradenburg. The best way to describe Therese is that she’s the real-life equivalent of Hermione Granger without being a show-off know-it-all.

Of course Therese volunteers to go first. About 5 minutes into her presentation (a presentation that was only supposed to be 3-5 minutes long) I got that pit-in-the-stomach feeling telling me that I was totally unprepared. Another few minutes later I realized that Therese was being so thorough in her opening statement that even if I did manage to remember all of what I had prepared I was still going to sound like an idiot.

When she finished, Professor Franz gave her some feedback. Mostly she was just complimenting Therese on how well she did, but let’s call it “feedback.” Next Professor Franz looked expectantly at the three remaining presenters in our group. Thank you Kevin Quade for volunteering to go after Therese. I didn’t listen to a word Kevin said. I was too busy reviewing my notes and practicing my speech in my head. It was a good thing too, because I was next.

As I type this I’m realizing that I didn’t mention a key piece of information to the story: everyone had typed their opening statements. They were reading them verbatim, and that was their presentation. That was what was expected.

So now I’m up. I haven’t typed a speech. I typed notes. I went ahead and tried my best. I was actually doing a really good job too until mid-speech Professor Franz informed me that I had made a couple of mistakes. Then my mind again turned off completely. Perfect time to play the handicap card (which probably only works in school). I said, “I’m sorry, I’m just doing this from memory and I lost my train of thought.”

It worked perfectly. I got a breather and everyone in my small group was impressed with my oral presentation skills. My teacher even said, “Wow, I had no idea you were going from memory.” Nice.

After class I thought a lot about what Professor Franz said to me. “Wow, I had no idea you were going from memory.” I thought it was a compliment, then I realized she may have meant that I was speaking in monotone and in fact very boring. Perhaps I’ll never know. Statements like that often have a couple of meanings and it can be difficult determining which one to apply. I usually go with the complimentary meaning.

Another example of this comes from my mission. My companion and I had met a family late one evening. We entered their dimly lit home and taught them a quick lesson. Later in the week we returned. One of the family members looks at me and says, “It was so dark last time you were here. I thought you were Latino! You speak Spanish very well. I thought you were one of those Latinos who talks to gringos so much that they start speaking Spanish like one of them.”

True to form I immediately took it as a compliment. Then I told one of my gringo missionary friends about my experience and how I was complimented. You know what he said! He said, “Wow, that sucks.” Balderdash! I prefer my misguided faux-complementary view on life.

Sunday

Not to be elitist or anything, but Mozart is wonderful wake-up music. I left my laptop open last night and set an alarm on it to wake me up to 100 Best Mozart. (Luckily my laptop recognized that it was daylight savings time.) It was very nice to drift into consciousness with Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, K. 339: Laudate Dominum playing in the background. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll try a little Violin Concerto No. 1 In A Minor, BWV 1041: I. (Allegro Moderato) by Bach. Not to be elitist or anything...

So, being Sunday I feel like I should say something about the Church. When my Mom was here last weekend she and I took turns sharing a Book of Mormon scripture for something that our Stake at home is doing called Book of Mormon Moments. I was told that a general authority came to the Stake and said that if you do that as a family every night then he promised that your wayward children would come back into Church activity. I didn’t really understand the background behind it, but it sounds like a neat idea.

So tonight for my Book of Mormon moment I’ll share one of my favorites, Moroni 10: 27. “And I exhort you to remember these things; for the time speedily cometh that ye shall know that I lie not, for ye shall see see me at the bar of God; and the Lord God will say unto you: Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man, like as one crying from the dead, yea, even as one speaking out of the dust?” I’ve always marveled at Moroni’s testimony. He was faithful through periods in his life that must have been heart-wrenching. This is a good example of that testimony. You can tell that his faith became a knowledge of the truth by the way that he wrote. I’m a fan.

My neighborhood is notorious for being a dangerous part of Sacramento. Whenever I tell a Sacramentonian that I live in Oak Park they are a little taken aback, finding it hard to picture my white-Mormon self living in the ghetto. There’s a park across the street from my apartment complex. When I moved in and started the semester my law school told us not to go in the park at all. Ever since then I’ve been curious as to how dangerous that park really is; not curious enough to walk through it, but curious nonetheless. I think it’s probably not too dangerous, but my friends disagree. But riddle me this: if the park is so dangerous, why did I see a family party with an inflatable bouncy castle there? I still think it’s not that dangerous.

Saturday

Today started off great, I finished the last of the Sherlock Holmes stories. This morning when I woke up the sun was shining and the birds were chirping. I decided to open my sliding glass door and read in the sunshine for a little while. I read the last two mysteries in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's collected set. I was even able to solve one of the mysteries before Mr. Holmes did. Not just a few pages before the great detective either, I knew what was going on as soon as Doyle described the victim’s death. My mom would be so proud! Holmes would be so embarrassed!

Then it was off to get my hair cut so that I am presentable when Stefani gets here. I’m really excited for her to come to California. We’ll finally get to meet in person. Oddly, I’m hardly nervous about her coming at all. Perhaps that’s because we’ve spent so much time talking via Skype. Maybe it’s because we just naturally seem to get along quite well. Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that I’m super-stoked for her to get here.

Speaking of Stefani’s upcoming trip, I need to get to planning exactly what we’re going to do. Her sister may be in San Francisco for the first few days she’s here. I’ll have to find out more about that tomorrow on our Skype date. I want to do some of the touristy things here and in Baghdad by the Bay. If we have time, it would be fun to spend a couple days in The City that Knows How. I love nicknames for cities. Sacramento is River City (right here in River City - I wonder if The Music Man took place in Sacramento) (nope, that took place in River City, Iowa... I just looked it up), Sac, Sacto, Sac-Town, City of Trees, and The Capitol City. I love it.

Well after I got my ears lowered, and stopped at the grocery store it was off to the library. I’m working on a GLS (Global Lawyering Skills) paper involving the fictional Elphaba Fallows and her plight to preserve the historical site, Vinkus Farms, from the noisy nuisance of The Flying Monkey restaurant/tavern owned by The Wicked Witch. If that sounds like a bunch of bologna... it is. Our creative professor made up this hypothetical situation after finishing the book Wicked, and now we are left to figure out what legal remedies we can offer Mrs. Fallows. Fortunately the mythical jurisdiction of Oz follows all of California’s substantive law.

Well, I think that’s enough for today. I had never stayed in the library until they kicked me out, until tonight. All they did was turn off the lights; it was kind of anticlimactic. I then came home, ate leftover pizza, and composed this masterpiece. What will tomorrow bring? I can’t wait!

Is blogging for me?

It is currently 12:55 AM and what better time to decide to start a blog? I'm excited to see how this goes. I'd like to keep a not-too-personal blog journal so that my friends and family can see what I'm up to. It sounds like it might be a good idea, so let's see how this goes.