Pirates and Transsexuals

I'm sure you never thought the above had much in common (actually, I'm pretty sure you never thought of them both at the same time before), but I saw both today at the theater when I went to go see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Both were ugly and kind of scary. At least the transsexual didn't yell, "Arrrrrr" in the theater as the movie was starting. Hmmm, ok moving on....

I went to the moot court finals last night and I am SO glad I did. I ended up going all 3 nights and think it was very helpful. I ended up with a couple pages of notes for myself for next year.

I found several things very interesting. First of all, in my opinion, the judges in the final round were the easiest ones of all! Not that they didn't question counsel and make them work for it, but they seemed more reasonable in how they asked and what they accepted. I think the judges for the semi-final rounds were the hardest and most relentless.

Next, in the earlier rounds, I found it easy to listen, and assess which of the 4 in each round had "won", or done the best job. But in the final, personally, I could not detect a clear cut winner. Obviously, I'm not an expert and don't know all the things to look for, but I thought all four of the finalists were superb. All four did an excellent job and should be proud of their accomplishments. I'm not sure I have it in me to do what they did.

Finally, I was surprised by how little students actually came to watch. Yes, there were some. But considering that about 50 of us will be taking moot court next summer, only a tiny fraction attended. I think a lot of people missed out on some valuable learning. Oh well, what can I say? I'm just glad I went. And congratulations to all the finalists!