Change of plans

About a month ago I received a summons for jury duty. Term of service is one day or one trial. Mind you, I've only had a Pennsylvania driver's license and registered voter for just barely over a year now. That's some interesting algorithms to get me "randomly" selected for jury duty so quickly after becoming a resident and voter.

Anyway, my summons date was for today. Notice that I am not actually at jury duty or I would not be posting this blog entry. I was "released" from duty for another year. There's this number you call the night before after 5pm and the system tells you if they still need you or not. So last night at 7:30pm my plans for the day changed and I'm at work instead of at jury duty downtown.

This method of calling in is much preferred to the method in my previous city of residence, where you show up no matter what to hang out in a room for up to three days. At 3pm each day you are told if you have to come back the next day of if you are free/released. Fun times. The benefit to sitting and waiting is that you get to read as you can't actually bring computers or cell phones in with you to the court house jury selection waiting room. So for me, it's not really possible to do any work, only reading for pleasure. The downside is that you're sitting and waiting in a room with lots of people talking around you and multiple TVs playing various daytime shows (there's nothing good on at 11am...trust me) and you aren't allowed anything to block out all the ambient noise.

But I'm free from the torture of waiting for another year. Instead I'm sitting here at work editing and commenting on various documents and in the back of my mind contemplating the idea of applying for the Master of Liberal Arts degree with a concentration in Latin American Studies. And yes, I am quite possibly insane.