HSP's Got Talent

Once again, I'm back to my basic morning routine of wake up, get dressed, study, and head to class. 

The topics of today were the rights of the accused, as well as the constitutionality of the death penalty. Jeffery went over related cases as usual, such as Gideon v. Wainwright, Furman v. Georgia, Payne v. Tennessee, and Miranda v. Arizona. You actually may be more familiar with the holdings of these cases than you think. For example, I'm sure that we've heard a police officer recite this monologue at least once before; "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you, and that you have the right to an attorney and that if you cannot afford one, one will provide one for you." These rights are referred to as the "Miranda Rights", and it was the case Miranda v. Arizona that decided that in order to insure due process of the law,  all guilty parties must be made aware of their rights upon arrest. 

My lunch, just like my morning, followed my basic routine of eating lunch with my usual group and then studying in my dorm room. 

The afternoon class, was of course taught by Luke. The first half of class was spent taking our final quiz--which I'm proud to say that I aced! During the later half, we played yet another game of Constituional Jeopardy. Today's game was really intense; by the end of the game, my team ended up losing in a three way time for last place. The "underdogs", on the other hand, ended up winning by 4,000 points--they literally ended up going from zero to hero in the last round!

After the game, Luke decided to let the class our early. I rested for a bit, and then left my room to meet with Mrs. L and the others. Today, our meeting mainly focused on what we wanted squeeze in before we leave on Friday, along with our plans for Saturday. 

Another important thing we talked about was time management. After hearing about all the all-dayers/nighters pulled last Sunday, as well as hearing about Morvarid's and Aurea's progress on their papers, Mrs. L thought it would be a good idea for us to have a moment of self-reflection in order to help us get our priorities straight. I already know that I'm a procrastinator, and that I need to really work on that, but for some reason I always end up putting that off... In all seriousness, however, I'm going to make more of an effort to try to get my work done earlier and more efficiently, because if there's one thing I hate it's having to rush through an already stressful project just because I was feeling lazy earlier. 

いただきます! (Itadakimasu!)

After our meeting, the girls and I decided to change things up a bit. Instead of eating in John Jay's dining hall like we usually do, we decided to eat out at a nearby Japanese restaurant called Vine. The food there was really good--I had beef sukiyaki with a side of white rice. 

Since both Adrianne and Lenny had decided to enter the High School Program's talent show, I decided to in order to give them moral support. They both recited poetry, and while their styles are very different from one another I really enjoyed them both. All of the other acts were fantastic as well--RAs and students alike displayed their talents upon the stage. They had practically everything singers, guitarists, comedians--even professional a yo-yo trickster. However, my favorite performance by far was by the RAs who danced to Beyonce's Single Ladies. The lead girl was a great dance and followed the steps perfectly, but her two male back up dancers barely even knew what they were doing and it was hilarious. 

When the talent show was over, Adrianne and I decided to go visit Aurea in Butler Library in order to give her some "moral support" as well. Since I have yet to take U.S. History, I wasn't much help to Aurea in anyway other than proofreading her paper, but I'm sure that she appreciated the company at least!

Today turned out to be a lot more fun than I had expected, which is really great since I want to pack as much fun as I can into these last few days. As of know, there's less than two and a half days separating me and home--though I'm not sure of whether I'm happy or sad about this fact.