Well, I have officially finished my last Winter Session here at UD. It’s probably the last time I’ll have so much time off at once. I’ll be the first to admit that when I first decided to come to UD and saw that we had the whole month of January off, I was a bit dubious. While I’m sad it’s over, I think that I have used my Winter Sessions to the best of my abilities.
I was walking by Bayard-Sharp Hall the other day and was suddenly struck by an intense nostalgic longing. This has been the first year of my college career that I do not report to Bayard-Sharp every Monday and Wednesday to sing in University Singers, the all-women’s choral ensemble. It’s actually the first time since 4th grade that I haven’t participated in any choir. Singing is probably my favorite hobby and it has been really hard to let it go. But sometimes you have to let things go. Continue reading
This summer I took a dive into something I hadn’t done in a while: cheese making. A turophile (cheese lover) myself, I was anxious to get back to cheese making. Growing up, my dad always made mozzarella and cheddar. I liked the mozzarella better because it was immediate (cheddar has to be aged at least 6 months AKA too long for little me). But recently I’ve been seeing Ricotta Crostini on Instagram and Pinterest and I’ve been anxious to try it. It turns out making ricotta is almost as easy as mozzarella!
To make ricotta, you get a gallon of whole milk, mix in citric acid & salt, heat it to 195°, stir it until the curds and whey separate, ladle out the curds, and drain them in a cheese cloth. Considering how delicious the homemade ricotta was, it was a very simple process. It really is amazing to see how just a gallon of milk can transform so much. It’s such a weird process and it’s honestly a miracle cheese was ever invented. Legend has it that ancient merchants stored milk in animal stomachs while they traversed across the desert. The mixture of the rennet and the heat curdled the milk and made delicious cheese!
Mock Trial is probably one of my favorite activities that I participate in on campus. I talk about this all the time to my friends, assuming they know what I mean. Finally one of them told me that they have no idea what I’m talking about. When I talk about Mock Trial, most people just assume it’s like Suits/Law and Order/Legally Blonde/My Cousin Vinny/A Few Good Men/Judge Judy/pretty much any other legal TV drama or movie. I think what I’ve learned most from Mock Trial is that it’s nothing like any of these. Well, it’s a little bit like them. Movies and television aim to show the most exciting parts of a trial. The “Gotcha” moment. Shouting “I Object!!” when a witness says something damning. These moments are fun, and they do happen, but there is so much more to Mock Trial.
Here’s the breakdown. Every August, the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) releases a case that they have created. It includes an array of witnesses with statements, affidavits, and expert reports; from these you build your case. It also includes specific case law that AMTA makes up that apply to the case of the year. Finally, it comes with different exhibits. These are usually emails that witnesses have sent or diagrams of places where the crime occurred. Mock Trial teams from universities all over the country take all of this information and prepare for competitions. Every team has to prepare two sides: a plaintiff and a defense. During the fall semester we go to invitationals and pit our case that we lovingly built against other teams’. This is where you can see where the holes are in your case, as well as pick up on interesting angles that other teams use in their case.
Plaintiff/Prosecution goes first. They call three witnesses who they direct (they get to tell their side of the story), and then the opposing team does a cross examination of these same witnesses (to poke holes in the story they just told). Defense begins their case after a brief recess. They also get to direct three witnesses and have Plaintiff/Prosecution cross these witnesses. I think one of my favorite parts of Mock is that you walk into a room of complete strangers, and then for the next 2 hours or so you argue with them about made up crimes and people. It’s an amazing process and I’m always so impressed that everyone pulls it off.
At this point in the season we are preparing for the National Championship in Greenville, South Carolina. Nationals is a tournament where the top 48 teams in the country get to compete against each other with a whole new case. The competition is tough. We’re practicing 2+ hours a day. We spend hours going through each direct examination finding every possible place another team could object. We memorize obscure, made-up case law so that we can call out other teams on improper evidence. We meticulously style our witnesses so that we look like intelligent scientists, crazy bellhops, and definitely-innocent child-murderers. But it’s a labor of love.
UPDATE 4/19: There are roughly 650 Mock Trial programs that compete across the US. A select few make it to the Opening Round Championship Series (ORCS). Only 48 get out of ORCS and make it to Nationals. After much anticipation I am happy to announce that UD’s Mock Trial team finished 8th at the Furman University Bell Tower National Championship! This is a record for the club. In addition to our amazing finish, one of our attorneys, senior Ellie Wallace, won an All-American Award for Outstanding Attorney and had the 3rd highest score out of all the other attorneys competing.
It was a long weekend of scrimmages and competition, but in the end we surpassed our wildest expectations. It’s satisfying to know that all the work we put in this past month paid off. Now that the season is over, I know I will become very nostalgic for this club that is so dear to my heart. I’m so fortunate to have had such wonderful teammates with whom I could share the experience. Thank you for everything.
~Anne Grae Martin
Ever since coming to UD, I have wanted to participate in Quizzo. For those of you who don’t know, Quizzo is like group Jeopardy: you get a team and collectively answer trivia questions. The team who gets the most right wins a prize. It’s really not that hard to do, but for some reason I have never done it. Seeing as I have three semesters left here, I have made it my goal to do Quizzo before I graduate. But I do not just want to show up and answer questions and have fun with my friends. I want to win.
I told my roommates my goal for this semester and they all said they were on board. Thus begins our journey. We are all competitive people, so we have decided to begin our training now so that when we finally get to Quizzo, we will crush the competition. Our training includes watching Jeopardy every night while we’re eating dinner, doing timed basic knowledge trivia (for example: list all the states in under 6 minutes), and brushing up on other obscure facts. When we sell the movie rights for our Quizzo Quest, this scene will be a montage and it will be set to “Eye of the Tiger.” We are not messing around.
As of yet, we have not made it to a round of Quizzo. One thing leads to another and we just end up missing another week. For example, last week about half the team had UDAB meetings or Mock Trial meetings or Students for the Environment meetings. Even though we wanted to go do trivia, we had a loyalty to our clubs that overshadowed our Quest momentarily. Then another week we all went to SCPAB’s Betty Who concert in Mitchell Hall. It was so cool to see one of all of our favorite singers in such an intimate setting (another perk was seeing our fellow UDHP classmate, Marielle Kraft, performing as the opener to Betty Who). I hope that when we eventually make it to Quizzo we encounter a Slumdog Millionaire type of deal where all the questions are about Betty Who and the environment. This won’t actually happen, but in the movie version it will.
In our Quest to be Quizzo champs, we will not let life get in the way. In fact, by going out and getting involved on campus we are gaining more knowledge for our eventual Quizzo domination. And even if we aren’t the best team, at least we will have had fun getting there.
~Anne Grae
Never miss a post!
This form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
