Two-Thirds Triathlon, One-Third Merde*

Shit.

My coworker has forwarded me an email about the Nations Triathlon, my second triathlon.  The race organizers and city officials have decided to cancel the swimming portion of the race due to flooding.  I had been so excited to compete in a triathlon again, and now I couldn't.  I began to seriously consider skipping the race and staying home instead of making the trip to DC.

The problem, though, is that the race is scheduled for September 11th.  Ground Zero is a block away from my apartment, and the last place I want to be for the 10th anniversary of the event is anywhere near where I live. The media is reporting that there have been threats from terrorists, and all of the streets surrounding my apartment would be closed for the majority of the weekend.  I want to leave.

Faced with two mediocre choices, I decide to stick to the original plan and head to Washington DC to compete in the Nation's Triathlon, or as I told my coworkers, the Nation's Duathlon.  I tell my friends that I might not compete once I arrive in DC.  My spirits are pretty low, and I'm feeling sad (which is a little bit silly I guess.  There are better things to get sad about).  The thing is, I have spent my entire summer waking up at 5:30 AM to train, and I have made a lot of sacrifices to be ready for this event.  Some days I would even make the long trek to 145th street in Harlem to swim at the crack of dawn.  Swimming is my strength, and I believe its absence will make me completely noncompetitive with the rest of the field (and I'm a competitive person). 

Early September 10th, Erik and I head to the Path Train to take us to New Jersey.  We are  picking up the rental car in Jersey City.

Shit.

I forgot my bike cleats.  If I don't have them, I can't compete (This isn't such a bad thing).  However, if I do decide to compete, it's going to cost me a lot of money to buy another pair. It takes me an hour to return to my apartment. I weave through the exponentially growing 9/11 crowd to retrieve them.  It is pretty clear that my ambivalence about racing has translated in to a lack of preparedness for the trip.

 I end up not eating all day because of the traveling.  I realize half way through the drive that I'd better go to the race registration rather than the hotel because I probably won't be able to register in time otherwise.  By six o'clock that evening, I'm registered for the event and checked into the hotel, and completely exhausted. I can't find the energy to go place my bike in the transition area, so I take a nap instead.  I wake up thirty minutes later and rack my bike just before the transition area begins to close for the evening.

That night, Erik and I go out to eat with my friend Christine.  Thinking of my race, Christine suggests we eat Italian food for carbo-loading purposes. I'm ready to eat just about anything, and am not thinking too much about how I will fuel my body, so I agree and ask that we go as soon as possible.  I get back to the hotel at 10:00 PM. Unlike my first triathlon, I'm not nervous, I'm just exhausted, and I am able to fall asleep immediately.

5:45 AM, the alarm goes off.  I put on my tri-suit and get ready to go. 

Shit.

I don't have any food.  I forgot to bring energy bars and sports drinks with me.  I have to be in and out of the transition area and ready to race within the next hour.  The transition area is a half an hour walk away.  Washington DC is a big city though, and I should be able to find somewhere to buy food on the way.

But we don't.  The city is silent.  We discover that nothing is open early on Sunday mornings in DC, or at least not this Sunday morning.  I'm spoiled by New York City.  Everything is open all the time.  Once we realize our dilemma, Erik sets off in a different direction in search of food, and I rush to the race start.  By the time I arrive, I only have 10 minutes to set up my stuff and get out of the transition area.  This proves to be very difficult--5000 athletes are walking in the opposite direction of me, out of the transition area and into their starting corrals. I'm filled with anxiety.  Maybe I should have stayed in New York after all.

By 7:00 AM I'm out of the transition area, and the race has started.  My age group is not starting until after 8:00 AM, so I hope that Erik will arrive with food, and will be able to hold my phone so I don't have to carry it while he competes.  He calls me and reports that he has had no luck, and has walked nearly three miles. I'm starving.

Around 7:20 AM I notice that a food cart has opened and is selling danishes, muffins and coffee.  Luckily, I had stuffed some extra cash in my spi belt and so I buy a humongous muffin and a coffee.  This is NOT the ideal pre-race meal, but I'm out of options. I call Erik to let him know that I have found food.  He begins to rush back.

I wait, and wait, and wait for Erik to arrive. At 7:45 he calls to tell me he is at the starting line, and wants to know where I am.

Shit.

The roads have been blocked off, and he can't get around to where I'm waiting.  Still with a muffin for him and my phone, I begin to worry that I'll miss the competition all together.  I can't compete carrying this stuff.

Somehow, Erik finds a way to get to me by 8:00. I hand him my phone and the muffin and he hurries away. Up until this point, competing is the last thing on my mind.  For the next five minutes I can finally focus on the race.  My race wave is started, and all of the other woman sprint ahead of me to their bikes.  I wonder why they are going so fast.  Maybe it's just because I feel sluggish from my muffin. I run at a slow jog through

Shit.

The ground is so wet and muddy that most people have difficulty getting their bikes out of the transition area.  I have to run carrying my bike over my head through tons of mud before I can get to the road.

What happens next is totally unexpected: I absolutely kill the biking portion of the race, becoming one of the top cyclists in my age group (and for women in general, for that matter).  After that, I run a 10k in 49 minutes (the equivalent of running 6.2 miles at an 8 minute pace).  I'm completely confused with my time at the end of the race, but also euphoric.  I can't stop smiling.  I wait in line to receive my splits, and I discover that I have improved my time by 18 minutes in the biking portion, and by 6 minutes in the running portion.  I think to myself:

Shit.

 I have what it takes to be a triathlete, and not just a one sport athlete, after all.  Time to get serious.

*Pardon my French

My First Triathlon

Before I begin, I must first apologize to my readers for never completing my mock trial series.  To make a long story short, the WIHS mock trial team advanced to the fifth round of competition and lost.  This earned them the status of top 16  in New York City.  This was a pretty fascinating story filled with all sorts of drama.  I'm sorry I didn't finish the series. Maybe I will later this summer.
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About 40 minutes into the biking portion of my first triathlon ever, I was passed by an overweight middle-aged lady on a not-so-great bike.  She passed me pretty quickly, too, and I was trying really, really hard to go fast. I was passed by a lot of people the entire time I was riding.

At the beginning of the biking leg of the triathlon, I thought I had over-exerted myself earlier swimming through the Potomac. I'm a good swimmer and had been told by several people that I didn't need to train for it, so I didn't.  I thought that maybe that was my mistake, and the cause for my exhaustion on the bike.

Competitors started the race in waves of eight people.  Eight people would jump in the water, and 10 seconds later, another eight people would jump in.  Even though female competitors did not begin swimming until after all of the men had started, I ended up finishing the swimming leg surrounded by men.  So in the beginning of the biking section, I was only being passed by a lot of men, which I didn't think was particularly surprising.  But then I started getting passed by a lot of women, too, and my confidence in my athletic ability took a beating. When this woman in particular passed me, I decided to stop and check to see if I had a flat tire.

I didn't. Relieved but still perplexed, I tried spinning my wheels.  The front wheel barely moved.  I then realized that for the past 15 kilometers I had been riding with my breaks pinched against my front tire. I had my bike"repaired" the night before by a bike mechanic, and I thought my my ride was in good shape.  Frustrated at my novice mistake of not checking my breaks before the start of the race, I quickly fixed them and hopped back on my bike. To the relief of my legs and my sanity, I started passing people (including that lady).

I finished the biking section and started the running section with very sore legs.  Despite my setback, I finished the race and didn't do too badly-- I came in 9th out of 70 women competing in the event for the first time, and I was only 10 minutes away from the first place "newbie." My total time for the 1.5k (1mile) swim --40k (26mile) bike-10k(6 mile) run was 2 hours and 52 minutes.

The physical stress of the biking mishap, however, was no where near as stressful as the logistical preparation for the triathlon.  I was a basket-case the day before the race, stressing over the minutia of my equipment, the transition area, and making sure everything was set up correctly so that I could easily switch between events.

Preparing for a triathlon is an organizational feat.   Triathletes must get together all of the equipment they'll need to compete in three different sports, and then figuring out a way to get all of it to wherever they're going. This is especially difficult if you're an urbanite without a car.

Competitors vary in the equipment they'll use for the event.  I am more of a minimalist.  I used a swim cap, reflective swim goggles, a "triathlon suit" (an outfit that you can swim, bike and run in), biking cleats, a bike computer, my bike, socks, a helmet, sunglasses, a 'chest strap' (a strap that goes around your body to make it easier to put on your racing number after the swim), and my running shoes. I also had a lot of Clif bars and Powerade with me.  On top of that, was given a lot of numbers to put in various places-- one for my helmet, one for my bike, one for my gear bag, one on my swim cap, and one I had to put on between swimming and biking. I also had to have my racing number written on both arms and above both of my knees, and my age written on the back of my right calf.  I had to wear an anklet with a timing chip and a wrist band that signified I was a competitor in the race.  So much stuff!  Some racers had even more equipment: wetsuits for swimming, zip laces to save seconds on tying their shoe laces, areobars for their bicycles---the list goes on and on.

That's me! (in the black)

As you might gather from my list above, not only is this a logistical headache, it's also a very expensive endeavor to be involved in a triathlon.  I had no idea how much money I would end up spending in order to compete when I signed up for the race in January.  I thought I would be all set after dropping nearly $800 to a "decent" bike and $190 on a registration fee.  What I didn't realize is that I would have to buy so many more things than that (like special pedals for my bike, special biking shoes, and everything else listed above), along with a gym membership so I could swim (which I didn't use much), a car rental for the weekend, and a night in a hotel.  I can also safely say even though I spent a lot of money, I did things on the cheap compared to many triathletes.  Most competitors were sporting bikes in the $2000 range, and some were upwards of $6000.  I was astounded by how many people  had so many expensive pieces of equipment.  There is definitely a huge barrier to access in this type of competition-- it is not for the unemployed or underpaid.  It turns out that the money spent on equipment has very little to do with how fast someone finishes, though.  It doesn't matter how expensive your gear is if you're out of shape.  It was funny to watch the professional triathletes speed away on bikes less expensive than the ones used by men with beer bellies.

The money I spent to participate is what motivated me to still compete even after I injured my foot 12 days prior to the race.  Against nearly everyone's (and the doctor's) advice, I figured that I had put too much into it financially to back out. The good news is that my foot was fine, and if I won't need to pay the 'start-up' costs for my next triathlon.

When I crossed the finish line in front of the Capitol building in Washington DC, there was no doubt in my mind that everything was worth it.  I have competed in hundreds of athletic events in my life, and I have never had so much fun, and I felt so happy.  The finish line was crowded withe friends and family members celebrating everyone's achievement.  I cannot wait to compete in another triathlon.

The Kiddos

This is the sixth post in a series about the Washington Irving High School Mock Trial team.  Please click for posts one, two, three, four, and five.

There were eight students who performed this case: Sobeida, Alexis, Geannie, Breanna, Anothonia, Jennifer, Sasha and Robbie.  Kimberly was our backup student--she was on the team last year, but recently started a new job and was no longer able to attend practices.  She ended up saving the team from elimination in pretty extreme situation later in the competition...

Sobeida is the only senior on the team, and she played a lawyer on both the plaintiff and defense side.  She is truly a remarkable girl.  She moved to the United States only five years ago and did not speak a word of English when she arrived. Five years later, she is graduating as the Valedictorian of her class.  She recently received the Gates Scholarship, and is planning on attending Northwestern University in the Fall (unless she gets into Harvard off of their waitlist).  Sobeida has the ability to spin witnesses into a confused mess when she cross examines them.  Her thick Dominican accent put other teams at ease; Their surprised looks were always entertaining when she calmly and brilliantly explained away objections thrown in her direction.  For such a new speaker of English, her command of the language is unreal.

The rest of the team is made up of sophomores.  Alexis, a petite, studious, driven and well spoken young woman.  It is clear that she strives to be excellent in everything she takes on.  She also has earned several nicknames throughout her two years on the mock trial team because of her constantly varying hairstyles.  On the Plaintiff side, she played the role of Chris Crangle.  On the defense side, Alexis played a lawyer, and delivered the opening statement for the case.

Breanna played an attorney on both plaintiff and defense sides. Everything Breanna says when she is performing has gravitas.  Her lines are always delivered like a seasoned pastor.  She speaks naturally, but deliberately and could easily walk into any public speaking situation and hypnotize her audience by her presence.  Her demeanor during practice was a different story, though.  Her habit of speaking to herself when she trying to remember her next question caused a lot of breakout of giggling among both the coaches and students.

Geannie aka "Jenny from the block" is the team's newest player. Geannie came to the team this year with a no nonsense at-ti-tude.  In fact, the girl had so much attitude that the judge in the first round of the competition accused of badgering the witnesses during her cross examinations.  The coaches seriously considered getting her a neck brace to stop her from cocking her head from side to side when she spoke.  Geannie played the role of an attorney on the Plaintiff side, and Alex Allen's role on the defense side. 

Robbie, the only male on the team, played the role of Pat Parker on the plaintiff's side.  Like Sobeida, Robbie is extremely good at thinking on his feet.  He was consistently able to deflect the most difficult questions from crossing attorneys.  

Sasha played the role of Cameron Curtis on the plaintiff's side.  Sasha's long curly hair and big smile match  her personality.  She is a deeply loyal friend to her teammates, and is always interested in what is going on in everyone else's life.

Anthonia and Jennifer-- I will explain these two together because they are two peas in a pod.  They are absolute best friends, always together, and both play witnesses on the defense side.  Anthonia played the role of Ryan Ryder, and Jennifer played the role of IM Feddup.  They are both the quietest players on the team, but they are reliable.  They have made a lot of progress since their freshman years.

This is the little team we had, held strongly together by their friendships with one another. With these eight players, Washington Irving High School prepared to get ready for the first round of competition against Essex Street Academy throughout January. . .

The Case

This is Part 5 in a series about the Washington Irving High School Mock Trial Team.  Please click for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

This year's case was about a parking ban.  On the morning of March 15^th 2010, the seniors at Excelsior High School drove to school and found “No Parking” signs posted on the four streets surrounding the school.  The students had purchased permits to park on those streets, and so they had no where to park that morning.

Chaos ensued.  Students were late to school, angry parents made phone calls, and students who decided to park despite the signs received parking tickets. 

 Alex Allen, the Mayor of Empireville, and the town’s Board of Trustees had imposed the ban at the Village Board meeting only a few days earlier.  The local newspaper reported the change, but most students did not read the paper, and did not know that they would be unable to park.   

Pat Parker, the school’s valedictorian, mock trial team captain and newspaper editor, believes that his Constitutional right to due process was violated with the enactment of the parking ban.  He had a property interest in the parking permit that he purchased, and due process was not followed in removing his right to that property interest.  Pat Parker is the plaintiff in this case. 

It is unclear whether Mayor Allen imposed the ban for political reasons or for safety reasons.  On one hand, there were several reasons that the parked cars around the high school could cause an unsafe environment.  The cars made snow removal difficult, and their weight had put pressure on the pipes underneath the streets for years and could have burst at anytime.  Further, students loitering around the cars and acting recklessly caused neighbors to become concerned for their own safety.

Testifying to the defense’s behalf was Mayor Allen, Ryan Ryder, the commissioner of Public Works, and I.M. Feddup, an Empireville citizen.  Ryder testifies about his experience with the infrastructural problems of Empireville and the eroding streets around the high school.  I.M. Feddup has lived across the street from school since the time it was built, and she is ‘feddup’ with the students parking on her street.  The parking has caused her property value to decline, and has made it unsafe for her grandkids to play outside when they visit.

Then again, the parking ban might have been enacted for political purposes.  A few months before the ban was imposed, Mayor Allen proposed a Capital Improvement Project that targeted the high school.  The project involved hiring school resources officers and replacing the pipes underneath the streets surrounding the high school.  Mayor Allen believed that the school district should have to pay for a substantial portion of both of these initiatives.  In Allen's opinion, it was the students that caused the problems and the schools should be responsible for paying for these initiatives.  He did not consult the school district about this proposal.

The Superintendent of the Excelsior Central School district, Chris Crangle, found out about the plan in the newspaper and was furious.  He wrote a very strongly worded Letter to the Editor in response accusing Mayor Allen of coming “perilously close to extortion” for his demanding that the school district pay for these new initiatives.  The school district had a very tight budget, and the students were not half as bad as the Mayor had painted them in his remarks.  

 In response, Mayor Allen invited Superintendent Crangle to a lunch meeting to discuss these issues.  This meeting ended poorly, and at the next Board of Trustees meeting the parking ban was enacted. The meeting minutes reported that Ryan Ryder stated that the ordinance to ban parking was needed to put pressure on the school district and the superintendent.  Additionally, Pat Parker reported that Mayor Allen told him the parking ban was enacted to get back at Superintendent Crangle.

Testifying on the plaintiff’s side is Pat Parker, Superintendent Crangle and Village Board of Trustee member Cameron Curtis.  Cameron Curtis was the only trustee who voted against the parking ban.  She is also the only trustee who is not part of Mayor Allen’s political party. She made several objections to the parking ban during the meeting but was outvoted by the rest of the trustees despite her complaints.

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As the reader has probably surmised, this case is not that exciting.  City kids don't identify easily with issues surrounding student parking. Still, the Washington Irving Mock Trial team became obsessed with the fact pattern of this case over the months of preparation, and learned how to spin each side of the story to their advantage in competition. 

To read the full case, click here:  http://www.nysba.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PublicResources/LawYouthCitizenshipProgram/MockTrialTournament/2011CASEFINALVERSION11811.pdf

Plans? What Plans?

This is part four in a series about the WIHS Mock Trial team. Please click here for part 1, part 2, and part 3. 

So it turns out that our plans went out the window pretty rapidly, as usual, this year. 

Throughout the preseason, students slowly started dropping off the team, one by one.  Absenteeism meant that we had to repeat lessons many times and our neatly laid out plans were soon left in shambles.  By the start of 2010, we were back down to our minimum of eight students once again with one backup player who couldn’t attend practices because she recently started a new a job.  We had barely covered the material we wanted to cover.

 Although the team of eight was committed and determined, it was rare that the entire team was ever at practice together at the same time.  Train delays, family obligations, sicknesses, and a host of other problems prevented the the team from having a practice where the all the players were in attendance until a few days before the first competition. Often times, students would not call to say they weren't coming to practice, which infuriated all the coaches. I had to constantly remind myself that even with all their real world experience and problems, the students are children.  They are still learning what it means to be responsible. 

The dwindling numbers and absenteeism sparked many conversations among the coaches about disbanding the team.  We all had a lot on our plates, and we were unsure if the time would be worth it.  We didn’t want another season of logging hundreds of combined hours to the program without seeing the students progress past round two. 

It wasn't just the students though--the coaches also had a lot of problems getting to the practices.  The demands of being an attorney at a top law firm are substantial.  It requires long and unpredictable hours.  This hindered all of the coaches’ abilities to come to practice on time (or at all).  Personally, I also had a lot of trouble attending all of the practices. I was in the middle of making arrangements for my dad to move out of a nursing home and back into the community, so I had to do a lot of running back and forth between New York City and Hartford.  Every Wednesday and Friday emails circulated between the coaches to piece together our schedules and to make sure at least one adult would be in the room at all times. 

 In this way, the students and coaches are similar.  Both groups have chaotic and unpredictable lives.  As much both sides would hate to admit it, I think this dynamic created some understanding between both sides about demands on time and the priority that Mock Trial plays in a student and coach’s life.  It was a huge priority, but many things took precedence over practice.

Still, most students on the team had at least a year of experience to help them through the season.  This experience would prove to be invaluable to them in first few months of 2011.

Recruiting

This is part 3 in a series about the WIHS Mock Trial Team. Please click for Part 1 and Part 2

Of course, all of our planning at the beginning of the season would be for naught without a team.  Therefore, the coaches also spend time recruiting students to participate in Mock Trial.  Some coaches go to WIHS and speak to classes about the club. I speak to teachers about recruiting their most dedicated students. I also set up a table for Mock Trial at the afterschool activities fair.  We encourage returning students to recruit their friends.  We try to think of every avenue possible to get more students involved.

According to the rules of the New York State Bar Association, there needs to be at least eight students to field a team.  Ideally, a team should have twelve to fifteen players.  There are a total of twelve parts that can be played: there are three lawyers and three witnesses on both the plaintiff and defense side ((3+3)*2=12).  If there are twelve players on a team, each person has only one role to play.  Any additional students serve as backup players.  On a competition day, six students are needed to play--only one side performs at a time.

We were all relieved when fifteen students showed up the first day of practice.  We have trouble retaining students from season to season, and there is usually a large dropout rate throughout the course of the season.  Last year, we had a student drop off the team only days before the first round of competition (via Facebook message, no less), reducing our number to seven.  We scrambled to find a warm body to fill his role so that the months of practice would not go to waste for the rest of the team.  The coaches ended up practicing with the new student the entire weekend before the competition, staying with her until almost midnight on a Sunday night to prepare her.  We did not want any repeats of that this season. The fifteen faces in the room made everyone optimistic. 

Students are not the only people we need to run a mock trial program, though.  We always need coaches, and they are not easy to find.  With every year attorneys stay at the firm, they are saddled with more work and have less time for volunteering.  I have seen this happen time and time again with my volunteers.  People volunteer a lot during their first year, and less during their second and third years.  I rarely have anyone beyond a fourth year turn up for my programs. 

This year, we got lucky.  We got a new coach.  Yana and Manoj were on their way home from Cleary one night and discussing Mock Trial during their car ride.  The students had just completed a homework assignment. Yana wanted to talk about it, Manoj didn’t.  This was pretty typical of interactions between Yana and Manoj.  Luckily for them, they were sharing the car with a first year associate named Leza.  When Leza heard Yana and Manoj talking about Mock Trial, she mentioned that she had participated in mock trial in high school.  Attacking her from both sides, Yana and Manoj pitched the nearly impossible sell of volunteering for Mock Trial to Leza.  By the end of the car ride, Leza was the newest coach of the Mock Trial team. 

Leza certainly didn’t know what she was getting into when she agreed to be a coach.  If she did, she would not have agreed to take on the responsibility.  Luckily for us, she did, and I’m fairly certain she is happy about that decision now.   It’s nearly impossible for me to sell mock trial to my volunteers.  Telling most attorneys at Cleary that they’ll have to commit to volunteering about 10-15 hours a week and they’ll run as fast as they can in the other direction. The attorneys at Cleary already have a ridiculous amount of work on their plates.  Mock Trial is by far the largest time commitment a volunteer can take on in any of the programs that I run at Cleary.  But—once you’re hooked, it’s hard to back out of the commitment.  The coaches of the Mock Trial team become attached to the students.  It turns out to be an extremely rewarding experience, but at a high cost.

With all of this in order, the coaches were optimistic about the year.  We had our students, we had our coaches, and we had a plan.  It was just a matter of holding it all together—and maybe we could actually do it this time.

Our Best Laid Plans

This is the second post in a series about the Washington Irving High School Mock Trial team. Please click here to see the first post.

Each season begins with the coaches.  Before students return to school, the coaches begin to plan the mock trial season.

When the coaches meet for the first time, they first discuss the need to recruit more coaches.  Then they discuss the need to recruit more students. The program would not be able to exist without people, after all.  More on this later.

There are several Mock Trial coaches:  Yana and Manoj are both third year associates, and both started coaching the team together when they started at Cleary.  Shiwon is a fifth year associate who also started coaching when he first joined Cleary.  Leza is a first year associate.  I also coach the team. I am the only non-lawyer, and have coached for four years.

Before the coaches meet with students for the first time, we discuss what we will do differently to improve upon the year before. At this meeting, we write out a list of topics we feel are necessary to teach the students, and determine the dates we will teach each topic.  The coaches then make lesson plans for each of these topics.  The lessons we planned to teach this year were the rules of evidence, objections (and responses to objections), opening and closing statements, and direct and cross examinations.  We also chose a practice case for the students to prepare for during the preseason.

Once we have our game plan, we start meeting with the students.  Our preseason starts in the beginning of November.  This is when the coaches start to teach the planned lessons, and this is when the students start preparing for their practice trial. Practices are held every Wednesday and Friday from 3:00 to 6:00 PM during the preseason.

Our regular season begins each December after Manoj and I visit the New York State Bar Association to receive the new case. This is always a highly anticipated moment, and especially so this year.  Last year’s case on securities fraud elicited several rounds of angry emails between the coaches, and generated general frustration throughout the year.

Shiwon: "Can you believe they have to learn about pyramid schemes?"

Manoj: "Not just pyramid schemes, they have to learn about trade derivatives.'

Yana: "Why can't we just have a plain old murder case?"

To our relief, this year's case was about a parking ban (Click here to see the NYSBA case). While it would require the students to learn about civics and Constitutional Law (something we would struggle with throughout the season), we were relieved that we would not need to teach them the intricacies of the financial meltdown of 2008, precipitated by Bernie Madoff (or “Bernie Madlock” in the Mock Trial case).  We also thought the subject matter would be a bit dry and irrelevant to city kids. Our students don’t drive—they take the subway.

Once we receive the new case, the preseason ends, and we start preparing the team for the competition.  In January, February and March, the team meets each Saturday from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM, in addition to the two other practices each week.

Historically, the WIHS season ends in early March after the second round of competition.  As you've likely surmised, our season did not end in March this year.

Click Here for Part 3

The Little Team that Could

This is the first post in a series about the Washington Irving High School Mock Trial Team

"I don't think you understand.  We goin' to Albany."

Geannie must have said this one hundred times over the past four months.  She is one of the newest members of the Washington Irving High School Mock Trial team, and was full of idealism and hope throughout the 2010 Mock Trial season.

Washington Irving High School is an overcrowded and persistently failing school with a chronic attendance problem located near Union Square in Manhattan. Over the past five years the graduation rate averaged out to around 36%, and the majority of students qualify for free lunch.  Each day, students must walk through metal detectors before heading to their classes for the day.  Currently, the school is on the Department of Education's list to be either closed or "radically changed" because of its dismal performance record.  Of the students who graduate, most will go on to the City University system, whose schools do not have a great graduation rate either. To put it plainly--the cards are stacked against the students who attend WIHS.

Still, there are glimmers of hope. There is a new and enthusiastic principal at the school, and there are several businesses and individuals in the surrounding community that are invested Washington Irving's success.  Cleary Gottlieb has been one of those entities since 1991.  In recent years, a small handful of students have been accepted into elite universities across the country and have started to inspire their younger classmates.  In 2010, the graduation rate jumped to 55%.  In the last two years, the school has received a C on its progress report after years of receiving Fs.  Still, even on the "C" report cards, the section that evaluates student performance is still an F.  Less than 2.7% of high schools city-wide received the same score on their student performance criteria.

Every year, lawyer coaches at Cleary Gottlieb have spent countless hours preparing the WIHS Mock Trial team.  The team competes in a city-wide competition sponsored by the New York State Bar Association.  There are eight rounds of competition throughout the five boroughs of New York City.  Private, parochial and public schools all compete in the tournament.  Every school competes in the first two rounds.  The top 17-64 schools from those rounds will compete in the third round.  The top 16 schools go directly to round four.

After the first two rounds, the tournament becomes a single elimination competition--if you lose, you're out.  The winner of the city-wide tournament travels to Albany to compete at the statewide competition. Despite several years of late hours and constant coaching by Cleary attorneys, Irving's team never made it past the second round of the competition.  They usually lost one round, and won a round, and didn't have enough combined points to push them into the third round.  Until this year.

Click Here to go to Part 2

Twitterspeak

"'You haven't a real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston,' he said almost sadly.  'Even when you write it you're still thinking in Oldspeak.  I've read some of those pieces that you write in the Times occasionally. They're good enough, but they're translations.  In your heart you would prefer to stick to Oldspeak with all its vagueness and its useless shades of meaning.  You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of words.  Did you know that Newspeak is the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year?....Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?...Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meanings rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten...The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.'"
-Syme to Winston in Gorege Orwell's 1984.

"Brevity is the soul of wit"
-Lord Polonius in Shakespeare's Hamlet

"THANKS!!!!! N Y MY NAM HAD 2 B NEAR LAST MAURYA LML" (Translation: "Thanks! And why (did) my name had (have) to be near last Maurya? Laughing Mad Loud." )
-A student, my facebook wall.

The Economy of Language

Since I started using Twitter, I've become more connected to the world around me by following several major news organizations and individuals who tweet commentary about current events.  However, Twitter and other more modern forms of communication impose an economy of language on users such that each word becomes a good in the marketplace of ideas and complex issues are said in catch phrases that don't always explain full meanings. When I speak about the economy of language, I don't mean to limit my argument to just Twitter. I also mean the language used in text messaging, and to some extent Facebook.  I will refer to this new form of language as "Twitterspeak," because Twitter currently imposes the most strict character limit of these forms of communication.

My ambivalence towards these forms of communication comes from the economy of language they impose and what that means for human communication, particularly for young people still learning how to effectively communicate in a written format.

Brevity is the soul of wit, but the enemy of thoughtfulness.

Some argue that forcing a writer to be more succinct produces better writing. Paul Krugman of the New York Times recently wrote this blog post on the subject.  He believes length constraints force him to be more concise and make each word more meaningful. Every paper returned to me in my first philosophy class said "Eliminate Needless Words" boldly in red on each page.  Over time, I learned the importance of being clear in my writing.  I am supposed to carefully select words to maximize meaning and precision.  Like an economy, I am striving to reach the appropriate intersection of cost and benefit.  I have fallen out of practice a bit since college, but I know it is always something to aspire to when writing.  Twitter, in the extreme, forces me to do this.
  
I believe in the immense networking power and the free exchange of ideas that is facilitated by Twitter and Facebook.  Recently it became clear that these mediums are so powerful that they are able to catalyze revolutions.  However, it remains unclear whether or not they will be effective in helping citizens form a plan of governance.  It's easy to write "Overthrow Mubarak" in under 140 characters, but it's much more difficult to exchange ideas on the formation of government in the same length. When Speaker Boehner tweets something like "House passed bill 2 keep govt running, cut spending; if Sen. Reid won't pass it, we'll pass shorter one 2 keep govt running, cut spending" there is very little complexity in the expression.  Twitterspeak is similar to politicians arguing in sound bites and catch phrases.  No one can give an in-depth reflection on fixing the economy in sixty seconds.  One might argue that tweets can contain links for further information, or that a compilation of tweets can give an idea about a trend that is occurring, but a tweet in itself rarely can convey a complex thought. 

Code Switching  and Neuropathways

Just because these modes of communication are short does not not make them inherently bad. Not everything that needs to be said needs to be complex.  The problem arises when people use these short statements as their primary mode of communication.

 My students use Facebook, Twitter, and text obsessively.  They write messages that make some sense in  Twitterspeak.  However, when they need to produce a piece of writing with fully formed sentences and thoughts, they are often unable to do so. In this case, the argument that being more concise produces better writing fails because it presupposes that the user knows how to use the English language properly in the first place.  Instead of writing "eliminate needless words," I find myself commenting "spell out complete words" on the tops of their essays.

Perhaps I am not being fair. I am making a value judgment on the importance of stringing a coherent sentence together. Maybe these values are elitist and antiquated, and maybe we are moving to a new form of communication.  Who am I to say that one form of communication is better than another?  Languages have shifted before, and they are bound to do so again.  

In graduate school, I learned that successful students are able to "code switch"--they have the ability to switch back in forth between one dialect or language to another when it is appropriate to do so.  For example, I can code switch between writing "hahaha's" and "LOLs" and ":)" in instant messenger, and more formal language when it is appropriate, such as in an academic paper or formal letter.  Students who are growing up in the generation behind me have been exposed to "Twitterspeak" at a much earlier age, so my norm and their norms of communication are different. If a student lacks experience or knowledge of more formal writing, he will be unable to code switch.  When I am reading a student's essay, I do not think I should be reading "LOL"s in place of "This is funny," "ur" in place of "your" or "you're," "IDK" in place of "I don't know" or "n" in place of the word "and."  Unfortunately, students that are growing up in an Internet generation without a lot of exposure to formal writing might understand "Twitterspeak" as the correct form because that is what they are used to reading. 

These mediums of communication are constantly reinforced.  Students instant message, text, and tweet more than they use the phone.  They no longer pen love letters, or even email that much for that matter.  Instead, they send an @tweet and cram as much into 140 characters as possible.  As John Stuart Mill said "The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used." Moreover, the teachings of modern neuroscience help explain what I read in student essays.  With each repetition of Twitterspeak, the child's ability to Twitterspeak grows and improves.  Sadly, my students don't get nearly enough "reps" at writing actual sentences.  These behaviors all build mental pathways.  The longer form writing pathways are generally shoddy.  


The danger of this is that the absence of well executed expression leads to an absence of in-depth and analytical thought (see Orwell's quote and article linked below).  We should only teach our students how to be concise after they have learned to be long winded.  The problem, then, does not lie with Twitter, Facebook, or texting as modes of communication, but with parenting and education. 

It is possible to teach a student to read and write well, even in a society that has begun to function in an economy of words.  Teachers and parents are doing it everyday, and there are plenty of students who can code-switch between "Twitterspeak" and formal English.  This use of language is only a current manifestation of an age old problem, after all.  There have been several critiques on the use of colloquial languages throughout history.  I, for one, will not be giving up Twitter, or my Twitterspeak, but I will be making a more concerted effort to teach students how to write, and therefore think, clearly.

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"A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers."


-George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Puzzles are In

Fabiola, a student I have been working with for the last four years and pictured in the background of this blog, has given me a gift each holiday season.  Last March she and her Model UN teammates discovered my coffee addiciton when we visited San Francisco for the UC Berkeley MUN conference.  I needed my coffee before I could function each day. The students quickly learned to love to tease me about this. Accordingly, Fabiola gave me a coffee mug this winter.

It wasn't just a mug, though.  It was a mug and jigsaw puzzle set.  The picture on the mug was a guide to the puzzle that was to be created.  I had never been into jigsaw puzzles, but given the weather, I decided to start working on the puzzle one afternoon between Christmas and New Years.  Within a  a day or two, the snowman that appeared on my coffee mug became the center piece of my dining room table.

Fast forward one month: I'm hooked on jigsaw puzzles.  Since then, with the help of friends, I have completed a Charles Fazzino "pop art" puzzle of New York City, and am now working on a M.C. Escher Print.  Maybe this makes me lame.  In fact, when my brother observed the puzzling taking place, he gently reminded me that I once had a "cool and exciting" life.  I blame the weather, though.  I have thought a lot about jigsaw puzzles in the last month, and I've decided that they are an excellent form of entertainment on days that the weather is terrible.  In fact, I would argue that they are even better than board games:

This is the puzzle that me, Erik, Amy, Drew, Becky and Megan completed around the holidays

Six Reasons Jigsaw Puzzles are better than Board Games 

1) Jigsaw puzzles are great to do with friends. Unlike board games, they are not competitive.  This keeps ego battles out of the way.  Nothing ruins a party more than a sore loser or a cocky winner.

2) Anyone can join or leave in at any time when puzzling.  During boardgames, there is always a clear start and finish, so it makes it hard for people to join easily. 

3)  There is no "number of players" requirement for jigsaw puzzles.  One person can work on it, or 10 people can work on it.

4) For multi-taskers, puzzling can be done simultaneously with other activities. I spent the last three mornings puzzling while watching the Al Jazeera English coverage on my computer.

5) When you've finished a jigsaw puzzle, you can hang it.  Or , if you're like me, you can use them to decorate tables. As an added bonus,-puzzles are less expensive than most art prints.

6) Your ability to hang puzzles and display them makes them a very tangible reward upon their completion.  You can't display your latest Monopoly or Scrabble win.  The physical manifestation of your accomplishment will remind you of the fun you had with friends while you were doing it.

This is the puzzle Erik and I are currently working on.

Puzzle Paraphernalia

There are several "puzzle paraphernalia" items you can use to do this. The first tool you can use is puzzle glue.  Make sure to use a lot of newspaper under the puzzle.  This glue reportedly works very well, and makes pieces stick together firmly.  I bought this glue a couple of days ago at Borders ($7) and am looking forward to using it on the puzzles I've completed.

The second thing you might want to use if you start puzzling is a roll up puzzle mat.  As I mentioned, puzzles are the type of thing you can leave and come back to.  If you live in a small apartment, it might be useful to be able to put your puzzle away once you're done working on it for the day.  These role up puzzle mats allow you to role up your progress (even with loose pieces!) and unroll it again when you're ready to start working again.

Now--go buy a puzzle! You won't regret it.

It's Really Snowy

Me, in Zuccotti Park.

I'm a planner.   I schedule meetings, I use workflowy.com, and I have lists hanging up all around my desk.  I have been writing myself schedules since I was in elementary school, and every year my favorite item to purchase at the beginning of the school year was my new planner.  It's just the way I function.

That's why this January in New York City is starting to drive me a up a wall.  I can deal with a few days of snow.  However, the horrendous weather over the last four weeks has seriously delayed several projects at work and in my personal life (including my triathlon training and helping my dad move into an apartment).   Last night's storm broke a new record: we are now living in the snowiest month in New York City's recorded history.

The weather is a reminder that despite our very best efforts to plan for the present and the future, sometimes Mother Nature, fate, Karma, God, etc. has something else in store for us.  So I've given up-- Winter, you win.

And as they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, so I'm going to do my best to enjoy the snow.  For your viewing benefit I've taken a few shots of wintery Downtown NYC.

View from across the Westside Highway into Battery Park City

Battery Park City walkway

Battery Park City

Battery Park City

Promenade and view of Statue of Liberty

Promenade

Battery Park City

Snowman next to the Westside Highway

Trinity Church and Church Street

Trinity Chruch

Alexander Hamilton's Grave

Trinity Church

Wall Street Subway Stop

Trinity Church

View of Southwest of the island

Ground Zero in the Snow

Fish out of water got back in, finally

Me and Bob, my coach from age 6-18 on WWRX :) 

For the readers out there that don't already know this, swimming is my specialty when it comes to athletics.  That's part of the reason I'm excited to do this triathlon--I know that I will do well in at least a third of the race.

There is one slight problem though: until last night, I haven't swam a lap in a pool for over a year and a half. In the last five or six years, I've swam an average of once per year.

The good news is that swimming is a sport that is all about technique. My  coach throughout my childhood, Bob, drilled technique into me.  I saw Bob more than I saw my father during the years I swam.  Swimming technique is second nature to me. It is second nature to anyone who was coached by Bob. Forgetting it would be like forgetting how to ride a bike.  Even if I were to go another ten years without swimming, I know that I could hop into a pool during adult lap swim in Anywhere, USA and probably be the  fastest  person there, and not because I am in particularly good shape.

The bad news is that this is far from being the case when I practice with a competitive team.  It's impossible to go from "not swimming at all" to "fast" without putting some work in.  This became clear to me when I went to a Master's Team (Agua at Asphalt Green on the UES) practice a couple of years ago.  While I was able to complete the workout with everyone, I was immovably exhausted by the end.  I didn't go back again.

So, for this triathlon, I'm confident in my ability to become fast again and finish in the top portion of swimmers.    But I won't be very competitive unless I start practicing.

To remedy this, I headed to Stuyvesant High School around 7:00 PM yesterday.  The high school is about 15 minutes from my apartment.  I was excited to see the pool-- Stuyvesant has a reputation for being one of the best public schools in the country.  Frank McCourt taught there. Four of its graduates have won Nobel Prizes. I thought the pool would be as impressive as the its reputation.

But it wasn't. The pool was a standard high school pool, and it looked like any other high school pool I had swam in before (except for maybe the one at Greenwich High).  The locker room was a rusty and dirty, the pool was a poorly lit, and the water was a little too warm.  For me--this is a good thing. The pool made me feel right at home.  It felt like a place that people came to work hard. For me, fancy pools are places I went to compete at the ends of seasons and get best times.  These pools (like Stuyvesant's) are training pools.

My workout started with a warm-up of a 400 yd swim, a 200 yd kick, and another 200 yd. swim.  The main workout was: 900 yd swim, 1 min rest, 600 yd pull (no legs), 1 min rest, 400 yd swim, 200 yd kick, 3x100 IMs, and 6x50yd backstroke.  It ended with a 200 yd cool down.  Total yards = 3900. The workout took me about an hour and 15 mins.

My times were abysmally slow.  I'm really sore and exhausted today.  I know that I'll be able to do a 1500 meter swim, but unless I start swimming on a regular basis, I won't be at the top of the pack in June.  So, I am going to join Stuyvesant's Community Center and start swimming there on a regular basis, hopefully two to four times a week.

Triathlon Newbie

Over the weekend, I received an email from my friend Liz asking me if I would be interested in doing a triathlon with her this May or June.

I almost always say yes to any type of athletic challenge, so I almost immediately said yes and started getting excited about the process. Liz signed up for two triathlons--one in Memphis, TN in May and one in Washington, DC in June.  I signed up for the one in DC, and am still considering doing the one in Memphis as well.

 First, a little bit about Liz:  I know Liz from doing Teach for America in Philadelphia.  Like me, she is a former college athlete. She is originally from Alabama and went to the University of Georgia for undergrad.  She is currently getting her PhD in Education and Economics from the Teacher's College at Columbia University (smarty pants).

I give you all of this information for a reason: It is no coincidence that people who thrive in difficult circumstances often make the best athletes.  Both Teach for America and being a PhD student qualify as "difficult circumstances" in my book, so I'm pretty confident in her ability to train seriously and to be a great partner in the process.

This will be the first time that I do a triathlon on my own.  It will require me to do a 1500 meter swim, a 40 kilometer bike ride, and a 10 kilometer run.  I will have to train for all three sports and I have to buy the equipment for all three sports. This will be both  time intensive and expensive.

For me, the biking portion will be in the wild card in the mix.  I swam competitively for fifteen years and I have run a number of road races in my life.  I don't know a lot about what kind of gear to wear in open water swims, or how to transition between the three different events, but I know I'll be able to handle it.

Biking is a totally different story.  I don't own a bike.  I know how to ride a bike, and I've even been on long bike trips before. However, I know nothing about racing on a bike.  In fact, recent history has made me a little terrified of bikes.

Last May, a distracted-by-his-iPod biker ran me down from behind while I ran down the Westside Highway.  The accident resulted in a trip to the emergency room, whiplash, some head trauma, and black and blue all over my face and body.

When I visited Bicycle Habitat in SoHo on Monday afternoon to test out a few bikes, riding off the sidewalk made me uncomfortable.  I was so terrified of the traffic, someone hitting me, or worse--me hitting someone else.  It is scary to get on a piece of equipment that you don't know how to control very well.

There is some hope for me though.  I rode a bike when I was home in Manchester this October.  Although I think I hid my tension from Aunt Ruth and Erik, my white knuckles gripped too tightly the entire restless ride, and felt a little emotionally exhausted by the end of it.  This happened in a town where traffic isn't terribly bad, though, and where I'm confident in my ability to navigate the roads.  New York City is a totally different ballgame.  Still, my October bike ride gives me some hope.

This triathlon is one way to help me get over my cyclophobia.  I hope to get a bike by early next week. I'm going to need an extra dose of courage to start training on it, especially when I have to ride on the Westside Highway.  I am hoping that I can get over this fairly quickly, otherwise I might have a pretty difficult time with preparing for this triathlon.

You look like you need a slice of Crack Pie

(This is the fourth post about places I visited in NYC over the Holiday Break).

It's about time that I give a shout out to my brother in this series of posts.  My brother, Tristan, visited me in New York City for a few days between Christmas and New Years.  On his last night in New York City, we decided to hit up the East Village.

Our first objective was to visit Burp Castle.  Burp Castle is a Belgian beer bar that is decorated with pictures of Trappist Monks getting drunk, and with bartenders that shush patrons when they are getting too loud.  Unfortunately for us, the train we were on went from running local to express mid-ride and we had to get off at Union Square instead of Astor Place.  I told him we could still walk to Burp Castle, but it was a cold night and Tristan's blood has thinned from living in Los Angeles.  After ten minutes of walking, his opinion on the situation was to find somewhere warm as quickly as possible.

While strolling down Second Avenue, I saw Momofuku Milk Bar and made a quick decision to go there instead. The dessert haven is attached to another incredible restaurant, Momofuku Saam Bar.  The Milk Bar offers a variety of desserts, including crack pie (toasted oat crust with something gooey in the middle)  and compost cookies (made with pretzels, potato chips, coffee, oats, butterscotch, and chocolate chips).  On top of that, they offer Stumptown coffee (for all of you coffee fans out there) and to-die-for pork belly buns from the Saam bar's menu.

Neither Tristan nor I were able to finish either of the decadent pie slices we purchased.  I got the Grasshopper pie (a mint-cheesecake and brownie affair) and Tristan got the peanutbuttery Candy Bar pie.  There's nothing like some great dessert to go along with brother-sister heart to hearts.  It was nice to finally get some one-on-one time with him without cameras or the rest of our family around. 

(Crack Pie)

 
After that, we headed to Dempsey's to wash it all down, then headed back to my apartment.  Unfortunately, Tristan and I both failed to set our alarms properly and Tristan nearly missed his flight the next morning.  Thank goodness for my mom, she called around 7:15 to make sure Tristan had arrived at the airport safely (his flight was at 8:30 AM).  In a scramble, Tristan left and headed West.  With any lucky, he'll be back soon for more of NYC's many treats.

mmmm Cheeeeese

(This is the third post in a series about places I went in NYC over the Holiday Break).

I have always been a big fan of cheese.  I blame my father for this.  He took me on a wine-tour-bicycling trip of Burgundy region of the France when I was twelve years old, and I was sold.  I was the only child on the trip (my dad was overly confident in my athletic abilities even then), and at that point in my life I still thought wine was gross.  So, upon arriving at vineyards and wine shops, I would wander to the village cheese cart and get myself something. The cheese in France is phenomenal. There are no laws in France requiring milk products to be pasteurized.  This allows the cheese to retain its flavor because its bacteria is not killed off like it is in the United States.  In general, when food is processed to have a longer shelf life, flavor is lost. But I digress...

Since then, I've always liked cheese a lot and I shy away from processed slices, and am always excited to find something new to try.  Other than Whole Foods, I hadn't been anywhere in New York City that sold great cheese. This all changed when I went to my co-worker and friend Yana's birthday party a few months ago.  She ordered a few platters from Murray's Cheese Shop on Bleecker Street (very smart move on her part), which threw me into a fit of ecstasy for the evening.  The platter had  great prosciutto as well.  I think I ate enough of it to make my stuffed pig feel threatened.

Of course, from this point forward I felt strongly compelled to visit this cheese shop. I mentioned the cheese to Jon after the party, and he told me that the shop not only sold great cheese, but he often visited Murray's for their cheese sandwiches as well.  So, I coaxed Amy and Erik (ok, so maybe "coax" is not the right word here. They were totally into the idea too...) into visiting the shop on Sunday afternoon for sandwiches. 

Erik got a "Murray's Cheese" sandwich, Amy had the same with an egg on top, and I had the same as Amy with prosciutto on top of the egg.  It was pretty messy, but heavenly.  Each ingredient in the sandwich was top-notch, and the combination made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.  I cannot wait to go back and try another sandwich.  The shop itself is neat--in the front of the shop there is a place to order sandwiches to-go, and in the back there is an immense selection of cheese and meats.  They have a 'taste anything' policy, so customers can test out what they're getting before they purchase.  The staff is friendly, and the prices are not ridiculous.  They also offer cheese tasting classes (if anyone wants to get me a gift, this would be a good one.)

Suggestions: If you are walking around the West Village and want a sandwich, or if you're hosting a party and want to make it classy (and want your guests to REALLY enjoy themselves), go to Murray's. 

Visit http://www.murrayscheese.com to see their stellar selection.