Well, I'd like to help, but not as much as I'd like not to

I never thought I'd be grateful it was Monday, but today I am grateful it is Monday. It has been a ridiculously long weekend, but that's what I get for being on the moot court board.

This weekend was the ABA Negotiations Competition. It was held at Albany Law School this year, and Erin and I were the ones in charge of organizing and running the damn thing. Well, Erin was in charge. I just helped.

Anyway, hosting a competition involves all kinds of headaches. There's the obvious stuff: scheduling rooms, sending the information to the teams, finding a hotel for them to stay at (they make their own reservations, but we had to call the hotel and tell them we needed like 50 rooms or something. I don't remember the exact number, but it was a lot, so they gave us a discount. Or, they gave the teams a discount, rather. Anyway). We also had to find judges for the competition, which is one of the bigger pains in the ass. Not only did we have to find 35 attorneys/judges/arbitrators to come judge for us, but you inevitably have someone drop out at the last minute. We actually did pretty well. No one dropped out at the last minute, but two of our judges did fail to show up. We had enough to cover, though so all was well. And really, only two judge issues? Not too bad.

Anyway, so there was much involved in preparation. We've been getting ready all semester, but last week was particularly busy. We were at the school stuffing envelopes and getting team packets ready on Wednesday, and then we spent all night Friday getting all the last minute stuff done. Erin, and I (and a few of the Moot Court board members) got to the school at 7:15 Saturday morning to get everything set up. And then we were there until 8:30 that night. It was a long damn day. And I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to wear high heels. NEVER AGAIN! My back still hurts.

Sunday was our final round. We got there at 7:30 to get it all set up, and then we were done by 12:30. We got to watch the final round (I was actually the time keeper) which was kind of fun. Afterwards, Erin and I did the clean up and organized the massive amount of paperwork we had. I honestly feel like we should plant a small forest to make up for all the trees we killed for our competition... I actually got home at 4 PM yesterday, which wasn't bad at all. There was another competition going on which Erin and I were planning on staying and helping with, but Dana and Chris (Chair of the competition and Executive director of MC) were nice enough to let us go home. So we did.

Anyway, the competition went smoothly. We had a few issues, but they were solved quickly and mostly without incident. It was kind of fun to get to meet students from other schools. AND one of our teams actually won the competition!! Woot! Go Albany Law! That means they get to go to New Orleans in the Spring for the national competition. We were very proud. :)

Anyway, so it was a long weekend. I now know what it feels like to run a moot court competition and do not feel the desire to do it again. I still have to help with the other competitions, but that's not so bad. I'm glad our competition is over and done, and I'm very glad it's Monday.