You need to think on your feet, shed your hesitations and speak with conviction. I joined the team because I liked to write, which, as it turned out, was a significant part of mock trial. However, writing also gave me desirable safety away from on-the-spot mistakes, which is why mock trial was so challenging for me. I could no longer hide behind the page, which had previously given me all the time in the world to write ambiguous sentences and call it a day. Mock trial was fast-paced and unforgiving, requiring that I understand logic while equipping myself with an unfailingly assertive demeanor and ability to articulate.
Love languages BY ALENA TRAN
At first, I thoroughly enjoyed drafting while absolutely hating the performance. Speak up! Vary your tone! Pause here for effect! It was a cold slap of reality to understand my writing, which I had long considered “good,” was not enough. However, that cold slap was exactly what I needed to send me into the inertia of improvement.
When I was younger, I was sure that my mom loved me. If not, why would she be the first person running to help me after I fell off of the swing? Why would she be the first one with a barf bag after I threw up from eating too many cherries if she didn’t actually love me?
So, I got better. I learned to speak up, vary my tone and pause here and pause there for effect. Everyone has something they’re good at, but it doesn’t end there. Mock trial taught me that it means a lot less to be superb in mediocrity than struggling in something to be better. Mock trial didn’t fix every single one of my flaws — nothing can — and mock trial didn’t just push me to get better at mock trial itself. It built my everyday confidence and dexterity — not over-thinking before speaking up in class, taking the lead in group settings, barefaced approaches to experiences unknown and uncertain.
But, as I grew older, I began making friends who I saw at birthday parties or getting dropped off at school, and I heard something consistent from their parents each time — a simple 3 word, 8 letter phrase that my mom never said to me. I began to step back and grow distant from her, wondering if there was something wrong with me. Was I not lovable enough? Did my mom feel some sort of obligation to take care of me because she was the one who birthed me?
Mock trial taught me about what it takes and feels like to truly improve myself. Most of it is uncomfortable, embarrassing and filled with sour self-doubt, but the process — even barring the final product — is rewarding in itself. I found a family in my mock trial team, and that, alone, proved invaluable.
This continued plaguing my thoughts until I began preparing for the ISEE, an exam that each Bostonian sixth and eighth-grade student takes to determine if they meet the requirements to attend one of three prestigious schools in the Boston Public School district: the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science, Boston Latin Academy, or Boston Latin School. The summer before I took the exam, I spent grueling hours studying and was too busy to care about whether or not I was loved. Even when I went on vacation with my family to New York, my backpack held only math textbooks and stacks upon stacks of vocab cards. I practically ingrained the “lo-fi hip hop radio” girl animation that studied alongside me the whole season into my mind. Of course, I took plenty of breaks, which were supposed to be 5 or 10 minutes long, but somehow turned into an hour of YouTube.
I only had one year with my team, as I had to move this past year. Although I did join the team at my new school, I’ve also been able to join my old team over Zoom (where we all are anyway). They’ve given me a sense of belonging in a time where that can be scarce. They are the people who pushed themselves with me, and who I push myself for. ♦
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Mock trial taught me about what it takes and feels like to truly improve myself. Most of it is uncomfortable, embarrassing, and filled with sour selfdoubt, but the process — even barring the final product — is rewarding in itself.
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54 | WRITING THROUGH THE DISTANCE
I received my results for the exam later than everybody else in my school. All of my friends had reassured me that this meant that I must’ve gotten into Boston Latin School. I was supposed to have nothing to worry about: I was consistently at the top of my grade and I spent all (well, some)