My jury service ended yesterday. The nature of the case was medical malpractice against two defendants. After being presented with day after day of evidence from all three attorneys, the jury had all pretty much made up our minds by the time we were to begin deliberations. I thought it would be insensitive to annonce the verdict after only thirty minutes, so we managed to talk about it for another hour. In the end, we found for the defendants and against the plaintiff. The judge invited the jury to stay and talk to the lawyers afterwards, because we might have questions, and because sometimes the lawyers would like feedback from us as to what was effective and what was not. Several of the jury grouped around the three lawyers — who were at least well-acquainted colleagues, if not friends — and started to ask them various questions. In the course of this, I learned that the plaintiff had sued another doctor over this incident in a different trial and had won, so I did not feel too badly about finding for the doctors.

Then, I just sort of wandered away. I didn’t really have any questions, nor did I have anything particularly insightful to say as to criticism of performance, so I floated away from the crowd and I stared out that twenty-second story window one more time before I descended to ground level, hopped on the subway, and raced back toward my life of relative drabness — relative to the giant crowds and giant buildings and giant money of downtown Chicago, at any rate. I was to return to my job and resume performing my assigned occupational duties. But the experience reawakened in me a desire to do something more. That is why I want to take the GRE. That is why I have been tearing my hair out looking at the academic programs and application procedures of design schools all over the United States. That is not why I have been playing a lot of SimCity in the past few days, but not everything has a tidy explanation.

I believe it is safe to say that now, more than ever, I am standing squarely at the crossroads of life. Or, at the very least, I am sitting on the couch of indecision.