I need an alarm clock!

Today I missed my Trig class completely. I woke up with a tap on my bunk from Tavo, the guy in the bunk next to me.

" Hey. It's 9:20, man. We missed class." Very matter-of-fact.

"I don't think they are going to call us out now," I said, "so I'm gonna go back to sleep."

"We won't get cases?"

"We shouldn't. They didn't even try to wake us up. I don't see how it could be our fault for missing class." I rolled over and drifted off.

This is the second day total that I've missed (two half-days last week) due to oversleeping. I can't afford to miss this much school in a college course, even if it is a review so far. I have a test Thursday that I felt good about, but now I'm not so sure. Hopefully, someone picked up a review/practice test for me.

Trig class + new dorm = challenges!

I missed half my Trigonometry class on Tuesday because of the move and today I missed another half of class due to sleep. I had asked the two guys who bunk on either side of me and have school at the same time to wake me up when classes are called out. My class started at 8:30 AM.

I woke up at 9:00, looked to my sides and saw both guys were gone. They left me behind. I asked Rabbit, who was awake and writing, if they had tried to waken me or if a guard called me for class. Nope. At this point I figured that class was canceled because the guards usually call out all the bunk numbers for whoever goes to class. I rolled over and drifted off again.

In about five minutes I was wakened by Rabbit and a guard at the door yelling for me to get up and out to class. I guess I did have class after all. I hurried to get dressed and out the door. I made it just before count started, which would have delayed me even further.

This new dorm is wreaking havoc on my sleep. I've only had four or five hours of sleep per day since arriving here, often waking up to loud banging on the walls. I think the noise drowned out the call for school this morning, which is not good. I can't afford to miss much class, even if I am comfortable in class. I hope we get moved back south soon.

On the move - again!

Terrible events have transpired today. The Q1 crew of shower workers was moved to a new dorm that is three times as big and ten times as loud. This is the dorm that we would hear beating on the wall and rapping from our old dorm, Q1.

I was called out of my trigonometry class for reasons unknown to me until I got to my dorm. Everyone inside was busy packing their stuff to move. We all were miffed by the move. We lost our small quiet dorm with better treatment from guards because we were small and quiet.

I tried to present our complaints to one of the lieutenants tonight at work. I made the point that most of us that were moved have classes, so we need a quiet environment for study and for our strange sleep schedules. Also, we have probably the worst job on the unit and are the only job without perks- laundry gets clothes, kitchen gets food, maintenance gets commissary runs for ice cream. The lieutenant said he tried to keep us all on the south wing where we had been but higher ups gave the thumbs down. There was nothing he could do from here.

When I got back to the new dorm I drafted a request to the major, asking him to consider moving us back to the south wing and gave him a few valid arguments - at least we, the shower crew, think they're valid. Then all the guys that moved copied the letter in their own words. I'm hoping that the mob of requests will be heard. This dorm is not a good fit. The new season of The Office reruns started tonight, but basketball games were watched instead. In our old dorm, this would havebeen an outrage, but here it's life as usual.

To see opportunities

I talked with Will during Brit Lit today about his plans for getting out. He doesn't have any place to stay, so I'll be praying for something to come his way and looking for ways to encourage and help him out.

Late tonight Opie and I talked about video games and our lives before incarceration. It was fun to reminisce about the fun we had and hear about our different backgrounds. At one point he said he is trying to improve himself inside. What an opening! I told him that the thing that has helped me most has been my faith and relationship with Christ. I said that I believe God has a plan for him and loves him.

I really want to see the guys around me succeed in here, but especially when they get out. I continue to look for opportunities to encourage them towards healthy and productive activities, knowing all the time that God is at work. I hope they come to see the world of opportunities like me (sounds conceited, I know) instead of a set of roadblocks not worth the bother.

Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper (excerpt)

What you love determines what you feel shame about.
If love for men to make much of you,
you will feel shame when they don't.
If you love for men to make much of Christ,
then you will feel shame when He is belittled on your account.

Whenever something is of tremendous value to you,
and you cherish its beauty or power or uniqueness,
you want to draw others' attention to it
and awaken in them the same joy.

That is what it means to magnify Christ -
to show the magnitude of His value

Lockdown

Well, rumors have been circulating for a few weeks and it happened today. All Texas prisons are required to have a lockdown and shakedown of the unit every six months. If the warden of this unit went the full six months between lockdowns, the date would disrupt the college classes so he bumped it up to our "spring break" instead.

Lockdown actually began last night, but there wasn't any way to tell until this morning when everyone received johnny sacks for breakfast. We were roused at about 8:00 and told to pack our stuff and be ready to take it down to the gym to be searched. I was one of the first ones to have their property searched and one of the last to return to the dorm. The guard wanted to check out every postcard and picture I had. The only things I had confiscated from me were cards drawn for Power Grid and a spinner that was used for die rolls in games.

This lockdown has been different than any other I've been through. For one, the guards really seem to be hurrying through it - except the one who searched my property. Also, the TV's have been allowed to stay on the whole time and the dayrooms have been open. Every other lockdown has had TV's off at least until the dorm has been shaken down, usually until the whole unit is finished. At least I got to catch The Office reruns I hadn't seen yet.

Rumor has it that this lockdown is only for three days, which means we will be back to normal on Friday night. The printed schedule we received says we will get visitation this weekend regardless. What a great end to a strange spring break.

The Joys of Shower Crew

Last night was a long one. We were not called out for work until after midnight because it took them (the guards) too long to clear their count of inmates for the unit. No one was missing; the guards were just moving slowly.

Once we finally got out to work, I was able to finish my assigned dorm in about fifteen minutes, less than my usual time. When I left the dorm to check in and go home, the boss for the night told me I needed to clean another dorm. Alright. I was ready to get back to my dorm, make some food, and maybe play a game of Power Grid if anyone else was in the mood. Not yet, though.

It took about an hour to clean the next dorm: scrub the showers, wipe them down, scrub and rinse the floor, wipe the sinks. Again, I left the dorm and checked in to go back to my dorm. Nope. There's another dorm that needs to be cleaned, but "you have to wait here until I finish this count."


At 2:30 count was cleared and I went to clean the third dorm of the night, a record for me. Luckily, I had help and we knocked it out quickly. Finally, I can go back to my dorm to clean up and eat. I hope they get some more workers for shower crew because all that scrubbing is gross and tiring. I wish they would let us go back to our old schedule of one wing per night instead of doing the entire unit. All this on my "spring break", too.

Don't Waste Your Life (excerpt)

"[C.S. Lewis] showed me that newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages. To this day I get most of my soul-food from centuries ago. I thank God for Lewis' compelling demonstration of the obvious.

He demonstrated for me and convinced me that rigorous, precise, penetrating logic is not opposed to deep, soul-stirring feeling and vivid, lively - even playful - imagination."

http://www.dontwasteyourlife.com/

I've taken a break from the Buddhist book for now. Though it has some cool stuff I've been using in my prayer life, there is a lot of strange stuff that can be tiring to wade through.

Now I'm reading Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper. It's about how a Christian should live life to the fullest sharing God's love and glory. I've felt kind of stale lately so this has been a good jolt in the right direction for me. Piper continually makes the point that we were created to bring glory to God and that as a Christian, I should be mindful of that in everything I do - work, school, spending, speaking, everything. His words aren't radically new to me, but they have been a great reminder to me of the life I want to lead. I want to bring glory to God by the way I cat in the dorm so that the guys around me "may, because of my deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation." (I Peter 2:12)

Exams but no spring break

My first set of exams for this term ended today. The first one, a Brit Lit exam over Beowulf and old English, was yesterday. I honestly believe the test I took in high school over the same material was harder, much harder. I don't remember doing any "matching" sections in the high school class, and the chronological ordering of the story that had to be sorted in high school was quotes from the text, not an outline of the plot. I haven't gotten my grade yet but I feel pretty good about it.

The Trig test was more challenging, but I feel pretty good about it, too. There were a couple problems that gave me trouble, but I was able to figure out my math - I'm not very careful with numbers and often get ahead of myself when working problems. I've learned to double- and triple-check myself so I don't turn in bad work. Now I get to wait through spring break - no vacation here, though - until I receive my grades.

Miracle Ice Cream

Our dorm went to commissary today. I expected to only be able to buy stamps, so I worked out a trade with another guy to get some food for me in exchange. I won't be able to keep up with my workouts if I don't supplement the scrawny food portions the state gives us. The deal with my friend seemed solid.

I came back from class this afternoon and saw some guys from our dorm in the commissary line. I grabbed a pen and a couple order slips to fill out while I waited - my list wasn't too long or complex. I put the stamps on the list, then added an ice cream just to see if it would go through.

When I handed my list and ID card through the window I saw an ice cream appear on the counter. I turned to the guy behind me and said, "There's an ice cream on the counter. I'm on commissary restriction. How is this happening?"

I came back to the dorm with a smile on my face. It turned out that I was not on restriction, which makes me wonder if I even got a case last week. Unfortunately, the ice cream was the only food on my list - no redos - and the guy I was counting on to trade with wasn't able to buy anything. I just ate some of my ice cream, then shared the rest with the guys who were not able to get anything. Strange how things work sometimes.

College Inside

I've been to both my classes - Trigonometry and British Literature - and here are my first impressions of each. though they are similar impressions for each.

British Literature was yesterday and I was forewarned about the teacher. Everything I heard was correct - she loves to talk and goes off topic all the time. Nearly every time she begins to get into the material, she begins to talk about her family or how it relates to something in her past. She is a short, yet large, woman who loves both British writers and her over sized sunglasses.

The material for both classes is at least 3/4 stuff that I've covered in high school, even readings for British Lit. I will probably be able to coast through nearly everything and still maintain A's in both classes.


The Trigonometry teacher has wild red hair - think Mrs. Frizzle from The Magic Schoolbus - and also like to drift off topic. Like me, she understands the math well, but has a hard time getting other people to understand it the same way. I feel sorry for a few of the other guys who were confused today. The math is not going to get any easier for them.

I'm happy to be getting these classes out of the way. After these, I only have two more classes I need for an Associates degree. I really hope they'll have the ones that I need for the next term. I've been working towards a BAchelors degree for four years now and am only halfway there.

Contraband Bleach

Last Friday a few of the guys were playing hacky sack in the dorm when one of the guards came in. The guard didn't care that they were playing until someone tried to hide the sack from her. Then she pulled the guys who were playing into the hall to talk. After a couple minutes she came in and searched their bunks just because they tried to hide the hacky sack.

We thought that was the end of it but she came back about ten minutes later with a guard-in-training to search everyone else's bunks. I had a latex glove that had some bleach in it that I use to clean my clothes and the dorm. I got it when we went to work in the hall from a bucket that they were about to toss out. We don't get the cleaning supplies we need for the dorm, so we make do. The guard took the glove with bleach and wrote me a case for it because it is a substance not sold on commissary.

Today I was called down to the captain's office to receive the disposition. When I came in, the captain asked why I had the bleach so I told him. He said he was surprised that the guard wrote the case and that if I get anymore bleach, to use it quickly or make sure it won't be found. My punishment is fifteen days of commissary restriction, which is okay because I have enough food and writing supplies for now.

Some guys asked me why I had contraband if I am a Christian. My answer was: the state is not supplying us with the necessary cleaning products for our dorm and I didn't steal the bleach like so many other guys do. I know it was against the rules, but I made the decision to not lie about it and accept whatever punishment the authority handed down. I wish the state would follow through with its responsibilities, but I will gladly take this hit for them, my first on this unit.