I'm no longer in the same cognitive intervention with the teacher who asserted her own opinion to the point of belittling others and didn't seem to care about us anyway. Last week I went to the principal and asked to be moved to a different class. He asked me to write a couple pages about why I wanted to move and to come back the next day. Well, the next day I was in the infirmary for five hours for nothing and missed class and the opportunity to talk with the principal again. I told my teacher the next day that I had to speak with the principal, but she didn't believe me and made me stay in class. This continued each day until this Wednesday when she allowed me to go during scheduled walk-ins.
I apologized to the principal for taking so long and gave him my pages about the class. He told me to look forward to getting a lay-in for a class change the next day. Sure enough, it was there.
My new class is really laid back. We covered what we needed to within the first hour or so, spent some time talking about strange conspiracies, then watched an MSNBC special on heroin addicts. There wasn't any yelling, profanity, or craziness (except the conspiracy stuff) and the teacher actually treated us and our comments with respect. This is a much better way to waste the three hours each day.
Last night I received a lay-in to go to a class today. I didn't ask for it, but I have been placed in a cognitive intervention class. This is a class many guys are put in before parole to help them stop themselves before making bad decisions.I don't know if they put me in the class because my parole is coming up soon or not.
The class is three hours long - noon to three - every weekday for three months. It wouldn't be so bad if the class itself wasn't so nuts. About three quarters of the twenty person class just acts up and disrupts the class. The teacher sounds like a public radio talk show host and doesn't seem to care about us but just wants to be right. Looking around the room, I recognized many posters showing techniques I learned in my two years of therapeutic counseling prior to incarceration. I asked the teacher after class what good this class would be for me if I've done most of it all before. Her answer was that "it becomes official."
So, the next three months will have three hours a day wasted so I can get a piece of paper. Just another hoop to jump through.* "Prayer without study would be empty. Study without prayer would be blind." - Karl Barth
When I signed up for these summer classes I had no idea how difficult it would be to get to them on time.
I showed up to for my 5:30 PM U.S. History class today at 7:00 PM, interrupting the first lecture of the semester. I was ready to leave for dinner and school at 4:30 and was still waiting at 5:30. I knocked on the door to the dorm and asked what was going on. The guard said he didn't know but would find out. He never came back. Around 6:15 another guard came in looking for a different guy who had class at the same time as I did. The guards in education were looking for him because he didn't show up for class. Neither of us had been to eat yet. Also, when I asked if they were missing me in education, he said no.So I showed him my lay-in, a printed pass for movement around the unit, but he still had doubts.We stood in the hallway for twenty more minutes before the other guy was allowed to go to class. It took another five minutes to make a decision on my situation. They just wouldn't trust all the official paperwork I gave them, including the lay-in and the class sign-up sheet.
Finally I was able to go eat and go to class, an hour and half late.
This is it -judgment day. Time to see if being in class actually helps when taking a test. I did get a practice test from a classmate yesterday, and spent two and a half hours going over it and referring to the book. Going into this morning's class I felt like I would do well, though I had to run back to the dorm to pick up my calculator. Oops.
I sat down, looked at the test in front of me, and saw that the problems before me were far more complex that what I had done last night. Most of the test was drawing translated sine, cosine, tangent, cotangent, secant and cosecant graphs. The problems last night had two digit changes to the equation, while today's had four and five.
I slowly - very slowly - worked through the graphs until the teacher said we should be halfway finished. I had barely worked the first page, so I skipped the rest of the graphs and tore through the quicker stuff. I came back to the graphs with about twenty minutes left. I had the last problem mostly complete when we were told to stop.
I did take everything slowly and checked my work, so except for that last graph, I think I did well. I'm just going to have to wait till Thursday to see what the actual judgment is. As the saying goes: the writing is the hardest part.
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.
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.
Today I had my last test in Historical Geology before the final tomorrow. The way the instructor runs the grades is that we take five tests and the lowest grade gets dropped, then we take the final.
I've scored 100's on everything so far, so I don't need this lab practical at all. I studied for it anyway.
Once I got to class I just filled out the answer sheet with A's and B's to correspond to the number of the question (i.e., 12a and 12b). I made sure to fill out the bonus and inspect every fossil and make a guess in my head. I only got three or four wrong and missed half the bonus. My answer sheet was scored and I received a 34; with the six bonus points, a 40. The instructor let out a chuckle. I assured him I would study harder for the final.
I also had my Cultural Anthropology final today. It was over only the last two chapters we covered, so it was pretty easy. I didn't get to see my score before I left, but I'm confident that I did well. I'm looking forward to taking the World Religions class with the same instructor in January.
We had our second of three exams in Anthropology today. As I walked out to the education building I realized I had forgotten about it all weekend. I barely got a chance to look over my notes before going into the classroom. I didn't expect to ace this one like my other exams this session.
I sat down at my desk waiting for the exam to be passed out while information was flying through my head in a final attempt to get organized. When I received my exam, I whipped through it with no problems at all. Every answer seemed obvious to me. About twenty minutes later I turned it in.
By the end of class we had our tests graded and handed back. I had aced this one. Even without studying beforehand, I scored a 100. These classes just don't seem to be taught on a college level. It seems more like extended high school. Is this really preparing me for a challenging university or career in the future?
More changes in the dorm. The last guy in this dorm associated with the neo-Nazi white supremacist group left to go to segregation. He had amassed an astonishing six disciplinary cases in two days (remember that definition of crash dummy?) It's good that he's out because of his influence on other guys and the heat he brought from the guards.That fifth open bunk - and all the others - didn't stay empty for long. Each was filled when I came back from school. What a surprise to leave a half-empty house and return two hours later to find a party going on! Three of the guys who moved in are very loud, one beats and raps nonstop, and none are on shower crew or in school, which means our schedules are about as dissimilar as they come. I hope a remedy is found and soon. I don't really want my grades to suffer from even less sleep that I get already.
I took two exams today, back-to-back, in a Wednesday doubleheader. After the dust settles and the synapse firing was over, I emerged victorious. Both were aced; no battle scars this time.
I was a little worried about the anthropology test. It wasn't so much the material itself, but the depth that I wasn't sure about. Most tests I take I don't have to do much more than a quick scan to be comfortable with the information covered. I'm pretty good at the multisensory learning - hear, see, write - so the info is retained well. For this test, I actually spent some quality time getting to know the chapters. It turned out that only minimal recollection was required for the exam. I still don't mind keeping in line with the Boy Scout motto - Be Prepared.
The geology exam was a breeze, just like the previous one. The material was still review from the last geology class I took, so it was fish in a barrel for me. I know that it's going to get tougher when the biology stuff appears. I'll be ready.
Make-up classes for the times we missed during lockdown were supposed to take place today, so I was expecting an early wake-up call. That didn't happen. Instead, I woke up with a start at lunch time and was worried I had missed my morning class. I asked the guard working on my hall, but she didn't know anything about the morning classes.
Turns out there was an administrative mix-up by the prison. Both the students (all except me, it turns out) and instructors showed up for class, but the students were all turned back to their dorms because the computer didn't have us marked for morning classes. What a waste of a good morning for the seven instructors who drive more than an hour to get here.
I guess they got the computer fixed - or ignored - because the afternoon classes went through as planned. At least it wasn't a completely wasted day for the instructors. I'm glad I didn't get into trouble for not going to class this morning.
This historical geology class isn't as interesting to me as the physical geology class I have already taken. I like all the earth-shaping stuff, like volcanoes, earthquakes, and the like. Flipping through the textbook it looks like a lot of what we cover is going to be dead creatures found in the rocks.Lots of biology-type stuff, which is probably my least favorite science.
So far the material we've covered has been a review for me. We took our first test today and I aced it, bonus question included. I don't think the rest of the session will be very difficult, even if it is biology.
The instructor is in his late fifties and is definitely born-and-raised country. He has a thick, unmistakable Texas drawl. A few of his ancestors fought in The Civil War - he calls it the War Between the States - and he seems to still be bitter about the loss in a joking sort of way. Yesterday he told the story of a short layover that he shared with an old classmate in a New Jersey airport. After watching the behavior of people around him, he turned to his friend and said, "Walker, now I know why we went to war with these fellas." Certainly makes for an interesting class.
Despite yesterday's entry, I am beginning to feel like this life is normal. I'm used to being wakened at any hour for whatever reason - noise, food, count, searches. As much as I don't like it, I've become used to the overwhelming negativity of inmates and guards. I'm no longer surprised by stupid rules that pop up out of nowhere when a guard wants their way.
Every day that I go to school is like an escape. There I am a person with a voice, opinion, intellect, and name. It's a reminder of what I'm working toward. The classes are almost like the classes that I was taking before I was arrested. We just can't leave whenever we finish, and all the students wear remarkably similar clothing. The instructors don't have a bias against any of us that I've seen and about half the guys in class actually have good comments and questions. It's great to be around (some) people who use their brain. I can't wait to get back out and away from this world that has become normal for me.
Well, it's most of the way through the week and I am pooped. It's been a long time since I went to school from 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM and I didn't have a job then, either - a night job, at that. I used to be involved in all kinds of activities after school: football, theater, track, soccer, Bible study. But, like I said, it's been a while.
I'm glad my day is so filled now. It feels a bit more like the busyness I'm used to on the outside. I just wish I could make my own choices and do what I want instead of waking up with my day decided for me. I miss being outside, too. We haven't had rec outside for about two weeks now. Because I'm not able to run, I've been doing work outs in the dorm - mostly pull-ups and hanging crunches. I hope we get some good time outside before it gets too chilly.
I thinl part of the reason I'm exhausted is my erratic sleep schedule. I don't think I've gotten more than four hours of straight sleep since the weekend and it's never at the same time of day, either. That's just a reality of prison life when you share your room with nine guys, a TV, toilet, and shower. Oh, if I could have a quiet place with a mattress, covers and a pillow - right now that would be heaven.
Well, we got off lockdown today. I bet we're one of the first in the state because this unit is small. We found out yesterday evening the lockdown had been lifted . That also means we went to work last night and had real meals today. Still no rec, though. I think the unit is still short-staffed.It was so good to get out of the dorm last night for work. Going anywhere after being in the same room for a week is great. And the first few meals coming off lockdown are always the most yummy. The only downside is getting the TV back on, which means noise all day and evening. Tonight is wrestling. Yippee! (not!) I wish it would just stay off.
No telling how the lockdown will affect school. I don't know if our grades will just be averaged or we will lose those credits. I hope it's something with common sense.
This morning I had registration for classes. Last time I registered, I was finished within an hour. That time we were called down to the education building in groups of ten and three counselors from the nearby community college helped sign us up for classes.Not so today.
When the group of thirty that I was called out with arrived at the registration location, there was already a room full of guys waiting to register with one counselor to accommodate all of them. My group was hurried into another room to wait. After about thirty minutes of waiting, I got to move into another room. At this point it was 9:30 AM.
The activities in this room were completely disorganized, with no rhyme or reason to the order to see the counselor. We tried to remedy the situation by instituting a snake-like pattern to the line, but the counselor didn't realize that many at the head of the "snake" had just arrived. The tail was filled with guys who had been there longer than I had. She (the counselor) could have done it all alphabetically, which would have been easier and faster because the list in front of her was set up that way.
At 11:30, I still had fifteen guys ahead of me, so I went outside to tell a guard that many of us had missed lunch. At noon, a group came in that had a bunch of guys that were supposed to be in a class. They were rushed to the front of the line, thinking that they would be finished before the class was over. I told the counselor that some of us had been waiting for three hours and the new arrivals would be better off going to class and coming back after class. She agreed and sent them on their way.
At 12:30,a group of us left to go eat at the dining hall. They were out of food when we arrived so we had to wait for chicken patties to be cooked. Thirty minutes later, we got our food and were ready to go back to the education building, but it was count time so we had to wait another thirty minutes before we could try again to register.
By 2:00PM, I had finally finished registering for classes, five hours after being called down there. Perfect example of state inefficiency. The whole time I was waiting I should have been asleep. I have test at 5:30 that I will probably be very tired for. I hope they figure out how to be better organized for the next time around. Even in prison, five hours is a long time to do nothing.
Yesterday the grades from our philosophy test came back. I got an 86, not bad but also not what I wanted. There were not any comments on any of the papers except on the front where "chart" was written.
A week before the test, the instructor told us what we needed to know for the test. He included the fact that we need to know and be able to reproduce one of the charts in the book. The day of the test, he put the essay questions on the board without anything about the chart; nearly everyone wrote out their essay. Only two people drew the chart out on the paper.
I assumed that, since it was an essay, I would write out the information on the chart to explain it. Apparently, the instructor wanted a drawing of the actual chart; he took away 7 points, which would have given me a comfortable "A".
It amazed me and several other classmates that we had our A's taken away from us because we didn't have clear instructions to draw the chart.
And I still don't know where the other 7 points went.
Last night I studied for two hours in expec-tation of having a test in Philosophy today. Instead of the test, the professor had us trade in our textbooks for a new one just as we entered the classroom.
I guess he likes the new textbook better.
The test was called off and we told to read about forty pages for Wednesday's class. What a change of pace!
With the new(ish) schedule for work and classes, I'm not able to go to recreation during the week anymore. I'm in classes during the evening rec and asleep during the morning rec after staying up all night working. I really miss being able to go out and run on the field. It was my only alone time between staying in a dorm with nine other guys all day. Hopefully rec will be available on the weekends. This past weekend they were short-staffed while visitation was going on so rec didn't occur.
I started class today. I've been waiting since I got to this unit and finally got a class. I'm only taking one class, Intro to Sociology, but at least it is something. Sadly, at this pace it will be years before an Associate's degree is complete and they aren't even offering core classes because professors can't be found to teach them.
If the first day is any indication, the rest of the session is going to be a breeze. Maybe a hot, sticky summer kind of breeze because the education building doesn't have any air conditioning yet. The teacher seems smart, but I think she puts on a show of ditzy stupidity to relate better to the inmates. She's hip to much of what goes on in here which I think will help both us and her.
I really hope I can take more classes and perhaps more of them along the lines of a typical liberal arts track like the business classes that are offered. The education is lacking, but at least it's going somewhere.
