Lockdown=Boredom

After the adventure of registering for classes yesterday, I stayed up to study and take my philosophy test over ethics. I was dead tired when I started the test and very nervous that I wouldn't perform well or remember the material. I think that fear put me in gear, because I feel like I wrote a really good paper. At least, it would have been a good paper if I could have finished it.

I had one paragraph left to write when we were told to stop writing and return to our dorms. We had been put on lockdown. I didn't find out until today that some idiot on Death Row had acquired a cell phone and called a state senator to threaten him. As you can imagine, the senator was ticked off and got the governor ticked off. The governor then issued a statewide prison lockdown to search for more cell phones, and other "contraband",which ticked off the guards and inmates.

So, this morning we went through the property search and shakedown like before. This week will be filled with boredom as we can't go to work, school, or rec. Even meals will be brought to us in johnnies. All this gives me a chance to catch up on letter writing and reading. It's nice to have the TV off, too.

The all-day queue

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.

My dad came down today for a visit and we were able to talk about some deep and tough stuff with each other. I've been having some hard times recently with being here. I feel like I've already learned what I came here to learn and now I just want to go home. I know I'm not finished learning because there is always some way I can take in more wisdom. I would rather learn with family and friends nearby because I am tired of this experience.

The only thing that is really worth anything to me here is the school. The classes are a blessing., but even those I would be able to take outside prison. I feel surrounded by ignorant, stubborn guys who won't listen to reason or even the littlest things. School is the only place where I can have intelligent conversations, but even in that setting there are not too many people really want to learn to change their wrong thinking. School is just something for them to do.

I want to continue my life instead of living at a standstill. I also have some relationships I feel like I need to reconcile and I don't think much fixing can be done from my current position. I continue to pray and have faith foe release in God's timing.

in·som·ni·a

I don't know why but, for the past few days, I've only been able to get a few hours of sleep. Over the past two days I've slept eight hours total. I can't stand being a zombie, stumbling around groggily. It's not that I haven't tried to sleep, either, because I have. I can lay in my bed for an hour feeling dead tired and still not hit slumber.

Most of the time I can't sleep because people in the dorm are loud or the TV is turned up, but when it's quiet I can't sleep, either. It makes it hard to work or interact at school, too. I really hope I can catch up this weekend when I'm off.

Ugh, so tired.

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.

Misguided

We got a new guy in the dorm over the weekend that Biscuit has been trying to bring on the shower crew for a while. On his own, Biscuit is already a little bit crazy, but with the new guy, Knox, around, he's even crazier. They constantly wrestle with each other, rather loudly at that.

Knox is apparently the King of "Kill Shots", pictures of nearly nude women that are used to "kill" on. I don't mess with the shots at all, but, boy, do Biscuit and Knox. Knox has a full photo album of them and Biscuit is gathering more.

Last night when we went to work both of them brought kill shots with them to trade with guys in the dorms they cleaned. Each trade was made for an apparent profit as both sides got rid of a girl they don't want anymore and received a new prize in exchange. It reminded me of Pokemon or baseball cards that used to be traded during recess in middle school.

"This girl has it going on here, but I can't use her because of this."

"Nice face, but the rest doesn't work for me at all."

Of course, I'm using much less graphic paraphrase. Even after we returned to the dorm, Biscuit and Knox argued over the strengths of their collection against the weaknesses of the other. Four hours later in mid-morning they were still arguing their tastes in kill shots while I just shook my head in pity, rolled over and went to sleep.

The Beginning of Philosophy (class)

(Note: The following four blog entries were journal entries actually written 9/8-9/11/08. The first entry was originally written on 9/08/08. The blog "editor" lost them in her desk and just now found them. Oops! Better late than never?)



"Right is right. It defines itself."

"Religion kills people and is just a control mechanism. That's why I don't like religion."

"Everything is energy; you, me, the table, our souls. Anything can become anything else and probably will at some point."

These statements come from the professor of the philosophy class I'm taking. All on our first day, too. The man at the front of the room is an aged vet with a doctorate that he says gives him the right to call himself intelligent and the class dumb.With a grin.

"I'm going to teach you how to think," he said after we all settled into our seats, as if none of us had ever done any real thinking before.

The college level philosophy class I took before prison was one of my favorites. As a "team-taught" class, I heard the perspectives from philosophy, science, and mathematics all at once. And fortunately, none of those professors had the intellectual ego to blow out the hot air steaming up the classroom here.

I'm excited to be in this class. I love to learn, regardless of how I get the information. Losing debates with this professor ought to be fun. He'll do his mental victory dance after quashing the argument of a college sophomore.