The journal of Pernell DudleyTable of Contents:
26 December, 2006Hello my name is Pernell Dudley (I'm not going to my TDCJ number like I have to with almost everything else I write) and this will be my first time writing in the journal program. As a result I think a little background on myself is in order. I'm a 42 year old man of color and I have two children (Shatoyia 18 years old, Kenya 17 years old) I also have five brothers and two sisters. I have been in TDCJ for over ten years (Man!!! I can't believe that myself). I was just setting around this day after Christmas and decided to start my journal now, not on New Year's Day. I have been writing about my life in these cages for years, but only send what I wrote to my kids. I think writing in this program will open new doors for me. It's kind of funny how now my life revolves around the opening and closing of doors (real doors and those that are only in one's mind). My thoughts roam the vast plans of my mind trying to find the right place to really start this journey. I have asked myself many times ìDo I really want to open myself to people (you) who are not my family.î I know my family cares, but why would anyone else care about my life. Than I think about how Durland has been a kind of life line in my time of need ( I love input). All my life I have been one of those people that wants to know about things; all kinds of things that one like myself thinks about. Yes the Durland program has helped me, but can I open my life to them (and others)? Primariliy one of the things that moves me to do this is that it may help someone, anyone, not come here. This let me move on to my life(as I see it) in the hell called TDCJ. Texas has been my home all my life, but Texas has two faces. 27 December, 2006There is the face of the free and the face of the not so free (like me). Some in here (maybe most) would say that we are slaves but the facts show that we are not slaves. Obviously things in here are bad, but I know it could be a lot worse. Yes, I hate this place and yes I believe this place destroys people. Me, I now take a world view of things that happen in this place. By that I mean I look at all the things that are happening in the world today, and I can see a lot of people in the world have it really bad. Having this view helps me deal with most of the things that happen to me in this place. In fact I would say when it comes to necessities TDCJ is not that bad. Food, water, ectÃ-- (you may not always like what you get) will be provided. Now the medical servies are another thing, at times it can be down right cruel. Now let me take you through a day in my life here on the Darrington Unit. My day starts at 2:30 a.m. that's when they tell you to get ready for chow(breakfast). At around 3:00 a.m. I go to breakfast ( I love biscuits and eggs) and then come back to my cubicle(I likve in a dormitory like cell with 61 other inmates) and jam my radio until about 5:00 a.m. Down here close t Houston we can get the local radio station, the two I love the best are 95.7 the WAVE (jazz station) and Magic 102.1 (R and B station). At around 5:30 a.m. I go to my work assignment or if im off I go to showers. I work in the unit kitchen, they call me a ìlinebacker,î that's what they call inmates like that do just about everything that needs to be done when it comes to setting up the food serving line. Accordingly as a linebacker, I sometimes get to eat a little more than I normally would. As work assignments go this one isn't that bad. Between 12:30p.m. and 1:30p.m. I get off and go to showers. I like showering at this time of day because there are less people. On this unit we have communion showers so if you go in the morning you will be showering with almost a 100 people (sometimes more). When I get back to my cubicle (know later than 2:00 p.m.) I try to lay down for a while, I'm back up by 4:00 p.m. So I can listen to the news on the radio (NPR News on 88.7 I think). At 5:00p.m. I look at the local news and at 5:30p.m. I try to look at the world news on ABC or NBC. Between 6:00p.m. and 8:00 p.m. we get mail call (letters and magazines), I may write a letter are look at some t.v., but almost always I am in bed by 10:30p.m. 3 January, 2007Well I made it to the New Year!!! Naturally they locked us down the day after Christmas Man!!! I'm really starting to hate peanut-butter sandwiches and chicken-patties, that's motly all I have been eating for the last 8 days. We get to shower every three days, so you know this cage at times is really smelly. It seems everyone here has gas (ha!ha!), I keep telling myself that things could be worse. I have been doing a lot of reading right now I'm reading this book called The Classic Slave Narratives edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Man!!! Reading this book upsets me at times but it also shows me that I really don't have it so bad. In addition I get Scientific American National Geographic and King ( a guy has to have his wish book) magazines. So you see I do a lot of reading, I try to keep up with things going on in the free world. I think about my family a lot, what are they doing right now, I really miss them all. When I get a letter or card from them it's like coming into the sun light after a long rainy day. I'm from a little town in Texas called Mt. Pleasant, lots of woods and lakes. I use to love it when I trained and the smell, the feel right after. That's what it kind of feels like to here form home. In fact ìmail callî is a good time ot see who are you doing time with. The looks I see in the other inmates eyes tell me a kind of story. For me it is one of the most revealing times of the day, all the falseness is gone. It's kind of funny how almost everyone in here was the best, the hardest, this and that when they were in the free world. Almost no one was just plain ìJoe Blowî out there. Yes at mail call you really see the good, the bad, and the down right ugly. 9 January, 2007Just setting here thinking about my two daughters, I can't believe I didn't get a letter or card from them these holidays. I write them each a letter every two weeks (some months every week) and of lately my oldest Toyia has been writing back. Over the years my brothers and sisters and y ex-wife have been bringing them to see me( I'm about 300 miles from home). When they do come the visits are great and the time we get togther goes by fast. In the last two years I have been getting a lot more letter from my girls. Like I said lately , Toyia has been writing me the most telling me about what's going on in her life. She (Toyia) graduated from Mt. Pleasant High last year; my baby (Nya) graduates this year. I am so very proud of them, now days to graudates from high school is a great fist start to the rest of your life. Equally important to me is that they and their mom ( I thin I helped a little) have been focused on keeping them out of what I call ìsex trapsî. Primarily having a child while still in high school, yes they have experimented with sex (they and their mom told me about this at a visit), but they knew of the dangers of STDs, and other sexually transmitted diseases and took precautions. No I didn't like the idea of my daughters doing anything sexual (they were 16 and 17 at the time), but knew things could be worse. Yet I am disappointed that I haven't got a letter or card from them over the holidays. Naturally I wrote and told them of my disappointment, but I also let them know that my love for them is unconditional. I'm looking forward to hearing from them soon. 19 March 2007I'm up and ready to start the new day, it has been a so-so weekend. Most of that was spent watching college baseball to see who makes it to the "sweet sixteen." I wasn't really feeling the games, but watch them anyway to kind of free my mind (for a little while) of some things that have been upsetting me all weekend. To some extent the letters I got from home this past Friday were overdue. After all with as large a family as I have you just know sooner or later someone is going to get ill (or die). Accordingly I got letters from my sisters Teqweta and Teaky (her real name is Sureka but as long as I can remember everyone calls her Teaky). As the story of what's going on back at home with my family unfolds each name that is called brings to mind a memory of that person. My aunt Heleon (on my mother's side) is in the hospital. She makes the best "sweet potata pie" in all of NE Texas. (I know potato is spelled potato, but in East Texas it's potata). My uncle Day-O was put in a nursing home (he lost part of his foot to sugar two years ago). Obviously his real name isn't Day-O but they have been calling him that since before I was born. Yes there's a story (as there always is) behind that name and my mother told it to me many years ago. Mom told us that back when my uncle Day-O was a young boy (back in the 1940's) any time that he got any money he would go to this bakery in the MT. Pleasant and buy day-old pastries. (I think she told me you could get a good size paper bag of day-old pastries for 25 cents). I think she said her dad is the one that started calling him Day-O. His real name is Robert Lee Elliott and in many ways when I was growing up I used to hate this man, but that's another story for another time. My mother and most of the rest of the family loves him, but not me. I just didn't like the way he used to treat my mom and the rest of us. I have come to love him as my mother's brother (family) but old memories of him are with me still. Back to my sister's letters, they also wrote and told me of some friend's of mine who have died. For me hearing of my friend's (or family) passing brings me to the realization that I may never see my home again. A lot of time and people have passed in the ten years (ten years eleven months and nineteen days) that I have been gone. Everyone in my family that I tell this gets upset when I say this because they feel that by me stating that "I may never make it home" that I am giving up hope that I will one day walk out of here. Necessarily I will never lie to myself, and the truth is I may never leave this place alive. Absolutely at times this is one of my greatest fears, dying in here. Doubtless when you are dead it really doesn't matter where you are, because you are still dead. Primarily this is one of many "mind games" that I play with myself. Yet I try not to think too much on things that I have no control over. Yes I have seen men die in here; they didn't make it home alive. This unit the Darrington Unit is not an overly violent unit (some inmates may disagree with me on this) but in all places like this there is violence. Again back to the letters from my family, over the years they have become very efficient (my sister Teqweta is the best at this) at compiling and compartmentalizing the daily lives of my loved ones and friends. In fact they have the ability to compress months of living into just a two page letter. Therefore at the end of reading each letter I am updated on all the going on in my hometown and I have a good sense of the wellbeing of the family. Initially I believed that it was the letters that I received this past Friday that I found upsetting. This is kind of funny because a lot of people (some in my own family would say that I should have died back in 1991 when I was shot those eleven times). (I talk about this in my 2nd journal entry). I don't mean that these people want me dead, they just think I'm lucky to be alive. Finally (on this entry) it comes down to being all about me, even when it's really about someone else. 2 April 2007They are calling "chow" but I'm not going because I don't feel like eating anything. I have had a really bad head cold for the last two days. I haven't been sick (cold or otherwise) for over two years. That may be why this illness has hit me so hard. Above all this is just not a place one wants to get sick in (I like many don't like getting sick anywhere) because at times it is very hard to get treatment. Naturally my body (6'2'' 225 lbs) is doing everything it can to fight the infection (whatever it is). Man!!! I really feel too bad to write (maybe later) I'm going to lay back down. 9 AprilStill trying to shake off this cold, and I still have not been able to get anything for it, not even from the underground (that's TDCJ for black market). It seems that almost everyone on the unit has this cold or flu. I'm feeling a lot better, but this thing (whatever it is) is still holding onto me. Nevertheless, life goes on, like this thing with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Particularly is the things everyone (inmates) saying he should be gone by now and they are right. Obviously to me Alberto Gonzales is one of many problems the U.S. has. Down here we say that "you can't kill a rattle snake by cutting off his rattle" (it will just grow back). Hell everyone knows that the rattles aren't the part of the snake that is poisonous. Alberto Gonzales is just one of Bush's many interlocking (horny) rings at the end of the tail of the rattlesnake of the Bush run government. Primarily all I'm saying is I think that Bush is a bad leader. Thus firing his Attorney General will not solve the problems the U.S. is facing. We (the U.S.) have to get out of this war, four years of it and really nothing to show for it. Yes I know the Iraqis are facing some hard times. Civil war, that's what's going on right now and I for one don't believe the U.S can do anything about that. The Iraqis have to decide how this is going to turn out. I can't see how letting more American die will help the Iraqis, should we do this? I am one American that says no, I think it is time to bring our people home. (I have never believed in this war). The will of the people should have something to do with how a government is run in this country. One of the things that gets me is that a lot of the people who are mad at Bush are the same ones that voted for him. Initially he was a great leader when he was giving all those tax cuts to the rich, but when they saw how much the war is costing and all the Americans getting killed, well something had to be done with him. I'm back from chow and the things that are going on in this country (and the world) are still on my mind. I read somewhere that the state of Georgia is considering apologizing for slavery. I really don't know what to think of that, an apology is a start but what's next? I have never been a slave, but to say that slavery has not had an impact on my life would be a lie. I really believe that I and a lot of the people in this country are the consequences of this country's past treatment (enslavement) of my people. Obviously I did what I did to be here, that I blame on myself, but you can't tell me that the enslavement of a people doesn't have repercussions that will last maybe forever. Undoubtedly without slavery I would not be alive, so in that aspect I like many alive today have benefited from slavery. Primarily I could let slavery be apart of my family (my people's) past if equality was not just a right but a reality. I shouldn't have to tell anyone that I have a right to this or that; it should just be self-evident that equality is for all Americans. Doubtless I would like to say that equality is for everyone in this world (and in many ways I believe this to be true) but we know that it is not true, so my first step is to focus on this country and hope the rest will follow. 10 April 2007Man!!! I'm feeling a lot better! I think I may live after all, the sun is out life is okay (I can't say good, well I wanted to say good while I'm in here). My last day off and I'm not looking forward to going back to my work assignment. In the meantime I have been talking to a couple of guys that I get things to read from (you know like newspapers, books, etc) and one of the things that have been on our minds is what's going on in Darfur. Primarily not many people (inmates) in here know (or care) about the genocide going on in W. Sudan. Obviously just dealing with the day to day life in a place like this is very hard, but for me trying to keep up with things going on outside these walls is important. Particularly knowing what is going on in the world is an intricate part of my worldview. In fact, time and time again in my writing I will bring up my "worldview" because to me it is the cornerstone of many of my beliefs on how bad or good things are going in my life (my family's lives, and the world as a whole). To illustrate, it would be very hard for me to cry (like a lot of guys in here do) about the food in here knowing (like I know) that there are tens of thousand of Darfuris dying by ethnic cleansing, lack of food and diseases. Furthermore, I just can't get upset about getting to shower one time a day or only having my sheets (on my bed) washed only one time a week when 2.5 million (out of a population of 6 million) Darfuris are uprooted from their very homes. All the things that are happening to these millions of people make the things that happen to me (and the other inmates) seem so very small. Equally important in all this is China (chief buyer of Sudan oil) very few people in this country see how big a player China has becoming the world. What I'm trying to figure out now is if the U.S (and all the nations) signed the Genocide Treaty I just saw on the news that Google is giving the world a good look on what's happening in Darfur (It looks kind of like Windows Live Local powered by Virtual Earth). Four years of war in that country and the world is still not doing much. 16 April 2007Wow!!! The world has gone mad, I just can't believe what I have been seeing on TV all day. The Virginia Tech shooting is just unthinkable madness. I keep running all the things they say happened over and over in my mind trying to understand why someone would do something like that but it just doesn't make since. Is there no where in this country that you can send your children that is safe? Primarily I live in a kind of controlled madness, I see things every day that could be called madness, but a lot of the things that I see going on in the so called "free world" (that's what we call the world outside) is true madness. I n fact this place is one of the safest places to be when it comes to gun play. That's a sad thing to say, what are we (as a country) going to do because I don't see how what happened at VA Tech can be stopped. Undoubtedly from no on one of the best Tech schools in the country will be remembered for what happened today. Equally important not only did a lot of young people lost their lives but we as a nation lost something of ourselves today. 17 April 2007Today we learned the name of the young man that did the killing at the VA Tech, Seung-Hui Cho, but they still don't know why he did it. I believe that he knew that his name would be immortalized by his actions. Please don't let that be the sum of why 33 people (34 with the gunman) lost their lives. Particularly I don't understand how someone that seemed to have so much to live for would give up his life and the life of so many others for nothing. Why!!! I just want…I just don't understand. 1 May 2007It has been some weeks since the last time I wrote in my journal, a lot has happened to me in those weeks, some of it life changing. Primarily I went on what is called a "Kairos Walk" about two weeks ago. Now before I went on this "walk" all I knew about Kairos was what the other inmates told me about it and the little things that I had seen during these walks. Accordingly all I knew for sure was that the inmates that went on these walks got to eat free world food all four days of the walk and that the Kairos people give each inmate bags and bags of home made free world cookies. Obviously these bags of cookies made the Kairos inmates very popular each day when they came back to the cells. Doubtless (the cookies and the food) this was the reason all the inmates on the unit were trying to get into Kairos. Thus I had been trying for the last five years. They have a Kairos walk twice a year and they have been having them o this unit for the last twenty years. Okay I go to the Kairos walk thinking all the cookies and other free world food that I was going to eat. I feel that the first day was okay and I got through it. By the second day at times I was moved to tears of joy, I just was overcome by the love these people showed us. On the other hand let me now tell you some of what I know about Kairos. It has been some weeks since the last time I wrote in my journal, a lot has happened to me in those weeks, some of it life changing. Primarily I went on what is called a "Kairos Walk" about two weeks ago. Now before I went on this "walk" all I knew about Kairos was what the other inmates told me about it and the little things that I had seen during these walks. Accordingly all I knew for sure was that the inmates that went on these walks got to eat free world food all four days of the walk and that the Kairos people give each inmate bags and bags of home made free world cookies. Obviously these bags of cookies made the Kairos inmates very popular each day when they came back to the cells. Doubtless (the cookies and the food) this was the reason all the inmates on the unit were trying to get into Kairos. Thus I had been trying for the last five years. They have a Kairos walk twice a year and they have been having them o this unit for the last twenty years. Okay I go to the Kairos walk thinking all the cookies and other free world food that I was going to eat. I feel that the first day was okay and I got through it. By the second day at times I was moved to tears of joy, I just was overcome by the love these people showed us. On the other hand let me now tell you some of what I know about Kairos. 22 May 2007Just got back from "chow" and I'm thinking about my baby girl, well she isn't a baby any more. She turned 18 years old the 18th of this month and she will be graduating from high school on the 25th of this month. All I can say is WOW!!! My last child is out of high school, my oldest graduated last year. In fact they are both 18 years of age right now (my oldest turns 19 on the 12th of June). Primarily I'm just so very proud of them, no matter what happens next they have both graduated high school (with no kids) and their futures look great. Yes I wish I was right there with them, but I'm not and with the help fo family they (and a little help from me) they have made it through their high school years and that's the thing. Still thinking about my teen-ager (Renya), she is a wonderful daughter and has a good head on her so I don't see anything stopping her from becoming the veterinarian that she has talked about being for most of her life. I thought by now she would have changed her mind, but she hasn't and that's one of the things I like most about her. When she makes up her mind about doing something (even as young as she is) she seems to have to do that something. 4 June 2007I'm in my cubicle thinking about one of the things that most inmates like myself will never have again as long as they are behind these bars. Obviously what I'm thinking about is sex, or to put it a better way the "lack of sex" while being locked up. Now I'm 43 years old and I have been locked up for over 11 years and I have to say I have come a long way when it comes to my way of thinking about sex. Primarily when I first came to T.D.C.H I was 32 years old and thought I was going to die of lack of sex, I was used to having sex almost any time I wanted to have it. Thus in many ways I thought sex was a need, but I have learned over the years that sex is not a necessity. On the contrary sex is a want, it is something I want, but I know I don't necessarily need to live or have a life with happiness. Undoubtedly (to me) everyone who comes to places like T.D.C.J goes through the process of being "desexed" (that's what I call it ha! ha!) Equally important to me is that there only seems to be two roads one can go down in this. So called (by me) "desexed state: while in this place, you can accept that you are going to not have sex and move (your mind) on to other things to do with your time, or you can go down that other road. To some extent this other road has many outlets and over the years I have seen many aspects of a lot of them in the way a lot of inmates deal with being deserved. Particularly you have guys of all ages in a place like this (from 15 to 80 years old0 and these are some of the things I have seen with the inmates that go down this other road. Now it seems to me that most of the youngest guys (from 15-35 years old) that go down road number two are jackers (that is an inmate that masturbates on the female officers). Now there are a lot of guys my age and older that do this, but most are the younger guys. Now the older guys that go down road number 2 it seems that most of them (35-80 years old) go into homosexuality, again there are younger guys that are into it too, but over the years most that I have seen are older guys. Now there are guys that have had sex with females that work here, it happens a lot in fact, but it is not the norm but I know it happens. Me I just say no to it all and pursue other things. Yes I would like to have sex again one day but it is just a want not a need. 12 June 2007I just got a copy of my hometown's newspaper, in section B (Thursday May 17, 2007, MT Pleasant Daily Tribune) in the 2007 graduation edition. Primarily I got the paper to get the picture of my youngest daughter (Renya) who graduated, but I looked at the young men and women who were graduating to see if I knew any of them or they're families. Thus I looked at all the pictures and was about to put it down when it seemed to me that something was wrong, but at first I didn't know what it was. Consequently I went through the paper again and saw that there were not that many black young men graduating. In fact out of the 345 people graduating in my daughter's class there were only 24 young black men graduating. To me, that just didn't seem right. Now I didn't graduate with my class back in 1983 and now here it is 2007 at the same high school and only 24 young black guys graduate. Why do low a number? With this on my mind I looked around me, I'm on a unit where 60 or 70% of the inmates are black, from all over, the youngest guy here is 16 and Â" (he should still be in high school) and yes he is black. I know that the number of black families in my hometown went up, not down, so where are all the young black men who should be graduating high school? Next I went back and counted the people who were graduating by race and gender
Wow! When I break down the 2007 class at my old high school I can really see things have changed. Back in 1983 when my class graduated 65% of them were white and most of the rest were black, there were maybe 10 Hispanics in the whole school and 3 of them graduated in my class. I just think more blacks should have graduated, but maybe I'm wrong, I'm going to write my family and see what they say about the whole thing. 16 June 2007Well it happened, something every inmate knows can and will happen, I got moved to another unit (I'm not there yet). Here I am sitting in a cell on the Walls Unit in Huntsville wanting to know what happened for them to move me. Primarily the thing that kind of upsets me is the fact that I had been on the Darrington Unit for over 10 years and they just "out of the blue" decided that I should be moved to another unit. They did give me some time t pack my things and say good bye to some people. Some of those guys I have known the whole 10 and something years I was on Darrington. Obviously I didn't get to say goodbye to all the guys and maybe I shouldn't be feeling the way that I do, but 10 years is kind of a long time to be in one place in a place like this (there are guys on that unit that have been on that unit for 20 and even 25 years). Definitely I didn't call Darrington Unit my home, but I was known by many and by me being known I was left alone when I wanted it that way. Yes I know that things are always changing in places like this and I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. Furthermore my family still thinks that I'm at Darrington, I won't to be able to get a letter out to them until Monday and that means they won't get it until Wednesday. Naturally I'm upset about being given only a couple of hours to say goodbye to all I have known and understood (in a way) for the last 10 years. Above all I am focused on God, family and self so in time I will be all right, but now I see why some guys have hard times dealing with being moved all around the system. I'm told that on Monday I will be going to the Ellis Unit right up the road (as we say) from here. I'm old-school when it comes to knowing the ins and outs of life and how to live it in places (in Texas) like this unit I'm going to so I should be okay, but in the back of my mind I know about and have seen the "X factor" and that is you have no control over who you are locked up with and things happen. All I know about this new unit (to me) is that it is where they used to house Death Row inmates, that's it, people (inmates and officers) talk and I listen (sometimes ha! ha!) and I have heard things (some good, some bad) but I like to see for myself when it comes to things like this. Primarily wherever God moves me I will go (I have a choice with him) maybe it was time to move around. 23 June 2007Well I'm on the Ellis Unit (have been for 5 days) and its not so bad as units go. There are a lot more older inmates (45 and up) than I have seen anywhere since I have been locked up. In fact I have seen 10 or 20 guys that look like they are in their late 70's or 80's, man! They look really old. The food is not as good as it was on the Darrington Unit, but I have had worse. They do a lot of things different than I am used to, but I can deal with it. The thing that I hate the most so far is they don't watch any news on TV, it's all sports all the time (I just can't believe it). July 10th, 2007Well I'm two days into my 4th week on this new unit, it looks like I'm going to be all right. Man!!! They hand out mail late over here, no mail from home, but I did get a letter from Durland. In fact I see that there is a new intern (Katherine) typing up my journal entries. Accordingly I say "Hello Katherine," you are now in my world, maybe you will take something away with you when your time at Durland is over. Definitely I'm getting a lot out of writing my thoughts down, I love being able to write about anything. July 11th, 2007Man!!! I just don't understand how these guys can set around all day and watch "ESPN," no news stations, just sports all dam day. Okay they do take time out to get in the soaps, I just can't believe that no one wants to know what's going on in the world. In fact I almost got into a fight because I asked about putting the TV on CNN so I could see what is going on with the war. Primarily these are older guys (I don't like the name inmate), I know they have kids, family out there, they should care more about what's happening in the world. To illustrate I was talking to this one person and be said something like "no news is good new." I told him putting your hands over your eyes doesn't mean the world isn't moving on, it just means you can't see it moving on. July 12th, 2007At first the guys on the cell block were cool with me, I don't get in anyone's business and I kind of keep to myself. Now some of them are starting to take a closer look at me because of some of the things I have said. Obviously (to me) a lot of people don't want to here the truth, to some extent I used to be like this, but I have grown a lot in the past ten years. I say ten because my first year and a half was pure hell and there really wasn't any room to grow. I read somewere (I think it was in one of Harry Turtledove's books) "a man who gets angry at the truth will have a hard time in life..." Consequently I have seen many a fight about truth are the truth. After all if it is true I want to know, I'm that kind of person and to me it doesn't matter the person or place were the truth is found. Truth can get you hurt bad in here (that's just the way it is), so I stick by this rule (I read this somewere to) "All people are free to think, believe and act as they choose... Just got back from chow (man!!! It's going to take some getting use to this food), one good thing about this unit is they have college classes so it looks like I will get my degree after all. Equally important it looks like I may be able to it two degrees. Necessarily they both will be associate degrees (Associate in arts and Associate in Business Administration or Applied Science). I already have most of the credits I need for the Associate in Arts (Alvin Community College), it will take me two semesters to get the 12 credits I need because they only let you take up to the 6 credit hrs. per semester. Most of the 12 I need is electives (I only need one sophomore ENGL Literature, three credits) and one core requirement. Than I will start on one of the other Associate Degrees, why (you say) get two associates because that is all they have on this unit and I want to keep going, I want more, but until then I just have to keep working on something. July 13th, 2007Friday the 13th and it is still hot as hell in these cages. Yea I know they are called cells, but stay in one as long as I have and you earn the right to call this cell a cage. Why is that important to me? Cage gives me a truer feel (this may not be the best way to say what I'm thinking) of the place I am in. So here I am looking out my cage trying to think of all the reasons "my like has worth." No I don't want to die, this is just a question that I ask myself a lot, because it is important to me to truly be are have worth. Nights are hard times for me, because at times it is difficult to see anything that I have done since I have been here that has helped anyone, but myself and my family. Yes I have grown in here and that in itself is something of value. Most of all at the end of a day I can't say well I did this are that and that was something. Obviously I'm here and an lot of people would say that in here I shouldn't have value I should just "rot" in here. July 14th, 2007Still thinking on how I can be more productived, yes I'm taking college classes and trying to get in any other program that I feel will help me (and others), but I feel I could be doing more. Man!!! You just don't know how much I would like to help my daughters with paying for college and things like that. I'm not asking anyone to give me anything thing I'm willing to work for it. Absolutely I should have thought about all this before I got here, but I didn't and I can't take anything I did back so should this be the end. I may one day get out of here, hell most of us will one day get out of here so why not start in here using people like me who want to be productive. I don't mean explait, I know a lot of guys (inmates) in here don't feel this way, but I still love my country and I for one would be willing to help her (help me) in any way I can. Why are we (The US) sending all those low paying jobs over seas? Bring them inside places like this so people like me who are willing to be employed can be. July 15th, 2007Primarily I'm still focus on the way the state of Texas treats inmates. Yes some of these guys in here don't care about themselves, their state of being are anyone else for that matter. Equally important is that some of these guys are in way over their heads and have know one to turn to, not even the people in the free world who would say that the state shouldn't pay inmates shit, feed them, put them to work doing something that's it. Okay lets just say these people are right, feed them, work them, and than lock them back in the cages. You treat people like an animal and that's the way a lot of them are going to act, but keep in mind that 90% of these people will be back in the free world one day. Next think about thus, they feed you, you get to take a shower (sometimes) and they will give you soap to wash with, but what about hygiene products (toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss) one would think that they would give inmates these things to keep up your hygiene, well they don't. July 16th, 2007I'm one of the lucky ones, my family does send me some money and I have had 12 years (all most) to learn the best way to use that money. Now these other guys (inmates) for one reason are the other have no one sending them anything so what do they do? Doubtless there are people out in the free world who may say that inmates don't need things like toothpaste and deodorant. We live in cages, animals don't need things like that. I believe you have to treat people humanely, even if you think they are animals. What would you do if you were here with nothing? Now I ask myself how far should the state of Texas go to make inmates feel that they are still human, I say if they don't want to pay us for working with money pay us with hygiene items, (it may sound crazy to you and to some of the guys here, but you nor they are the one in need). Little things like the toothpaste and deodorant would stop a lot of the things I see going down in here, not all of them, but you have to start somewere. |