I don't really have anything to say, but I feel like I have to say my little nothings every so often in order to prevent myself from saying nothing whatsoever. Let's see now.
Li'l Miz and I cranked thru a whole disc of Dexter tonight. Second disc of season 4. I enjoy the show. Somewhere in the middle of the marathon, I wondered, why do I watch this? Do I relate to a serial killer? Of course not. But a guy who would rather cordon off a whole section of himself... ah, I begin to see. That and the appreciable acting talent on display, I suppose.
And of course sometimes I can feel the hatred of people. Tonight in prison class we had Jeanne Woodford as our guest. Fucking Jeanne Woodford. Fighting to kill the death penalty in California, former warden of San Quentin (who originally approved our program, I might mention), former undersecretary of corrections in California. Fucking Jeanne Woodford. Of course our class was generally quite interested and attentive. But I look around. I look to see who's tuned out, who doesn't look amazed that we roped this particular fish... and I hate them. Not quite to serial killer level, happy to report.
Speaking of our program, we just found out that we won the--I won't remember the actual name--Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Community Service, or some shit like that. I guess I'd better learn the name or I won't be able to self-aggrandize with it much over the years. Of course, we've applied for others too. I accept partial credit for helping keep the trash compactor walls apart, but I really have to take my hat off to my partners for doing the groundwork that keeps our program's lights on--certain tasks which, if left to me, would result in the untimely termination of the program or a dearth of amazing guest speakers. Damn if I don't have rock stars for partners. I really don't do squat, once the first few weeks (the main shit storm of the semester) are over.
Last night went down to bro-ville with prison program homegirl alpha to meet folks from Project Noise, who are working on raising awareness about various oft-ignored social issues. They are working on a documentary called Prisonocracy. Gonna hook them up with Ms. Woodford and a few other rock star stud contacts we've got.
Seems like a possibility that our expansion plans for the program (into other prisons and schools) will require some meetings in Sacramento with whatever undersecretaries. That's fine, but it seems those meetings (or the follow-up meetings with the various wardens of CA) would go best with various data that we just don't have about how wonderful (i.e., effective) our programs are. Anecdotal evidence? Scads available. But we're too busy just keeping the lights on to collect actual statistics.
That's what's happening. As soon as the semester is over, and we've accepted our awards and diplomas, I've got to finish this goddamn handbook we're writing for the program. Thanks to the miracles of LaTeX, it's up to 30 or so pages already, but there is so much more content to add. I guess I think it'll be around 50 pages long before I hand it off. Then there will still be flesh to press in Sacramento and whatever prison we expand to first. Our goal is basically to get into one more prison + school, and hope the momentum carries on through there. Folsom makes sense, since (a) it's the other Johnny Cash prison, and (b) it's next door to Sacramento. One of the Salinas area prisons would also make sense.
I really like and respect a lot of people I've met at Berkeley (almost all of whom are from my philosophy classes, since that's about all I've done there). But my die-hard homies, who I want to have contact with to the grave, all came from the prison program. Fuck yeah.
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