This story was told by a person incarcerated at Avenal.
Caller: So, you know, my morning I would wake up, work out, shower, and then, I worked, I consumed myself with college. You know, I went above and beyond on all of my college classes. You know, if the teacher offered extra credit, I did it, whereas of before I may not have did the extra credit because of time restraints. But, due to being trapped like we were, I just consumed myself.
You know, I did see a lot of guys here that were having a little bit more of a difficult time than I was, you know. They weren’t involved in college, they weren’t involved in, you know. So, they struggled, I felt, like a little bit more, you know.
I mean, everybody has a different program that they’re doing, but some of these guys just sat around and they didn’t have anything to do. Like I said, I was pretty fortunate, I was able to still maintain college and occupy a lot of my time doing that.
UCI: That is amazing. You said you took five to six classes?
Caller: Yeah, yeah, I did. In fact, this semester I’m taking five classes this semester. Last semester I took five, no, no, excuse me, last semester was summer, right?
UCI: Yeah, it was summer.
Caller: Okay, so, no, no, last semester I took two. The semester before that I took five. So, pretty much every semester except for summer I’ve been taking five to six classes. I knocked out my language.
For my language I took American Sign Language. I took American Sign Language one and two. That was pretty cool. That consumed a lot of time trying to memorize all the hand gestures and all that stuff. But, yeah, because of the pandemic I’m, I’m like, just probably a few classes away from getting my AA. I’ve actually taken quite a few other classes.
In prison, every college class that you take and you pass with a C or better, they knock three weeks off your sentence. When you get your AA, you get what’s called an educational merit, they knock six months off your sentence. If you get your BA they knock an additional six months off of your prison sentence.
So, not only was I taking college to not only improve myself and also get my AA, but I was also working towards knocking my sentence down, being able to get out sooner and get home to work and my family and all that good stuff.
UCI: That is fantastic to hear. Congratulations, because that’s amazing. I can’t even do five to six classes.
Caller: You’re also out there, though, in the real world. I mean, you guys’ time is a little bit different, you know. You guys probably have to work, you know, you got Starbucks you got to stop by in the morning and all that cool stuff, you know. We don’t have that.
UCI: No, truly, what you said was great, it was beautiful. That was really motivational.
Caller: Yeah, I mean, that was, like, a huge chunk of my day to day, how I, how I passed the time. It’s still hard now. We still have restrictions.
You know, like, even as we’re coming out of it. We’re all vaccinated. I know that, well, not all of us, most of us. They’re talking about we’re getting boosters.
But, even with where we’re at now, we’re not fully back up and going. They’re constantly COVID testing us. If you go to dental they COVID test you. With dental, for some reason, they give a lot of false positives. Where you’ll go in there, say you’re going to dental to get a cavity filled, they give you.
He just came back. Well, what they do is, they go and they roll you and your whole dorm up and they put you in isolation for two weeks.
