I am sitting in front of a computer! I am sitting in front of the computer and I am going to see if I can spend the rest of the time here typing a real letter to you. I will end up back at the dorms around 8:30 PM and reading over the Access Developer's Guide for the umpteenth time and hoping that more and more of it sinks in.

One of the inmates who had me do an emergency retype for one of his homework assignments last week received an A. I did some editing and suggestions for clearer wordings.

I returned to my cube last night having been out of the dorm from 6:00 AM till 8:30 PM to find that someone had decided to help himself to about half the magnets that I had on my cube wall. The paint is layered on so thick that it tends to hold things to it after they have been on the wall for a bit. I noticed one or two things on my floor that should have been on the wall. Upon further inspection, I discovered several of the smaller items were just stuck to the wall without any magnets holding them up. The magnets cost $1.00 for a dozen.

I took this minor thievery as a sign that all may not be well in the dorm. It trickled over to the subconscious and left me restless as I tried in vain to get a good solid five hours of sleep. I was up at 5:15 AM and stayed up, took a shower and headed back down to work at 6:00AM this morning.

On the one hand I am out of the dorm no most days from dawn to dusk; on the other the jealousy factor may be kicking in just for the fact that I may be doing something I enjoy. It is not that any of the malcontents could do this job or would want to; it is just that no one is allowed to have too much control over their own world.

Someone could have taken my cream cheese and American cheese out of the five-gallon pail under my bed, so I guess I should be grateful it was only the magnets. The problem is that this shows a lack of respect for my humble abode. I hope it is an isolated occurrence and not the start of a trend that escalates into some more heinous behavior.

One of the inmates here just ended up in a tussle because he was holding the door in the dorm for another inmate and as he passed he was told the least he could have done was say thank you. The younger inmate took that as an insult and swung at the older (and larger) inmate. Score now: younger inmate in the box, older inmate transferred to another dorm and under keep lock feed in.

Meanwhile where are the heartrending and lascivious details of my day to day prison life? Each time I pause to look at the television, I feel so disconnected from the world outside. There is so little individual affirmation around here it is to the point of wonder there is not more physical altercations.  ¶ 10:13 AM