When I came to prison, I had the following goals:
1) Read the books that are listed on my book list that has 85 titles on it. Thus far, I have read 13 of them (and some additional ones) on which I completed book reports & have in my possession (or are in the prison library) another 9 of them. The interesting thing is that for every 2 good books I read, I get the title of an additional good book that I SHOULD read, so I have some more books in my possession that are not on the original list. I now see that this will be somewhat of a neverending project – which isn’t a bad thing. In a nutshell, I am pleased with my performance on this goal.
2) I wanted to learn Spanish. I am up to about 65 words, but to be honest, it is easier and my preference to read books as opposed to learning Spanish. Starting TODAY, I will give Spanish a renewed effort and commit to learning 5 new words per day. I am also signed up for an ACE Spanish 2 class as soon as it starts. This goal needs more attention.
3) Work out and lose weight. About 3 years ago, I was up to 210 pounds. When I came to prison, I was 197 pounds. As of yesterday, I am down to 187 pounds – less than what I was when I got married in 2000. I do 60 push-ups & 60 sit-ups/crunches every day – having become more regimented about it a few days ago. Whatever I do in push-ups, I will do 20% of that number in pull-ups (so I also did 12 pull-ups yesterday). If I do all of these things in one day, I allow myself to eat a pop-tart at the end of the day. No pop-tart yesterday because I only did 30 sit-ups. I do them in my bed so my butt doesn’t get sore and by time I was ready to do the second set of 30, all my cellmates were there and the one below me was sleeping. Note to self: do them earlier in the day so you don’t have this issue. This goal needs more consistency.
4) Stop swearing – this is a hard habit to break – especially when you are in prison. I am down to about a cuss word a day and think that by the end of this coming week, the habit will be completely broken. This goal is almost achieved.
5) I also committed to never playing cards or board games and not watching TV. No problem on the first two, but I probably sneak in about 2 hours of TV per week – mostly when my eyes hurt and cannot read anymore or I am a bit depressed and just need to zone out for a bit. Also, sometimes the news stories appear to be interesting and I want to see what is going on. I did start doing WSJ crossword puzzles on the weekend with two guys down the hall. Last week it took the three of us three hours to complete it. It was a hard one and it didn’t help that I had not done a crossword puzzle in 2-3 decades. That is a nice brain-teaser! I am pleased with my performance on this goal.