1) As I am typing this email, I see the guys coming back from commissary with all the stuff they bought. There sure is an amazing amount of junk food purchased – soda pop, chips, cookies, donuts, candy bars, etc. I treat myself every once in awhile, but certainly don’t buy a whole laundry bag of that type of stuff. Normally, I tell myself if I do my exercises, I am allowed to eat a packet of pop-tarts.
2) I mentioned in a previous email that a guy got fired from our unit at work. I guess he printed a couple of personal pages on the printer & that is what did it. Now I know not to do that!
3) They shut the heat off to our building last week. Then we had a cold snap with low’s in the mid 20’s for two nights in a row. Our room got so cold that all of us slept with our clothes, T-shirts, sweat shirts and jackets on the past two nights. I learned something from that – if you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, the bed is not warm because your clothes kept the heat close to your body as opposed to leaking into the bed. Never thought about it before.
4) When I got home from work today, the room was still cold. I figured the best way to combat that is to not only do your sit-ups and push-ups, but to increase each by 20 from 130. I am now doing 150 sit-ups (2 reps of 75 each) and 150 push-ups (6 reps of 25 each – the last 25 are inclined push-ups with my feet up on a chair. If it continues to not be that difficult (it helps when you lost weight from being sick), then I will jack it up to 175 of each.
5) I met a guy at chow today who I recognized from my last visit. He is from Louisville – only one hour away & got here two weeks ago. I told him that he was only allowed 4 visits per month. He was surprised to hear that. I said better to hear it from me than find out the hard way.
6) I still push guys in wheelchairs back from the chow hall. Until now, I pushed them to the sidewalk that is probably about 50 yards from their door & thought I was doing a good deed. I just realized, if it was a truly good deed, I would push them all the way to their door. Chalk one up teaching myself something.
7) Hope to finish Moby Dick sometime tomorrow. I don’t know if I will ever be as happy to finish a book as that one – I truly did not enjoy it. I will get the book report done shortly after. I can then focus my time & efforts on finishing the Scarlet Letter. I think for the classics that I read, I may no longer do book reports, just report them as having read them. For many of them, I don’t really learn anything – I just give myself credit for reading the classics. I will try that approach and see what happens.
