Hello, everyone. Shout out to all the Leo’s! We seem to be the most hated of all astrological signs. My B-day lands on the first day of Leo Season.
So this month I’d like to talk about how I, and others across America, are able to cope with 23 hours a day locked in a cell.
For me, the main thing is to stay busy. Well, there’s only so much you can do each day, locked in a cell, right? Correct. So I come up with ways to procrastinate. As funny as it may sound, I will have several things that I know I want to do each day, and what I will do is try to put them off as long as possible. In doing so, I find something else to do to consume the time. For example, if I wake up for lunch around 11 am, I will say, “OK, I got to write a letter tonight, wash my t-shirts, work out, and I got a new magazine to check out.” What I’ll do is decide what I can do in between to keep me occupied. The longer the better, because I already know I will enjoy doing the things later on. So let’s say I go to sleep for 2 hours. Then I wake up. I may just lay there and listen to the conversations going on by my neighbors. Many sound boring, but this becomes sort of like a radio show, similar to my childhood, listening to talk shows. Then I may get up, talk to a neighbor, ask the C.O. a question, clean up the cell, or look out the window.
My normal day is spent trying to sleep as much of 1st shift away. Time just seems to move faster on 2nd shift. So I’m normally up from about 2pm-3am. Second shift helps with the procrastination because we got 4 main things to look forward to. 1. Dinner. @. Showers (which are every other day, but when it’s not our day, we still are anticipating showers because that’s when the other guys will walk past, so a chance to talk to other people). 3. Mail pass out. 4. Mail Pickup. Mail is picked up around 9-9:30 pm and passed out 4-6 pm.
So this is how I’m able to procrastinate my time. Once mail is picked up, the night slows down dramatically. This is when I may continue to try and find something new to do, such as solitaire, or a book. Finally, when I feel ready, I will begin the things I first woke up ready to do. By the time I’m done with those things, it may be time for Breakfast (2:30-3am) or I may only have 20-40 minutes to wait. I have now successfully spent my day occupied, not being bored, because at any moment I can choose to start any of the tasks I have planned for the day. The key is to start the day with a plea of what you want or need to do. Then try and push those back as long as possible. Done correctly, the days will fly by, as you’ll always have something that you’re looking forward to.
About the blogger: Daniel Patrykus is a Mulatto-Millennial, born in 1996. He's incarcerated in the Illinois DOC. A native of Wisconsin, Daniel recently began residing in Chicago. He loves sports, music, and travel.
