A Typical Day in the Pen

This is just a general idea of what a day of mine might look like--they are by no means constant though.

6:00am – Wake up, get dressed, and make bed.

6:30 – Go to chow and eat SOS or something close.

7:00 – Brush teeth, stretch, and prepare for the day.

8:30 – Go to dayroom, work out, and phone call or shower.

11:00 – Back into cell to eat lunch.

12:30pm – Go to substance abuse/self-help class.

2:30 – Come back and work on college material.

4:30 – Count time!

5:00 – Watch world news.

5:30 – Go to dinner and eat slop or close to it.

6:00 – Come back, brush teeth, and see what’s on TV.

7:00 – Unroll mattress and make bed.

9:00 – Go to sleep unless something really good is on TV until 10:00

10:00 – Bedtime.


Time management can be a challenge because you are always at the will of the institution. Sometimes they will pull everyone out of the building, out of nowhere, for a search. Another example is how I have to plan my exercise around when I can get a shower. My section of cells only gets dayroom (free time in the building) at a specific time according to rotation. If you’re all sweaty, you don’t want to have to sit on your bed and wait. I know that most of this has to do with security, so it’s really my predecessors’ fault. I also have a hard time finding long stretches of uninterrupted time to facilitate study sessions.

I’ve gotten pretty good at compromising and making it work though. You learn to plan in a vague manner and flip-flop stuff as the day progresses and things pop up. You really have to multi-task too. It can be frustrating, flustering, and overwhelming, but the alternative would be laziness. You just have to do the best you can.

Well, thanks again for reading. I hope you all are happy and healthy.

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