The Reality of Time

As I drove home from work today, I thought how much I looked forward to my G.A. meeting this evening and my weekend days ahead. While I'll spend much of the time studying, they will be slower days without feeling as rushed. This sense of "time" is so different than how it felt when I was incarcerated.

Of course there were weekdays and weekends, and there were days, weeks, months, etc. It is just that it all blended in to each other. Living it felt forever and looking back felt like it was no time at all. Now, a day feels like a day, and a week feels like a week. The idea of TGIF works because a weekend truly feels like a weekend.

Last night I had the honor of being able to talk with one of you, a reader of this blog, who is fearing that she may have to face this similar path I've gone down. It's so overwhelming to face it all - all those unknowns - and feel capable of getting through it okay. It comes right back to this issue of time. It's all just one day at a time. If we look at everything that is or may occur, it's a never ending tunnel of time and possibilities and fears. So, keep your focus on today and what you can do just for today. Tomorrow, you will do the same.

It may feel like forever, but for right now, enjoy your Fridays. Enjoy your weekends and your Tuesdays and your September and everything. Don't put yourself into your own prison prior to actually being put in one physically. Whether we have to go to prison or not will be decided at some point down the road, but for now, we have days to live.

Once we are incarcerated, time may have no real meaning. I think that's why we talk things like, "two days and a wake up," or say we are leaving in a month even though 50 days may separate us from when we leave (I.e. It's sept.1 but they leave oct. 24... They would say a month...). Time has no real meaning until you look back.

Here, in the outside world, time has meaning. So make the best of it. Make time for yourself and those you care about. I love that I can sense time in my life once again.

Personal Space

I've recently noticed another change that I don't know to be permanent or not. While I'm still my mostly extroverted self, I actively choose to be more in my own space these days. I like to study alone. I enjoy sitting away from classmates.  I don't even fret about turning my phone off for hours while I'm in school.

Three years ago, when I was started my education program, it took me about two weeks to reach out to five other classmates and start a weekly study group. We would share thoughts on readings, discuss assignments, and support one another through our core courses. 

Now, I find a cubicle on the quiet side of the library, ensuring that no one is right next to me, and quietly I work through my readings and assignments. I have no problem working with groups, yet have no interest in forming any in addition to project groups already set up in classes. I like my independence and enjoy the space it provides me from others.

I can only imagine this must be a direct result of coming out of the overcrowded reality of Carswell. Tonight in class, nearly everyone say on the right side of the classroom. I don't know why. I sat on the left side. I spread my stuff out. I put my bag on the chair next to mine. I didn't use most of it, but I had an entire row to myself. 

I'm not entirely anti-social. A classmate sat in front of me and behind me. We shared comments now and then. I did notice, we all were a bit less distracted by others, though. We also were known by name quicker by our professor. 

I used to want to feel accepted and "part of." Now, I really don't care. There are certainly people I could see being friendly with - which could happen in due time. I don't need it, though. I have amazing people in my life. I'm happy being colleagues with folks. We don't all need to be best friends. 

I am a little surprised though. It is a change of character of sorts. Prison certainly changes us in unexpected ways!

Analytics

Today I received a text from Cache with a screen picture from this blog. She texted, "I guess I'm 59,000..." Wow, 59,000 hits. It's amazing that somehow she happened to be the person that saw the number roll to that even 0-0-0. I remember before I left for Carswell, Cache and I couldn't believe that this site neared 5,000 hits; not it's close to 60,000 a year later.

I want to thank all of you who are daily or frequent readers who for whatever reason, choose to follow this blog and my daily life. It started, honestly, with friends, but through emails and comments I've made new friends and community with people from all over the U.S. and the World. I know that some of you discover this blog through prisontalk, others through loved ones at Carswell, I'm not sure how others have come across it, but I'm glad you've gotten something out of it and have stuck around.

Through google, I am able to see my analytics/statistics on who is reading this blog. Most of you are in the United States, but certainly not all. There are readers from throughout Europe, Russia, Ukraine, Canada, South America, and many other places. Lately, readership in New Zealand has gone up significantly.

Certain blogs also receive much higher readership than others. Some of my posts receive about 25-40 hits, while the average post receives about 60-80 hits. A rare post will receive over 100 hits, with some over 200 and a really rare one (like the first) with over 1,000 hits. I'm a statistics person, so I find all of this fascinating.

On the average day, this blog receives between 150-200 hits. I think that's pretty good for a blog about a random woman going to prison. I'm glad that so many people find something of interest within these posts. 

I write because I love writing, but I write this blog because of all of you and all the people I hope it can help with information, a laugh, empathy, compassion, and community. I am so grateful for every single person who chooses to read even one post on this blog and who tries to do something positive with what they read. 

Thank you all for getting me to 59,000. I do not see that number lightly. You all are part of the community that has supported me through the unknowns of my past year and I will never forget.

💜💜💜

DF Hazel

A Blog and a Vlog

It's kinda strange having a semi-normal life aside from the life that I'm still acclimating away from. I now work, attend classes, have a keychain full of keys, bring home a paycheck (first one soon!), eat Sushi out with friends, take Superdog on walks, workout in my living room, and I have even joined Sporty in starting a vlog. For those of you new to the concept of vlogging, it is kind of like blogging, only with a video camera and uploaded to YouTube. Videos tend to be shorter than 10 minutes in length (unless you are super famous), and just follow your life (unless you have a theme like cooking, comedy, kids, etc... just like blogs). T.S. has been into vlogging for several years and we are joining into it for a little bit of fun and stress relief. When I was young I wanted to be a film maker, now I guess my thoughts are part of the documentary called life documented on YouTube.

Sporty and I just started our YouTube channel and it's we haven't really explored much about our lives yet. We figure that things about ourselves will naturally surface over the course of time, if we decide to keep the vlog going. It's kind of like when you make new friends. You do not announce all your secrets and reveal your past on the first day and in the first 10 minutes (the length of our first video), but rather over time, as things naturally progress that way.

For me, I do not personally feel as if I have anything to hide. I do want to respect the friends and community of T.S. and Sporty who may watch the vlog who do not know my story - as they do not need anyone to judge them for my past or my story. It's always important to keep a balance of ensuring we try to protect those around us - even when we feel as if we no longer need to protect ourselves.

I guess for at least a while, I will be a blogger and a vlogger... as well as a student, a worker bee, a woman on federal supervision, and many other things. I'm glad I have many identities in this world. I have many positive things to offset the negative and I am able to keep my focus on all the good in my life. I am enjoying this new activity called vlogging. I won't claim to be all that photogenic in the lens, but I certainly have a lot of stories to share with the many potential YouTube viewers!

Now, if I could only get myself to start writing that book...

You'd Do That For Me?

I guess prison really did change me. Before I went, I still had fear of authority. Before I went, I would reluctantly walk up to a professor and insecurely tell them my thoughts hoping they'd think them worthy. Before I went, I feared judgement and belonging and looking over my shoulder and complications and enemies and lies and the truth and losing everything and well... I guess I just was full of fear. 

Maybe the biggest change in me is my lack of fear. Today, I do not fear authority. I walked right up to the director of my academic program, talked access to research with him, and he said, "I'm going to look into that for you." I said, "you'd do that for me?" (All that time in prison, I forgot that people in authority roles really do go out of their ways to help others), and I think I made a good collegial relationship with a very important colleague.

Then, I went directly to a female faculty's office that I want to be on my thesis committee, introduced myself, and we are having coffee together next week. I suppose that's how it's all supposed to happen. I feel as if I'm exuding a confidence I never had in the past - even though I know less about the exact subject matter than in the past, I know how to be a researcher and an academic.

I know where I belong. I am excited to know that the research I may be doing could potentially help many women involved in the federal justice system. Wouldn't it be something if all this experience turned out to help me change the lives of accused and/or convicted female offenders? 

I wish I could share some of this happiness and what is happening with my friends back at Carswell. I wonder how they are all doing. Some may have successfully been transferred by now. Others may still be fighting the system. I wonder who is sick and who is getting out. I pray Taz is well. I imagine Lola and Jin are well at the camp. Is it possible that one of Appeals appeals have won? How much longer does Glitter have? Is Nurse and Cali back in California now? Has Mama seen and/or talked to her boys? Did Curls find a new job? Did they figure out what was wrong with Taz? Has my bunky finally been released? So many women cross my mind. I may not be allowed to reach out to them, but that does not mean I forget.

If I could, I'd let them know that I'm doing what I can to make a difference - one day at a time. It's going to take me years for the degree, but my research will hopefully be useful and help women in the future. All I have right now are my prayers. I'll be doing that for you! 

Reading the Research

I'm under an unbelievable crunch this week. In just three short days, I need to turn in my thesis topic, even though I just started my grad program 1 1/2 wks ago. I'm on a bit of an accelerated plan in order to attempt official entry into the jc doctorate program through their applications due this winter. My feminist theory class has me doing my thesis proposal as my paper for her course this semester. Nothing like taking the bull by the horns immediately.

In order to whiddle my many interests down to a research topic, I have been reading relevant existing research and searching available data archives. For the thesis, my goal is to answer my research question utilizing secondary data (or data that already exists for a different purpose) so that I can build upon it with my own research once I am in the multiple year doctoral program. This thesis' goal is to prove I can write, properly utilize research methods, interprets results appropriately, understand limitations, build an appropriate literature review, determine conclusions, and offer avenues for further studies. 

I've been playing with many ideas, but think I'm leaning toward a theory that focuses on early victimization of females and it's possible ties to future criminal activity. I'm specifically looking at connecting it to women and white collar crimes. From what I can tell, there has not been much research done connecting the theory to white collar crimes. I need to figure out, though, if I could somehow review PSI/PSR data in order to find the early victimization data to connect with the women convicted of the big three white collar crimes (embezzlement, fraud, forgery).

My hope is that after the thesis, I can take this all a step further and see if an addiction link is prevalent for white collar female offenders who were victimized and if that addiction preceded their white collar crime.

As I've been researching articles to find similar and informative studies, I've come across some interesting research. One actually quite bothered me as it said that white collar offenses were an effect of being in high standing and refusing to reach out for help - yet so many I know that committed these types of crimes had addictions, were of average standing in their communities, and were to the point of being physically/emotionally/ mentally unable to ask for help. That's a really different thing. So many studies have been done solely on men, and most not on people struggling with addiction. I hope to help fill in that gap.

From what I could initially find, there's only one large study that looked directly at the impact of gambling on white collar crime (all males). The study concluded that gambling increases in cities had no effect on white collar crimes. It's a fairly old study and perhaps it would be worthwhile to replicate it a decade or more later (now). There's a lot of articles about increases in crimes related to drug addiction.

I found only one journal article specific to women and white collar crime. The researchers found that women committed the crimes to feed their family and/or take care of loved ones. Well, those results certainly wouldn't fit most the white collar offenders I knew in Carswell. In fact, most the white collar offenders I knew, actually had no mens rea (criminal intent) at all when offending. They were the "fall gals" for bigger fish, addicted to drugs/alcohol/men/gambling, and/or abused, etc. Sure, there were certainly the desperate, there were also the intentional forgers and the greedy, but they were the rare ones. We all could tell who they were and usually they planned to walk out and go right back to their not so lawful ways. They are career criminals, like so many others. 

I'm curious about the others though. Those who never really saw themselves as making an active choice to commit a crime. Those who at some point lost the ability to make rational decisions or to be the intelligent, capable person they exude themselves to be to the world. If we can find out some insights into why they commit crime, then maybe we can find the alternatives we need for them from the same prisons as those that chose lives of crime.

Maybe my research can be a step in that direction.