Week 5
Week in Review
Monday October 30, 2017
It was a blessing as always to all of the men in our Winter ‘18 class as we came together today for our Toastmasters class. This is the time for us to let our funny side show, or our serious side; it is also a time to uplift each other and receive feedback from our fellow classmates. We all want to see each other make it to that next level in life. We want each man to go out better than he came in to prison. As we ended today’s Toastmasters session, you could see the smiles and joy on the men’s faces. It’s always great to come together and be able to laugh and joke around before we go back to our pods and let our joy radiate off us to the rest of the men on the pod.
After a great morning in Toastmasters it was on to the computer lab for the rest of the afternoon to associate with more brothers, which is always great when all of the peer educators go out of their way to be available to help all of us who aren’t proficient with computers. I am with a lot of the other men when it comes to not knowing about computers, but we all still have a good time and when one of us learns something, we always share it with all our brothers.
In PEP we do not want anybody to be left behind – PEP is a true brotherhood and family. I am blessed and honored to be a part of such a great group of men in a great program. When I say this I am sure I speak for all of us. May all of my PEP brothers’ light shine through as we continue to encourage each other.
Alan F. (a.k.a. “Fairy Godmother”)
Tuesday October 31, 2017
I woke up at 5:00 a.m. sharp, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Today is Halloween, a day where we have become custom to costumes and candy. You will not find any “trick or treats” in prison. However, I am truly blessed that I have found something positive out of this prison sentence: the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. PEP is what keeps my brothers and me on our feet. We have been studying for a test on Living in the Village. To our surprise, they switched the test to the names test instead. It’s a test where we get a couple of pages with pictures of all the Phase Two participants, along with a few graduates, and we have to put the person’s first and last names underneath each picture. At the start of class, we felt confident about taking a test on the material we had studied, so to then be blindsided with the names test was frustrating. Someone in a previous class came up with a saying: “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” That’s how it goes I guess. Then we watched our brother Steven M. do his pray out. The three brothers that spoke on his behalf did some kind of train down the aisle to a song. Then we had a couple slide shows about opportunity as well as chapters seven and eight on Living in the Village. After all of the slide shows we got to meet our new in prison management brother, Kevin B. He spoke to us about his journey. I’m looking forward to getting to know him more. This is just a little bit of our everyday living life right, what we in PEP call “living between the wings.”
Brandon F. (a.k.a. “Cuddles Teddy Bear”)
Wednesday November 1, 2017
Today has been a very blessed day. Even though we did not attend class as a whole, we did get to go to computer lab for our designated small groups. Our small groups have helped us to better bond as a class. In the computer class we are working on our business class curriculum assignments, along with the computer lessons they have set up for us. We are learning how to use programs like Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Most of us finished our purpose statements and personal fit assignments today. Those of us who were done got to do market research on WikiTaxi.
All of us have been spending most of our time studying for upcoming test and perfecting our Venture Capital pitches for our event on November 11th. We listen to one another say these pitches from memory, and just about everyone has it down. When everyone was done with computer lab and education for the day, we held a study group. The study group covered chapters 5 and 11 from our Entrepreneurship textbook – we will be testing over chapter five tomorrow. Overall the study session went well. I believe we will do great on the test tomorrow, and everyone in this program has been showing really good servant leader qualities by always stopping to try and make sure everyone understands what we are learning, and if not, taking the time to help us understand. Today has been a very good day and we have PEP to thank for it.
James F. (a.k.a. “Crayola Kid”)
Thursday November 2, 2017
Today is Thursday, also known as test day. John F. Kennedy once said, “We did not choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” For some of us in PEP, this is our moon shot. Our test days are like launch days that prove work has been done. We as a class did an excellent job and passed the test. Our class is really starting to come together as a brotherhood. There is an excitement that builds as the education in entrepreneurship starts to mold the conversations we all have together. I absolutely give the credit to God for allowing us the blessings that PEP has offered us each day. The new ideas of ethical business practices, responsible manhood and marketing strategies that are filling the minds of those in class were taught to us by a really special set of guests while our fearless leader Bert S. has been away on business. The two volunteers are brilliant men of high standards who translated the foreign language of business vocabulary and theory into practical terms we can put into action. Dave S. and Scott H. are experts in the Sales and Marketing aspects of industry. That put us at ease to ask field questions and inspired us as men. The changes are visible in all of us. We support one another, from studying to help on our assignments. Today was another inspirational day in PEP.
Julian C. (a.k.a. “Mr. Chow”)
Expressions
“There is self and there is truth; where self is, truth is not, and where truth is, self is not.”
~ Buddha
Through these words I have been encouraged to sacrifice my own opinions more than I usually do. Through the years that I have been incarcerated the one thing that never seems to fail is hearing grown men engage in heated controversies and foolishly imagine they are defending the truth. In reality, they are merely defending their own petty interests and perishable opinions. Truth being unchangeable and eternal is independent of your opinion and of mine. I have come to realize how chained I am to myself by harboring thoughts of suspicion, envy and pride. I know I have to let these things fall from me in order to grow. I find myself more at peace when I put my judgments and opinions to the side, because with my own thoughts and words I can easily create a lie and call it truth, when in reality I cannot realize truth. With that being said, I strive to humble myself from moment to moment. I also have found that living by this has enabled me to communicate and understand others as well. What has encouraged me the most is how I am able to understand my loved ones by simply letting my own opinion go. Realizing that I am no longer someone continuously defending my own selfish opinions has opened my eyes to how foolish I used to be. We can call it “maturity,” but denying self, daily, will eventually reveal the truth to us all.
Steven G. (a.k.a. “Kelis”)