Week 4
Week in Review
Monday October 24, 2016
Today was a good day to be in PEP. We officially went to our second Toastmasters class today. Everybody read their job descriptions as class began. My responsibility was to be the Grammarian and my PEP brothers respectfully filled up the rest of the positions. The word of the day was “forbear,” and by using it I think we learned what we should refrain from doing or saying. We are still doing the Ice Breaker speeches. It is a really good day for everybody to get to know each other.
As class progressed we realized that we were ahead of schedule, so we were able to fit in a couple of more speeches, making a total of seven speakers. The topic of the day was: what is the first thing you are going to eat when you get out? From listening to people share on the topic, we quickly learned our PEP brothers’ desire to eat free-world food and what their favorite foods were as well. After class a few of my PEP brothers and I decided we would attend the Celebrate Recovery class afterwards. It was the second week in a row that we were doing the inventory worksheet. We learned a lot about ourselves and our PEP brothers in the past two weeks, now that we have done this exercise.
We ended up watching an inspirational video after a brief discussion about inventory. It was about a kid who turned his back on his parents because he wanted to party with his friend, and then he met a girl he was falling in love with. He was torn between change and temptation. At the end he ended up setting matters right with his parents – his father was a preacher – and with God as well. We learned that integrity is a crucial part of life. You have to do the right thing through God’s eyes to have your needs met in life.
David H. (a.k.a. Huggies)
Tuesday October 25, 2016
Today was a good day for all of us in the PEP room. It was fun because you can see the smiles on everyone’s faces. It feels good to see my brothers having fun with each other. We learned a lot from the American History videos we watched. It’s good to see everyone in the classroom standing strong together as a family.
We sang “happy birthday” to some of our brothers. Seeing the smiles on their faces made me feel good because I can see that they were having fun. When we get to the PEP room we all say hi to each other and try to remember each other’s names. We also “pray in” because it’s a blessing to be here. It makes me feel good because I don’t have family like this. We wouldn’t be this strong if we didn’t believe in each other like we do.
We also prayed out some brothers who are going home: Tommy P. and Franck G. chose their closest brothers to pray them out. They said some encouraging words to them in order for them to stay strong and never give up on life because we believe in them. After that we all got together and prayed like a family. That was the end of class for the day.
Jesse D. (a.k.a. Sweet Etch-A-Sketch)
Wednesday October 26, 2016
Today was an easier day for us because we didn’t have any pop quizzes or lectures to worry about. Many of my PEP brothers headed to computer lab. I suspect they will be working on different lessons on how to use Microsoft Word. I feel this is a very crucial skill needed for us to reintegrate back into today’s society, especially in the work place. Just learning the protocol of Windows and the hierarchy of saving files can be a daunting task. Many of my peers have never been exposed to this type of education. Things that seem to be completely normal or part of a daily routine can be absolutely foreign to some of us. These are obstacles PEP looks to conquer in its efforts to lower our chances of returning to prison.
Everyone is really hitting the books right now. We expect to have a test and a pop quiz tomorrow in class. There is a lot of excitement that can be felt during these times. Despite the concern of failing and receiving potential homework, everyone is truly learning about business. We all realize our futures will be brighter because of PEP.
Jaime E. (a.k.a. Sweet Fire Marshall Bill)
Thursday October 27, 2016
Class today was full of new, wonderful and challenging Entrepreneurship experiences. There are numerous assignments that are due, such as Logos, market research requests for business plan advisers. That is aside from our two- to three-minute pitches that we have to prepare for. We have to have them memorized by our Venture Capital Panel (VCP) event which is on November 12th. To ensure that we are developing accordingly, we are asked to recite our pitches to five different people every day until the 12th. Not only that, but we also have to get signatures to ensure that we recited our VCP pitch. Two signatures must be from previous graduates and three have to be from our classmates.
Of course, today is Thursday and that means one thing: it’s test day. Today we took a test on chapter three which went over the art, science and process for successful entrepreneurship. It was basically explaining the groundwork for business. The test covered subjects like generating business ideas, skills analysis, initial analysis, gap analysis and business risk. Our class average was a 95, and based on the looks of our faces it is safe to say that we were happy.
Brian T., our instructor, has a reputation for being very thorough with his presentations. The presentation over chapter four was no exception. As the session ended there was a high level of professionalism expressed throughout the entire classroom. Everywhere you looked you saw people shaking hands as if in a meeting. Everyone had the proper grip, eye contact, two shakes up and down and let go; we had textbook handshakes. When I say everything glowed with professionalism I also mean the conversations. It seems that every conversation revolved around business pitches. When we sit and reflect,we can’t help but feel grateful, thankful and excited to be one step closer to being a better father, son, husband, friend and entrepreneur.
Larry F. (a.k.a. Sweet Forehead)
Expression
I woke up this morning thanking the Lord for helping me become a better man and for giving me the opportunity to meet my brothers in the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. This past Saturday we had a great event, as TCU students came to help us by giving us advice for our business plans. Our special guest was Dr. Garry D. B., whose picture is in our Entrepreneurship books. He gave us words of encouragement and told us he has taught in many countries. We also gave him a sweet name: Sweet Colonel Sanders, which he was happy with.
Tomorrow is Brian T.’s birthday, and I can’t wait to see him dance down the middle aisle and all our PEP brothers sing him “Happy Birthday.” Brian T. is a great man who has a lot of patience in teaching us everything we need to know to start our businesses. I hope that by the time we graduate he won’t be calling me Adrian; he always gets confused with my name, but I am not going to call him old because he can do up to 50 diamond push-ups in one set.
I can’t wait to tell our families how blessed we are by coming to this program. God has a purpose for every single one of us – we are not here by mistake, and this is our true second chance. Mothers, sisters, wives and friends will see the difference in our lives. PEP is not easy; it gets stressful with all the studying, chapter after chapter, assignment after assignment. Today was my first day of recreation since we started Phase Two, and I don’t know when I will go to rec again, but believe me, it’s worth every minute of our hard work and dedication to become successful in life. God bless my family for still believing in me.
Roel G. (a.k.a. Sweet Tele Tubby)