"So far, I Haven't Met Any Chumps, Knock On Wood."

I’m organizing an account of my adventures in Australia in response to all your requests. It’s taking some time. And it’s gonna happen. Stick with me here.

But in the interests of providing hilarious and fascinating content on a semi-daily basis, I’m starting a semi-regular series from my friend Clarence. Clarence is beginning his career as a history teacher in a juvenile correctional facility here in Virginia. Just like me, he is not lying…for real.

Started this week, and it is absolutely insane. Insane. I'm just
training right now, which is cool cause they're paying me to do it,
which makes it boring and lucrative. But all this self defense shit
is worthless, cause if I see some kid all heated and ready to explode,
I'm leaving the room. Last thing I'm gonna do is tangle with a
convict, fuck that. I've sat in on a couple of classes and it is
nuts. The kids speak only in profanity. You gotta hear it to believe
it, but they only express themselves by the different inflections of
basic swearing. I mean like somebody will say something like
"Bullshit, motherfucker. Fucking fuck that asshole. Cocksucking
bitch ass cunt." See, that's a 10 word sentence, and 9 of the words
are obscene. It's remarkable, really.

But it looks like it might be a lotta fun because of that. The staff
seems really cool, which in my experience in education has been an
impossibility among a group of teachers. But so far I haven't met any
chumps, knock on wood. The hours are great: 7:45-4:15, with an hour
and a half lunch every day. Wednesdays are half days, done at 12. I
say that's great because in the public schools you gotta do all this
bullshit before and after class, and then take all that crap home and
grade it on your own time. None of that here.

Oh, and then there's this money making scam some of the guards do.
They sneak a carton of smokes in on the night shift, which they then
sell to a gang (gangs are a for real problem in the joint) leader for
$5 a cigarette. That's $1,000 a carton. The gang then splits the
smokes in half and rerolls them to make 2 cigs out of one, and resells
those for $5 each. Which would explain why some guards making 21K a year are driving Escalades.

More to come as I get into the classroom.

posted by Jeff Simmermon @ 10:42 AM