Back to Work

Today is my second day at TRU, the medium security unit where I have been moved for this year. You may think, Wow, great, that's gotta be better then being in Maximum, but you would be wrong, oh so wrong. This is the sex offender unit, woohoo. Not all of the guys here are sex offenders. However, we have the only SOTP (Sex Offender Treatment Program) in the state, so we get them all. So far it is much more layed back here than in Maximum, though. On an interesting note, I have a deaf student and a sign languageg interpreter, and my task is to teach him to read. Think about that. How do you teach a deaf person to read? Normally, phonics is how I teach reading. Sounding out words that you don't know. It he doesn't know a word, he cannot sound it out. He has been deaf since birth, so doesn't know sounds. Reading for him has to be all memorization. Seeing a word, having the interpreter sign what that printed word is, and memorizing it. Sheesh. This will be interesting.

Happy Labor Day!

On the ferry just now, Kory decided he was going to start telling people happy labor day. That's funny to me. Like, Happy Memorial Day! Happy Presidents day! Nice. We just got back from sitka, where we sucked some royal ass at softball. Only half our original Whitehorse team made it, and where we took first in Whitehorse at Dustball, I am fairly sure we took last at Mudball, though we refused to check because we just didn't want to know. We had a very good time, though, and most certainly took first place in the "team that drinks the most" competition. I have one week left til I return south the real world of traffic and work.

In that prison work department, I just found out that instead of teaching in Maximum this year, I will be teaching in medium--which while that may sound better to most of you, in reality, medium is where SOTP is--the Sex Offender Treatment Program. Sweet. Now that is really a fantastic staffing change. Kudos to stupid administration decisions.