Argentina, School, and Social Media

I officially received the Gilman scholarship today! I am completely accepted and ready to go to Argentina. CIEE, PSU, and Gilman each had their respective series of hoops to jump through. It’s done now! I’m ready. The only thing left is official permission from my judge.

This quarter is fairly difficult. Also I am free so I want to do everything and go everywhere. I have competing priorities but I’m finding balance. I’m working on not getting stressed out. I am prioritizing going to CrossFit, which though it takes an hour somehow adds MORE time to my days. I’m also just clearing out my schedule. Sparse it down, do less. It’s so paradoxical that we try to squeeze so much life into our lives that we end up missing out on life.

I’ve been doing periodic social media detoxes. The more homework I have left to do the more likely I am do delete Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook off of my phone. When they’re gone my life does not feel diminished, I’m not sure why I ever add them back. I somehow missed out on a mass incarceration event put on by the OJRC and hosted at PSU—that wouldn’t have happened had I been on Twitter more. I derive sick pleasure from watching people’s Instagram stories. But are those two benefits worth the cost? TBD.

I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like. I wrote so many scholarship essays I burnt myself out. Then immediately I became inundated with assigned readings squeezed in between weekend mini-vacations. What a beautiful life I have to complain about.

Thanks, Prison

Today I got a job as a medical interpreter. This is despite three felonies and an ankle monitor. My life feels like it’s coming together, as if all the pieces had somehow exploded out and scattered but are now drifting toward me again. I am attracting them all back. The ripples of the stones I have cast are coming back upon me in waves of positivity.

I went straight from my Spanish for Social and Legal Services class, where we watched some introductory videos on how to interpret, to my orientation for interpreting where I watched some of the same material. The the office of the interpreting agency is the same building as Lifeworks, where up until a couple months ago, the Bureau of Prisons mandated me to go monthly for drug treatment.

I’ve been clean now around four years, so long that my memories from my addiction don’t even feel like me. I’m a fundamentally different person today. But I’m being punished actively for something distant that I no longer feel a connection to. I think again about drug crimes and what their level of traditional “criminality” truly is.

When you think criminal, what image does it conjure? Does it conjure 24-year-old me, drowning in grief, using large amounts of heroin, actively trying to inject every last dollar of mom’s life insurance, praying for death, sleeping most the day, not showering or even leaving my apartment? Conspiracy to distribute heroin, according the US government’s interpretation. The next time you hear that someone has been sentenced to “conspiracy”, please reframe this in your mind. More than half the time “conspiracy” is some variation of my own story. Conspiracy is a catch-all phrase applied broadly that ensnares people whose only crime is being a drug addict who hangs out with other addicts.

Being a drug addict wasn’t always a crime, and when it wasn’t, there was little connection between addiction and other forms of crime. I see stories of drug busts and I’m filled with a sense of futility.

But thanks, prison. I can acknowledge the futility and the heinousness while still being grateful for the unexpected opportunities I created for myself in that place. My federal sentence taught me more than I would have learned in my lifetime. I speak Spanish, I enjoy public speaking, I lead a healthy lifestyle, and I’m a medical interpreter. All thanks to you, Dublin!