Power to the People!

Coming home from a great talk and discussion of the new Constitution of the Revolutionary Communist Party to find that the electric company has cut off your power because you don’t have any money to pay the bill pretty dramatically underscores the urgent need for a fucking revolution…

UPDATE - 3pm - Still no power, and the bullshit gets even worse. I go out to my car to drive over to my college to find out about the writing job, get my books for my classes, and use some power and Internet access to find a notice from the Secretary of State informing me that my license plates were revoked because the check my parents sent them bounced. And at the college I found out that there has still been no decision from HR on the job, so more likely than not I won’t be getting the job.

UPDATE - 10:30pm - Ah, blogging by vanilla-scented candlelight on my iPhone in a house with no power… My friend Wendell really looked out for me this afternoon, came up to the college and drove me to my parent’s bank to pick up the money my grandpa in Tennessee wired us to pay the electric bill, and we attempted to pay it at the ComEd location my dad told me to go to - except they didn’t accept payments there. Besides, they stop turning on cut-off power service at 3pm. So my parents were later able to make it to a location in Waukegan to pay the bill, but the power won’t be turned back on until tomorrow (hopefully!).

Had a good discussion with him though, and got to catch up on some Internet shit and charge my laptop and phone at the college. Plus I inquired about the writing job again, and it just looks like HR isn’t even going to review my application before the class and job starts, so I probably won’t be getting the job. Seems kind of ridiculous - my English professor recommended me for the job, the people running the writing center wanted me to have the job, but due to my prison past and HR not reviewing the application, I’m probably not gonna get the job.

Mmm, it’s raining outside - maybe I’ll go out and feel the rain on my skin after writing.

Anyhow, if I don’t get the job, I’ll be doing the Computer Science class, which is the entire purpose that I’ve wanted to goto college for in the first place. Plus it will complement my need to get much more seriously into some iPhone software development with my corporation. Maybe I can actually make some money, and if I get off parole in December then I can move to Chicago and get my life started and do a lot more revolutionary work.

And I bought my books for class, which “only” cost $279 - which financial aid paid for and is actually the cheapest amount I’ve paid for books in a full semester.

My dad is supposed to pay the money for my license plates tomorrow. It’s actually good that I got that notice in my driveway instead of being stopped in Chicago or having it happen when my friend was using my car to move. Wow, yeah, that would have been fucked up.

The light from these two candles and the light from my neighbor’s porch light coming in through the window actually isn’t too bad. It’s a little hot without a/c and my fan, but the rain may hopefully cool things off a bit. Plus I’m gonna go run outside in the rain when I’m done writing.

Ha, I remember being in cells in prison with no lights, electricity, or water. And definitely no fan or a/c in much hotter weather than this. One time in seg in Stateville when I had a celly, we rolled up newspapers and used them as torches. Another time in seg in Stateville, after I got in a fight resisting that officer, I was in a cell with a broken lightbulb smashed on the floor, the water turned completely off, and a bunch of pepper spray on the floor - one of the Latin Folks in a cell across from me sent me a styrofoam tray of water under the cell door on a line. Haha, he also sent some weed and a joint across on that line too But I really needed that water.

I think I’ll go outside and run in the rain, or maybe work out with my dumbbells in the rain, then come back inside and read some George Jackson by candlelight.

UPDATE - 8/22/08 2:30pm - Well, we now have power again, and my dad supposedly paid the license plate thing, so things are a little better now than the past 3 days. If I would have had those candles the first night it would have helped…

The writing tutor lunch/orientation was this morning - no call on the job and I didn’t go. I suppose its still theorectically possible I could get a decision in the next week, but I’m not too optimistic. Considering I need to make some money, its probably better for me to take the Computer Science class and do some development on the iPhone, focus my energies there. It just seems rather curious to me, that a college would chalk up the delays in processing an application to just “being too busy” or something. A Human Resources department exists for the purposes of reviewing applications and contributing to making decisions about hiring etc. Furthermore, colleges run on pretty standard, repeating schedules. So for my application to simply “not have been looked at” before the semeseter starts doesn’t seem like a realistic or valid reason why I’m not getting the job. Do they generally just “not get to” reviewing applications for positions that need to be filled every semester at the college? I highly doubt that. If so, that seems to be a fundamental flaw in the operations of their HR department. And I don’t see a visible lack of positions being filled at the college. Whether its consciously or overtly related to my prison past, that has definitely been a factor. I can’t completely say that the entire reason that I’m not getting the job is because of that, but if my English professor recommended me and the Director of the Writing Center wants me to have the job, I find it rather hard to believe that simply some bureaucratic inability to process the application and paperwork I submitted over a month before the semester starts is the reason I’m not getting the job.