Author: Haven Buechner Page 1 of 3

Week 4:

I didn’t get to talk with Kalia today, but she cried when I popped in to wish her a happy birthday. It was yesterday; she’s sixteen now. I wish I would’ve asked to hug her, but I was scared that the staff would say no. I wish I had brought her treats.

I couldn’t hear the name of the guy I talked to today, but he was so much like me. He played basketball and football and was good at both sports. He won a championship in football and lost a championship in basketball, then came back and won it the next year. He said some losses were lessons, which stood out to me. “When you lose, you learn and you fight not to lose again.” He mentioned offhand that I must be wondering how he got here if he played all the sports and he just said he made some bad decisions. He was so smart, but I could tell he was emotionally intelligent too, and he had a big heart. His favorite meal is pork chops with rice and his mom made it for him once after a bad day. He is such a family person, and he really loves her and cares about her. He instantly picked out that family meant a lot to both of us, so I think he is a good quick judge of people. He was soft-spoken but he kept the conversation going. He was a good person. I’m so sure of that. And he’s had his losses but he’s learning from them with an athlete’s determination, but also an athlete’s patience (endurance?). He loves love songs, and his favorite is one of his mom’s favorites, by Nelly and Kelly something (I couldn’t find it). His dad raised him on the classics: Biggie, Tupac, and Keyshia Cole, but also SZA, Youngboy, and others. He loves a beat, he loves the soft words. but he also loves music for a mood. He sang in elementary school because his choir teacher was encouraging and made him want to do it, but in middle school, he only wanted to do sports. Nobody encouraged him to sing, plus other people believed it wasn’t cool, or respectable, or socially acceptable. So he stopped. I don’t know if he regrets that decision, but I think he said that he wishes he hadn’t made his decision based on what other people thought. I asked him what this place needs and he said to listen to my heart and whatever we think is best, if we really think about it, will be good. He said they will be grateful for anything and everything we give them. But now I want to do something worthy of him, and I’m not sure that we’ll be able to.

Week 3 Reflection

In Haven

Week 3:

I was with Kalia again. She’s going to be here until March 15. The other girl we were with didn’t speak English and we had a translator device. At first it was way too loud. They tried to make it say bad words and they giggled the whole time. The other girl’s going to be in here until she’s twenty. Kalia fell off her bike once and the handlebar stabbed her in the chest. Her heart stopped and she had to go to the hospital. They’re not allowing her to go back to her family; she’s going to a group home. I can’t imagine what that must be like for her, because I know she loves her family, regardless of whatever it is that she hasn’t shared about them that made the state believe that’s not a safe place for her. The other girl told a story about guns and being afraid but the translator didn’t get it. She also said she was in a fight and fell and everyone laughed at her. I should really improve my Spanish. Mostly they giggled and talked crap and at one point, Kalia said, “Well, you didn’t *snorrrt* when you were young,” and asked her how she got her illegal substances. Luckily, we were able to redirect the conversation back to the movies. My main thought from today is that these girls have been through awful things. They’re not perfect—far from it—but they were giggling and being kids tonight. And yeah, the humor wasn’t innocent, but they can’t really afford to be. Neither were they allowed to be.

Week 2 Reflection

In Haven

Week 2:

Kalia wanted to be a doctor. Not the kind of doctor that she met this week though; he was mean to her, the female sheriff, and her dad. She said she saw her stepmom and started crying when her stepmom called her Baby, like she was young. She doesn’t know who her real dad is but she asked her mom and her mom didn’t know (although I thought her mom died, based on what she said last week?) and she’ll see them on Friday (dad and stepmom). She doesn’t want to be here next week because the doctor’s physical was all that needed to happen and it didn’t work out. Also, she almost got bitten by a shark! After some Google sleuthing based on the words “grandmother,” “arm,” and “august 2022,” I found out that the event actually happened—a grandmother saved her grandson from being bitten but got bitten on the arm herself in Myrtle Beach, SC. Kalia watched it happen and I don’t know how that didn’t traumatize her forever. Her stepmom made the fin symbol but she thought it meant dive; her dad yelled “shark” and raced into the water. She wants to go to Dubai someday because of the water and the atmosphere. We also talked a lot about superpowers. We agreed that we would have the superpower of photographic memory for school. Even if we only had the power for 24 hours, we could just read every textbook we could during that time so we could remember forever. She wanted to be a doctor because her aunt had diabetes that somehow led to having a hole in her foot (is that the truth? Can that happen from diabetes?) and Kalia did the gauze and everything for her. She watched herself get stitches and was fine (fourth finger, right hand, I don’t know why). We also talked about if we could tell people were lying. She said having that superpower might end her back up here. She has instincts, she says, and she can tell usually, but it would be nice to know for sure and almost read minds. We decided it might be nice, but it’s also probably best not to know because it would really hurt sometimes. She will be really sad and mad if she has to spend her birthday in this place. I hope, for her sake, she’s gone. Just in case, I think I want to bring stuff for her if I can the next few times because I’ve realized how many choices I have. I can do anything, but she’s stuck here. She wants to help people; she’s sweet but also has a steel spine and I know that. She’s had some really traumatic things happen to her and yet she and I breathe the same air, for an hour a week. There were roaches in the place, apparently, some several inches long. We both don’t like bugs, except ladybugs.

Week 1 Reflection

In Haven

I’m posting my reflections to the blog so I can have a URL for the final project!

Week 1:

We met with two girls today. One of them was really talkative, and she had so many stories to tell. I found it interesting that she instantly went to stories about the police. I think that’s pretty telling, as far as what that means about the impact the police had—and have—on her community. She loves to play basketball and wants to visit New York someday. She told a story about a time she left home with a knife and was just walking around after dark when she was approached by the police. The officers escalated the situation, but one thing that shocked me a little was the phrase “By this point I had the knife out,” which she included as an aside. I can’t tell if she was tased or not. Kalia, the other girl, loves singing and sang at her mom’s funeral- gospel songs. She once was chased by her brother with a BB gun and he shot out her tooth. When they went to the doctor, the police asked her who did it and she said herself to protect him. The other girl threw rocks at people who made fun of her brother and laughed while she told us. She told it in a funny way, but for me, that would have been so traumatic. I guess that’s my biggest takeaway from tonight—the way they used humor to soften the impacts of these extremely traumatic events and the way the events seem normalized.

Discussion Ideas

On April 19, 2024

A quote that stuck with me from the three chapters was, “We take prisons for granted but are often afraid to face the realities they produce. After all, no one wants to go to prison. Because it would be too agonizing to cope with the possibility that anyone, including our selves, could become a prisoner, we tend to think of the prison as disconnected from our own lives.” I think something about this quote juxtaposed with the experience of going to the detention center for an hour or two on Tuesday nights in a way that felt like it was a break from reality is very telling. Before this class, I didn’t give prisons a moment’s thought beyond a vague sense of agreement that they were necessary. But just like anything, once it became personal, I was forced to reexamine my connection to the prison system. We’re compelled to reckon with our previous state of oblivious meandering, but at the same time, I think the main takeaway from this quote should not be self-introspection. Yes, the experience of working with these kids helped me realize how uneducated I previously was, but beyond that, it revealed some major flaws in the justice system that are not okay. I think a lot of times, especially in the media, these kids are either romanticized or vilified; the headlines are always “The Group That Made Blankets For the Poor Kids in the Jail” or “We Need to Crack Down on Teen Crime.” But as a society, we need–we need–to realize that these kids don’t exist to fit into one of our little think-piece narratives. They’re human, and they’re going through some awful and traumatic experiences that nobody deserves to go through.

It would also be interesting to discuss the Alabama governor’s quote from chapter two: “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In a more covert, shoved-under-the-rug way, that idea has survived until the 21st century in the fabric of the criminal justice system, right? What are your thoughts about that? How was society able to convince us that it was good, that it made the world safer? What strategies do we see the people in power using to keep that belief in place?

Prep Note 11/28

On November 27, 2023

I collected a few different stories from my grandparents, but unfortunately, not all of them were school-appropriate. (This was pretty surprising to me, because they’re very formal people.) I stayed in Virginia for Thanksgiving with my grandparents, and I didn’t see any of my siblings over the break, so I didn’t get any crazy stories either – but I did hear a story about Thanksgiving when my dad was young! When my dad was little, the family had a dog named Chanel. Chanel was relatively small, and usually very meek and mild-mannered, although she did enjoy rooting around in the trash occasionally. After Thanksgiving dinner one year, somebody set the turkey on the counter, and everyone went to another room. What they hadn’t counted on was Chanel’s remarkable balance – she had such good balance that she could walk on her hind legs and see over the table. Chanel dragged the turkey to the corner of the table, and then jumped up on it, flipping the platter and sending it crashing to the ground. Turkey was everywhere, the platter shattered, and my grandmother rushed back into the kitchen. She was more upset about her platter breaking than losing the turkey, and Chanel was rushed out of the room before she could eat any of it. My grandmother said the whole event was reminiscent of A Christmas Story. I’ve never seen it, though, so I’ll have to take her word for it!

Prep Note 11/9

On November 6, 2023

I listened to several Moth stories, and I really enjoyed the way they felt conversational, and personal, and intimate, in a way. As a viewer, I felt a closer connection to the storytellers that I listened to then, say, the author of a book. I’m sure we’ve all had an experience where a text message was misunderstood or came off in a different way than it was intended to because of a lack of subtext, right? With oral storytelling, a lot more of that subtext is able to be conveyed, so oral storytelling can examine the constructs/conventions of human interaction and dialogue, in addition to the story that is being told. The reaction of an audience in the recording shifted the viewer experience from an individual experience to a more collective experience, which was interesting. The storytellers told stories from their own lives, and often, additional meaning could be found in the way those storytellers chose to tell their story. The same story could be told with a funny, self-deprecating, dramatic, or tragic interpretation, but the way that the author chooses to tell the story can be important and meaningful to both the storyteller and the audience.

Prep Note 10/31

On October 30, 2023

One thing I noticed from reading Persepolis was Satrapi’s confusion, acceptance, confidence, and naivete during her very discordant childhood. It was so interesting to read about the conflicting narratives that society was telling Satrapi, and her reaction to each of them. She noticed the differences between her home narrative and her educational narrative, but for the most part, she believed the story that her parents told her, rather than forming her own opinion. She didn’t know the entire story – all the facts – and yet, she was confident in her thoughts. She went and protested in the streets, even though she didn’t know the extent of the danger of protesting. That was interesting to me, because it seemed like she was pretty worried about her father’s safety on a couple of occasions, but she also seemed to feel extremely confident in her own safety.

Prep Note 10/24

On October 23, 2023

One of the first things I wondered was how long to make each of the essays. Is there an emphasis on one over the other, or should one be longer? I’m also not quite sure how to quote myself, or what the thesis should look like for the first essay. I’m not sure what my claim should be – is the idea that I’m arguing that I’ve become a better writer? And if so, is that looking at syntax or feel? Am I picking out early rougher writing and presenting more polished recent writing to show that I’ve improved? And again, if so, should I show improvement in the style of my writing or the focus or something else? Am I looking for a way to show how I improved my writing skills, or should I find a moment where writing helped me learn something about the world or myself?

Also, how should we use first person/third person? Since we’re quoting ourselves, are we allowed to use “I?” And how should we interact with that? Should it be more of a rhetorical analysis or a self-reflection?

Class Reflection 10/19