Hey all,

Today's blog is a little more personal than usual.  Here goes:  Shout out to Tom and Praveen for helping me.  I had a blogdiggidity day trying to figure out my computer problems 13 days before my book is due.  They devoted their personal time to help me.  THANKS!

Next: last night I attended the annual meeting of  College Readiness 21, a college prep program in my town.  http://www.wficweb.org/3.html

They had some incredible poets in the house who gave an unforgettable performance/instruction based on the campaign to end violence.  If you are not aware, Milwaukee ranks highly (poorly) for teen pregnancy, violence, reading levels, incarceration and more.  I love everything about my great city, except that stuff.  You can't ignore it.  The poets walked us through an exercise to "flood the hood with dreams" and a "truth is" writing exercise which opened up a lot of emotions.  To see men in business suits next to inner-city students, writing rapidly to capture their thoughts, was one of the most strange and inspirational situations in which I have contributed.  I immediately saw the connection to my book and the first phase of scholarship preparedness which is "Dream." 

Here is the flood the hood with dreams myspace page:  http://profile.myspace.com/floodthehoodwithdreams