Just read an email from 1 of my professors and it's definitely starting to look like we will be workin with the Creative Writing club at a local high school...From what their teacher has told us, she's trying to break them out of their timidity right now and get them to open up and get teach them how to put their soul on paper (my words not hers) in hopes of maybe setting up an exhibition at the end of the school year...I believe all of them are interested in performance poetry, so that takes a burden off our shoulders as far as experience goes...

So instead of doing the homework I have due this week, what have I been doing? I've been browsing lesson plans and gathering ideas on how to direct this program and get it where it needs to be...I'm thinking that we may start them off reading pieces from other authors in order to get them in the performance mindset...Once the taste for performance has been established, I want to get them comfortable with exposing themselves & their thoughts as well as finding inspiration in day-to-day things via Found Poetry...I haven't worked out all the details as of yet, but with the major tasks of performance and creativity established/practiced, it's a matter of honing those skills and tailoring them to each students personal fit...

I can't tell you enough how excited I am for this opportunity...Outside of the students, this gives me experience with what I want to do once I begin teaching as an occupation...Quite frankly, this might even help me land a job elsewhere once I finish my degree...Any advice/suggestions/ideas are most definitely welcomed...This is a project I cannot wait to begin...

When I start writing a piece, it's pretty much all I can think about until it's finished...Poetry, and any creative writing, should be soulful...It represents your very self on a page and, as such, kinda requires some bit of your spirit to bring it to life...And for that reason, I become so emotionally invested in any poem I'm working on, that I tend to neglect other obligations like homework...

There is a balance, but it's in no way easy...Just putting it down when I need to work on other things just doesn't cut it...To do that, I'd have to "stop caring", so to speak, about that poem for at least a few hours so that I can focus on said obligations...But what type of bond can you really make when you turn on/off your heart? Sounds a little corny, but it's true...That back and forth of heart takes away from the flow and makes the end result rather choppy and aloof...Cuz of that, I tend to write most of my pieces in one shot...I might tweak a line here and there after I'm done, but generally speaking: Once I start the first line, I won't stop writing/building until I've ended the last...Only a few time recently I've had to start/stop, but those are the ones that take me longer to finish...I have to spend time recapturing the sentiment that started the work in the first place...like a train of thought...

My short story assignment is due in a couple weeks and I had planned to finish it by this weekend...Honestly, I was supposed to finish it by last weekend, but I've met a little of a block in the flow...So today, I've been writing, but moreso looking for my mood to do it right...I've been haunting YouTube all day watching clips of Brave New Voices and other slam competitions...And the sentiment really started to grow on me that I miss home...

But it wasn't really so much home as it was just the culture of home...I tend to write with more diversity in the city...There are more people to vibe off of, more interactions to observe, more life happening at any given point in time and space...Here, everything is spread out and far away, you leave your house with a purpose and go back right afterward; the irony of the suburbs is that there's no room for "everything else"...That's why I spend a lot of time on campus when I'm not in class...If i'm not on the plot, then I'm at the student union, listening, watching, and feeling everybody out...But even then, there's not a lot of variation...It's the same talk, the same concerns, and there really isn't any depth to it all...Undergrads tend to only really worry about classes and gossip, it's the sign of today's youth...I'm tired of writing love poems and the superficial...There are some gems and thought-provokers that pass through the halls, there's the occasional talk of current events and social commentary...Those are the one that I come around for looking for inspiration, but they're few and far between...

Back home, back in San Fran, and back in Philly there's a better cross-section of global variety...It's more complex, it's Chaos, and I love it...Chaos, to me, is the pinnacle of Freedom...There's no box to try to fit into, no constructs to conform to, there is no standard other than choice...Here, people watch what they say and do; there, folks are too busy being true to themselves and minding their business to worry about whether you, or they, fit or not...People like The Naked Cowboy are hardly considered bizarre back home, but here, he probably couldn't last a month...I like it here, but I love it there...