In fact, I'm softer than I've ever been, including that unfortunate semester in high school when I simultaneously discovered Krispy Kreme and pot.
It was helpful to have the confidence of youth that came from a lack of desperation. I thought, 'If I don't succeed, I'll go back to school and study.'
Once I took a bus from my home in Maryland to Philadelphia to live on the streets with some musicians for a few weeks, and then my parents sent me to boarding school at Andover to shape me up.
So are all the kids on the East Coast repeating school next year? Get ready to see a lot of hairy eighth graders. Storm brain drain.
I actually happened to be in Haiti right before the earthquake in 2010. I was there already with the organization I work with now, Artists for Peace and Justice, visiting the primary school that I had adopted, the Academy for Peace and Justice in Port-au-Prince. I came back, and within days, the earthquake happened.
