A few links:

• Mamacita hosted last week’s Carnival of Education and invited me along for the ride. Thanks a million.
• The Latino Alumni Network of Syracuse University’s website is live (yes, I used Thesis).
• A mathematical equation for procrastinators? I’ll read about it later.
• Would you like a piece of the corporate bailout pie? Just fill in this nifty form. I couldn’t get through it, but maybe you can.
• Charles Schultz really took politics and identity to a whole new level in his comics. Acephalous explains how.

Last night, I went to the Nativity Mission Center’s Alumni Happy Hour. Besides winning tickets to In The Heights in a raffle, I also had the pleasure of seeing many alumni that were once camp counselors of mine and who I was also a camp counselor for. I also saw the immortal Fr. Jack Podsiadlo, the Nativity’s godfather. One of my fellow alum blew up my spot and mentioned I had a blog. For some reason, I still have a hard time with telling people I have a blog (though once I get started, it’s hard for me to stop).

The same alum later on in the night mentioned how proud he was of me because of the lack of voices like mine, a Black Latino from the Lower East Side of NYC. Those are all part of my tagline, and I’m proud to represent that. More than anything, though, I write because I know how many people can identify with that voice, and have such a lack of representation. We have enough e-thugs, love / sex philosophers, and gossip-entertainment bloggers trying to monetize. Yet, in spite of the incremental growth of this writing, people like me are still a rarity, and I only really grasped that last night.

I’m just happy to be doing what I’m doing, even as my writing’s audience is starting to reach a critical mass.

Jose, who has TONS of work to do …