Now that I've had time to recuperate from the weekend's festivities, I'm happy to say that last weekend's Murfreesboro Community Action Summit was a SUCCESS!!! Everything went to plan, every section had live, productive, and meaningful dialogue, and everyone left with a heightened awareness of the current state of the community and what more needs to be done in the near future.

All the stress and time was definitely worth it, and I most certainly will do more events in the near future. Look out Murfreesboro, Knoxville, Nashville, Memphis, and other areas....Stephen J. Smith is coming!!!

It's the beginning of a new school week, which means another opportunity to inch towards my academic goal of a 4.0...looking at things as a whole, it seems difficult. However, I'm taking a "one assignment at a time" approach. That should keep the stress down thoughout the semester.

A lot of progress has been made thus far with my community summit planning, too. It should be a huge success. The major part left to address is promotion, and thanks to the great supporting cast known as my family, a plan is already in place to handle that with ease. Coming from someone who has ALWAYS preferred to work alone, I now have an even greater understanding of the benefits of working within a TEAM!!!