I had been in a professional boys' choir, and as a boy soprano, you're aware that your voice has an expiration date.

ACT UP was trying to explain to Americans that AIDS could affect all of us: that health care that ended once your disease was expensive could affect more than gay men with HIV or AIDS. We were trying to tell them about the future - a future they didn't yet see and would be forced to accept if they failed to act.

My singing voice had rescued me from the scene I was in at school - I was an unpopular, bookish kid who had an indeterminate ethnic background. I became fascinated with women sopranos because they had a future that I didn't as a singer.

The best relatively contemporary portrayal of a courtesan that I've ever seen was probably in 'Children of Paradise,' a film that was made during the Nazi occupation of France, made in secret actually.

I was fortunate to have many teachers who encouraged me - one of the first was Dianne Derrick, my 5th grade teacher at Woodbury Elementary. She challenged us to write creatively and praised my work, but most importantly, she treated writing like it was important.

Latinos care about education, yes, so we need reform, not just money.

And I found out, the other part of it is that I found out and in my desire to life successfully, that baseball fit very well into my life. It's been a great teacher, trainer, mentor and you'll see what I mean in the next few minutes that I have to speak.

I've noticed that my resolutions involve me not doing stuff that I wasn't going to do anyway so here's something more positive. I'm going to retrain as a Latin teacher in a provincial public school.