Speaking of my bio paper...

I was born in the Hospital Garrahan in Buenos Aires on December 19, 1990. I was a complete breech birth and the woman who delivered me, a Buddhist from South Korea, told my mother that it meant I was a bodhisattva- a wisdom being. My parents chose the Korean word 'rae' as my middle name in her honor (although neither can remember what it means) and from time to time they still call me 'little lotus-eater.'

My parents met near Port San Carlos in the Falkland Islands. My mom was there on U-Chicago's photography foreign study program and my dad was stranded. He'd gone as a Baptist missionary intent on converting indigenous peoples through rudimentary hand gestures and drawings. Upon arrival he was surprised to find that the majority of the population not only spoke English, but also already practiced some form of Christianity. Rather than rebound by converting them all to his kind of Christianity, he promptly converted to Sikhism. Upon learning of his transgression the First United Baptist Church withdrew sponsorship and refused to finance his return to the United States. Recently-graduated English major that he was, he couldn't afford the trip himself and so settled down to studying Punjabi and doing freelance landscaping work.
One morning in mid-March my mom rose early and left her host family's home with the Nikon F4 on loan from her local paper. After a few hours of photographing sheep and Magellanic Penguins she wandered towards the seaside to eat her picnic breakfast. As she neared the coast her surroundings became more distinctly boggy and an eerie chanting floated on the cool-ish autumn air.
"Ik oankar sat nam karta..."
Seated on a protruding rock in the middle of a pool of bog water was my dad, now donning a long beard. My mom wondered at how he'd managed to reach his perch without wetting his clothing and determined to wait for him to finish his recitation in order to introduce herself. A full hour passed before my dad opened his eyes to the blond college student seated on the bank across from him.
Did she ever find out how he made it across without wetting his clothes? Well.. I happened about nine months later.

The View from Room 3324

I sleep in a bed where the infirm have lain.
People come to this building to die every day;
I know them in whispers, but also out loud,
"Adult code blue," shouts a voice 'bove the crowd.
From the floor to the ceiling, the walls to the drawers,
everything's muted, everything's pure.
There are no signs of living, no scuffs anywhere
to show that before me lungs have breathed in this air
which is always a-buzz with false lights and machines;
they're muffled by day, but roar when I dream.
I'm alone in this room, save a plant on a shelf
which I scouted, and purchased, and brought here myself.
'Neath the sink there is poison disguised as free food;
it's probably coating the gray baseboards, too.
It feeds roving rodents and gives them their ends;
it kills every insect- it robs me of friends.
'Tween these walls I've seen one face that wasn't like mine:
'twas that of a beetle. Black. Shiny. Divine.
I needed to see it, for its presence allayed
my distrust of a place that can't even sustain
the life of a creature so hardy and small
that it feeds on refuse and resides in a wall.
I stared at the walls and they stared blankly back
so I took up my pen and crayons to distract
my ears from the droning, my eyes from the glare,
and my nose from offensively clean-smelling air.
My fingers have worked words of far-away lands
over and over, 'til my tongue understands
how to say "mirror", "hot", "soap", and "the door"
in Arabic, Spanish, and metaphor.
To each measured meal I add my own spice
of colored creation - imagination - life.
From the stroke of my hand and the edge of my mind
have come to be chickens and children and chimes.
I've visited ghettos, I've looked down on Earth,
I've consoled the downtrodden, I've reveled in mirth.
Truth be told, though I'm stuck here and seldom may leave,
it's not nearly as horrid as you may believe.
In three weeks I've done more than many still free
and I've digested more dreams than many who sleep.
So, friend, do not worry that I feel I'm alone
for I've my mind, and the Web, and books, and my phone.
Sure, ill people come here each day and some die,
but many also come here to bring forth new life.