I should be writing a personal statement for a doctoral program I’m applying to. I should be writing a one-page fluff essay talking about how much my dreams are important to me, how I’d be a good fit for the doctoral cohort, and how much I want to pursue an advanced degree.
During my freshman year, on weekends, I would take the subway from Morningside Heights, looping around 42nd Street and back up to the Upper East Side to work at a newspaper and magazine store owned by the Chois.
The process of creating a book, regardless of the target audience, is deeply involved and requires a plethora of patience and many hours of revisions.
My name is Brian Bomster-Jabs, and I am a Korean Adoptee. I was adopted when I was 5 months old and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. When I arrived, I had a brother waiting for me.
Each time I walk by a dry cleaners in the city and see an Asian couple behind the counter, my chest tightens. And here at my parent’s store on Long Island, where I intend to spend the rest of the day, I start to feel the pressure.
Probably each one of us said it at some point when we were small children. Some of us said it almost every night. Some begged and pleaded. We laughed and giggled and screamed when our pleadings were granted.
I’m a 21 year-old college student living in the Midwest. As the number of years I’ve spent in the States started to catch up to the number of years I’ve lived in Korea, my Korean-ness began to blur.
What’s the worst part about living with a parent who has Alzheimer’s? Their repetition of words and phrases is a simple annoyance, the frailty of their human body is understandable, and their inability to feed themself is predictable.
One summer my wife and I toured half of the Silk Road through China. We were dating then. It was my first time traveling in a guided group—I had always traveled alone, cut off and trying for immersion, which might have been a way of reliving of my adoption.