Days of My Life

Hello, welcome to my web site! My name is Michael Hyun Park, and I was born on April 22, 1975, which makes me Taurus and Rabbit, in Seoul, South Korea. As of 2005, I reside in Beaverton, Oregon.

I first came to Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S., on February 2, 1988, when I was 13 years of age with my parents and an older brother who’s still there now with his own family. Back then, I didn’t speak a word of English, because I was homeschooled by my mother mainly for Korean language and simple mathematics. Because I’ve secondary form of Early-Onset Generalized Dystonia, which many physicians thought was Cerebral Palsy until late ’90s, I couldn’t attend school. There was one “special” school for children with general disabilities, but my parents decided not to send me there for some reason.

After a few months in U.S., I was placed in Jefferson Elementary School Orthopedic Unit which then was a small section of the school for students with disabilities and focused more on physical and orthopedic therapies rather than on academics; however, it was quite the opposite for me as I graduated in just 3 years. By that time, I was able to communicate fairy well without too much difficulties thanks to one of my teachers who had me write diaries the first thing in the morning. At first, I could only write a few lines; after a few months, however, I was writing pages in complete and proper sentences. At the same time, however, I was too old to attend an intermediate school as I was already 16 by then.

Therefore, they decided to send me directly to Kaimuki High School where I graduated in 1995 with an Honors at 24th place. This is where I learned about life, love and friendship although I didn’t have many. Like many others, I had my first crush in my freshman year which lasted all the way until sometime after I graduated. The subject of my crush was on a Vietnamese girl who volunteered to help when my aide was absent. An infatuation is merely just that and nothing more, because my real heart belonged to someone else, which I didn’t know until it was too late. We are still friends after all these years, though I wish the circumstance was a little different. Unfortunately, it can never be different because of my reality.

Anyway, I had a good experience in my senior year. The school elected me as a peer counselor, so I was trained for about 3 months to help out fellow students with their career choices as well as personal problems. After a few months into the program, however, my Dystonia started to act up. For about 4 months thereafter, I couldn’t attend school at all, so they had my aide send me assignments for me to do from home. And through this program, I learned that my personality type was ISFJ which many other online tests have validated over and over again.

I wasn’t going to attend the graduation, because I still wasn’t doing all that well, but that Vietnamese girl persuaded me to attend. Besides, I think I wanted to see her again — probably for the last time. In fact, it was the last time I saw her. It’s true that your first love never works out. Seriously, though, it was only an unrequited love. Come to think of it now, however, she was more like a sister to me than anything else. I couldn’t tell the difference in those years, though — I was a little immature for my age since I was homeschooled and all in Korea.

After high school, I spent the majority of my early 20s in Kapi’olani Community College where I wasted 6 years simply because I couldn’t decide on a major. But then, this is where I gained a precious group of close friends who have influenced my life in positive ways, though I can’t say the same for some of them. I met my best friend there whom I’m still in contact with, and I met my worst foe there as well who told me to die “in that cold wheelchair.” Well, that’s another story, but I can say I’ve never met such a person thereafter.

It was that best friend and some others who made me decide to further my education in University of Hawaii majoring in Management Information Systems. I received my Bachelor of Business Administration in 2002. This is where I got my first part-time job as a Website Administrative Assistant for the Business of College External Office a year before I graduated, and they allowed me to work from home. From this job, I learned the value of money as I was an impulsive (spoiled) buyer. I also learned ColdFusion and basic HTML while doing my job, though I’m terrible with colors as I didn’t play with crayons and such when I was little like other kids. I once created a “blue and white” site for the Finance Department; needless to say, it looked horrible even in my eyes. You could say that I’m almost color blind. Yes, I’m that bad.

Fast-forward to 2006: I got a part-time job at local non-profit organization providing online self-referral services to people with disabilities and those around them. My job title was Data and Development Coordinator. I’d love to say I’m making a good use of my degree, but I’m afraid I’m not even close to that field because of my circumstances and the fact that I can’t work full-time without affecting my health insurance. Besides, I didn’t get into the workforce right after I graduated, so I guess I lost a lot of what I learned in my major. As of October 2008, I got laid off because of budget problems.

Fast-rewind to 2002: A month after my graduation, my parents and I left Hawaii to pursue a treatment for my Dystonia called Deep Brain Stimulation.

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