Michael Otte was born in Seoul, South Korea, where he was raised until the age of seven. He attended the local elementary school for half a year, at which time, he relocated to the small forest town of Felton, California. This abrupt change in culture and society was a significant keystone event in his life as the environment shifted from a predominantly homogenous Asian culture to an overwhelmingly Caucasian population with a rather variegated culture. This transition was by no means a smooth one, for young Michael was simply a seven year old, city-bred alien, with near-zero knowledge in the conglomerate American ideologies, culture, and most importantly, language.

          Hence, when starting school at the local elementary school, the young, lost little boy, believed his parents, Ric and Eun-Kyung, would bring about the necessary comfort and guidance that he longed. When the time to receive the warm aura of empathy and gentle guidance came, at the entrance of Michael's new first grade classroom, both his ideals of conventional, unconditional paternal and maternal love, were shattered when his mother left him with a curt farewell and seemingly perfunctory lesson on how to say "bathroom" in english.

          Luckily at the time, Michael's shock and feelings of betrayal did not manifest itself in a lasting manner, as he was too shocked to fully wrap his elementary brain around what had happened before the teacher swept him into the classroom, full, at the time, of unknown, foreign faces.

          As the day went on, little Michael realized that his english proficiency, or lack thereof, was quite a handicap in in this new environment and he needed to come up with a system in which he could survive this harsh, unexplored territory. Thus, he came up with a social protocol that he later dubbed the "poke and point method." This procedure was quite simple. He would come up to a classmate, poke him or her on the back, point at a picture or an object, and wait. Michael soon learned that this action led to one of two reactions: the student would either turn, see who it was, and swiftly return to his (or her) previous task or the child's face would transform into a huge smile and answer "dog" or "tulip" or whatever picture or object Michael's pointer landed on.

          This cognitive finding rapidly assisted Michael in his struggle to survive in the "new world", and indirectly lead to his comfort and ability to adjust to nearly all environment however uncomfortable. Though he was unaware of the value of this life skill at the time of its cultivation, he flourished through the rest of his pre-college schooling. He learned to appreciate the value of helping those in need and in junior high, he began to attend Orthodox Christian mission trips to various locations ranging from Philadelphia to Mexico through the Orthodox Youth Outreach

organization. Michael also discovered the wonderful world of music through the violin and later, the guitar, while enjoying numerous sports such as rock climbing and surfing. The move from Seoul to Felton initially seemed needlessly torturous for Michael, but it helped shape him to become the person he is today.

          Now, after completing his senior year, filled with rapid growth and learning, he is starting the next chapter of his life in college, where he hopes to pioneer and conquer yet another foreign world.