Thanks be to John Lennon for the first two lines...

Birthday Poem:

So it is November the 30th, and what have I done?
Another year is over, and a new one just begun.
I have changed through experiences from near and from far,
I've given up meat, conventions, post-modernism, and cars.

Warner shaped my vision, and skewed the world to me,
I see now through anthro, psych and philosophy.
I desire narrative, your stories of life,
And communal living, let's stop all this strife.

Portland is home, for now and always,
But I want to go back to India, for inumerous days.
I've no clue what I'm doing, once I leave this great school,
But I know I'll be serving, as a social working fool.

Music is still big, and writing's become key,
Thinking as always, trying to share all of me.
I never thought I'd be reading this much,
Buechner and Taoism, Piaget and such.

But more than the dead ones, although they too I love,
It's my friends and family who are the ones I care of.
You've all seen me through to this day I now face,
With dignity, poise, confrontation and grace.

And so it's to you that I owe all this fun,
I truly never thought, I'd live to see twenty-one.
But you've gotten me through it, through thin and through thick,
And now that I'm old enough, I'm going to get lit.

All joking aside, my heart is in tears,
You've seen me grow, all through my troubled years.
And still though I'm a radical, you accept all my faults,
And love me for them, it's you I exhalt.

I love you all more than words could express,
May the Lord shine upon you, may it be you that He bless.
Thank you for making these years a possibility,
Without you I know it would not be reality.

Thank you all for all the influences you have been in forming and shaping me, and, more imporanlty, letting me realize who I am ontologically.