Brief background/experiences
The condensed summary:
+ BS in Landscape Architecture from University of Wisconsin (2002)
+ Worked in Baltimore for a local firm for a couple years before moving to China to work for EDAW. Built stuff and became burnt out in a year. Great experience but had leave.
+ Came back to the US to do a MFA degree in furniture design at Univ. Mass, Dartmouth. Picked a fight with the chair of the department and dropped out after three semesters with a 4.0 gpa.
+ Moved back to Baltimore and have been working for a real estate developer as a project manager trying to pay off a mountain of debt.
+ Passed all my LARE exams and am a registered landscape architect.
+ About to grow the mountain of debt by returning to school.

Why you chose your school/program
I want to teach at the university level and my mentor from undergrad put it thus "teaching is like the mafia - if you want to teach at a good school you have to come from a good school." Harvard's MLA II program is also three semesters rather than four - which is huge tuition wise. These motivations may not sound altruistic (ideology of school, specific professor, etc.), but they are real.

Architecture interests
The impact that urban environments have on the phsyche of their inhabitants - specifically how the 'grain' or 'grit' of public open space affects one's notion of home. Also, the degree to which arch/land arch as applied arts can successfully be practiced as art - think Vito Acconci, Robert Irwin, etc.

These interests seem to run directly counter to the current trend/movement of "ecological urbanism" that is running rampant at the GSD (and elsewhere). Though I did meet one professor at the open house who asked me what I was interested in, I explained, and she said "thank god, I expected you to say 'sustainable' or 'ecological something or other' like everyone else here." That and my screen name is "anti"

Other interests
cheap travel with no plans. art. (I even licked Richard Serra's Torqued Ellipse at the Dia Beacon) old Japanese movies. cute librarians. mos def.