At work I have settled into the day-to-day. I wouldn’t say it is boring, but unless something unusual happens, it is not too terribly exciting either. However this past Wednesday, June 22, was my 25th birthday. My boss ordered pizza for the entire office, and we had a great time socializing.
On Saturday, the AAPD internship program had a special guided tour of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. The focus of the tour was the long uphill battle to gain recognition of FDR’s disability in the construction of the memorial. Whatever one’s view of FDR’s policies—I happen to think he is the greatest person to have ever lived—it is hard to ignore the superhuman tenacity he had to overcome his disability and change the country and the world. Afterwards, my roommate Michael Grant and I saw three other memorials: the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the World War II Memorial. The latter two are significant to me because I have family who fought very hard, and in one case died, in those conflicts.
An Avid Trekkie, Alec Frazier Poses with the Model of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 used in Star Trek: The Original Series
On Sunday I went to the National Air and Space Museum in the morning, and as anyone can tell you, it was a blast. In the afternoon, I went to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum with my mentor, Mat McCollough. A German Jew, my grandfather and his family escaped Nazi Germany and fled to the Americas, first Panama, then Cuba, and eventually Miami. He joined the U.S. Army and became a citizen, and helped liberate Germany and bring Nazis to trial. After the war, he and his family returned to Germany and the rest, they say, is history.
Well, I will leave you with this because I am thoroughly tired:
“Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
—William Jennings Bryan
