Thoughts Behind...

Setting aside the hot gossip of FDR's personal life, the 32nd POTUS started his political career as New York state senator in 1910. Interestingly enough, Roosevelt was recruited by the democratic party because of his relation to the former President. Imagine being begged to become a political figure because of your last name. If the Korean President was a Song, I'd be one of 683,000 recruited to the state senate! FDR kept climbing his way up and even ran alongside Governor Cox as the Vice-President candidate in the 1920s. In 1928, Hoover won the election. During this time, Roosevelt went to become New York governor. We all know that soon after, the Great Depression hit, and it comes to no one's surprise that people wanted change. I mean take a look at this past year, our economy and unemployment took a hit because of the pandemic. The people wanted change, and people got change... Biden. So history repeats itself because Roosevelt, as a democrat, ended the string of Republi...

Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in New York on January 30, 1982. He was born to two very wealthy families, through which he had the luxury of meeting President Grover Cleveland, becoming conversant in German and French, and attending boarding school in Massachusetts. Needless to say, his success was not coincidental. As much as today's political and activist climate is wary of privilege, we actually see Roosevelt as a giver- a face of welfare. So although many would look at FDR's past as an unfair advantage, his good works offset that disapproval. In fact, his Christian boarding school emphasized serving the less fortunate. An altruistic man with resources--what more can we ask for? Unsurprisingly this President went to Harvard, during which his distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt became President. He's truly a man of connections. Not only did he become influenced by Teddy Roosevelt, but he was also influenced by Teddy's niece! In fact, FDR got married to his distant cousi...

One of the most influential leaders of the democratic party and democracy as a whole, Franklin Delano Roosevelt left our world seventy-five years ago. Being such a huge part of America's development (and APUSH curriculum), I thought it would only be natural to examine FDR in history and  FDR's history. Now, let me take you along a brief, or not so brief, journey of Roosevelt's life.

It's the end of April, over a year since the pandemic transformed our world. Like a blanket covering our heads, the coronavirus and the lockdown that ensued has suffocated us for far too long. I remember writing about the pandemic months ago--about how terrible school, our social lives, and mental states became. Now, we remain in this in-between, where we can kind of go out, but where we still fear. Life isn't terrible, but it's not amazing. We can't even complain, but at the same time, we can't enjoy life fully. We've gotten so habituated to the bad, that now, we're just languishing--tolerating these moments. I used to tell my mom about my whole day, starting from before class started to every hour's minute events. Now, when she asks, "how was school?" I can't even bring myself to say "good"--not even "bad." It doesn't make sense, but my instinct is to say, "it just is." Is... what? I don't know either...

We sat for a minute in silence. I thought there was a Zoom malfunction. Then, with no context, Estragon said, "Nothing to be done." And from there on, we remained in confusion. The play goes a little something like this: *Estragon and Vladimir sit up and down abruptly. *They waddle around. *They raise their voices and chatter about the Bible, a carrot, and a slave (as you can see, their range is wide) The mere abruptness of their movements and speech resembles a puppet show or a PBS children's show from the early 2000s. Especially with the limited view of rocks and the sky, it feels like the set of the Teletubbies, except with two (and later four) strange men disrupting the peace. Of course, we know it's a play, but the ridiculousness of the setting and plot highlights just how far Waiting for Godot departs from reality. We're hyperaware of the fact that it's a story. Similarly, in my book Farewell my Concubine, there's a story within the greater story of ...