An Attempt to adequately frame an amazing experience while the anticipation kills me.

It’s a rare thing in life to be aware of a life-changing experience before or during its actual occurrence. Beyond perhaps marriage and having children, experiences that change your perception of life seem to generally be left to chance. However, as a twenty year-old college student of no particular consequence being able to attend the most anticipated event of the democratic party, or even American politics in general, of the last twenty-five years or so, it is a distinct possibility this upcoming experience will be life changing for me on many levels.

My name is Andrew Carbaugh. I am an undergraduate college student at the University of Massachusetts entering my junior year in the fall studying political science and history. I leave for Denver tomorrow, August 17, to take part in the Washington Center’s “Democratic National Convention Seminar”. This includes a week of academic briefings on campaigns, the American presidency, and the role of the convention in the week leading up to the convention, and participating in “fieldwork” for an organization during the convention.

Over the next two weeksish I will be blogging about what I experience and learn during the seminar, what I think about what I experience during the seminar, anything else of interest that I encounter while I’m in Denver, and anything else I feel like writing down. Like what I dreamt about last night, or something. (Flying flourescent green hippopotami? Crazy!) Well, probably not things like that, but the tone of the blog will be relatively casual. I won’t be trying to make any deep academic, political, or philosophical points. Instead I will merely try to let you know how the activities of the convention appear from the floor appear to a casual observer who also happens to be a college student mildly interested in a career in politics, but who by no means takes himself that seriously.

My goals for the next twelve days include: Meeting as many famous people as possible, somehow getting on the Daily Show, stalking Barack (just kidding, secret service), getting an idea about how the behind-the-scenes political action goes down at the convention, learning as much as I can in general, starting a “where’s Colbert” chant on the convention floor, and meeting as many fellow college students from across the country and world as I can, amongst other things.
It should be an amazing time, and I hope I can share my experiences with you effectively.