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By angusmack101

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My name is Angus Mackintosh, arriving in DC from Melbourne Australia. I’ve submitted my digital signature a dozen times, mastered the art of taking blank-faced headshots against a white background, and my last real obstacle is a 27-hour flight and a greyhound. This should be the easy part. The worst of the bureaucracy is behind me and I’m calling it a win.

I’ve only actually lived in Melbourne for a year-and-a-half. Perhaps it’s a little early to be abandoning ship for the states, but we live in historic times. Australia is fairly stagnant; our Prime Minister is neither good or bad enough to warrant much attention, and our biggest public crisis seems to be a handful of ball-tampering Cricket players—certainly not one for the history books. So long as Australian media is on autopilot echoing US news, I might as well be in the US.

Aus parliament 1The only royalty-free image of Australian parliament in session is from when Obama came to speak. Google it.

What better time to be a student in your nation’s capital? I saw one of the bloggers last semester got to sit-in on the Zuckerberg hearing; that’s the kind of historic stuff I’m looking for. Perhaps it’s wishful thinking to hope for too much, but one way or another I’ll make something memorable out of it.

In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter Thompson famously went in search of the American Dream—but that wasn’t really the point, was it? He didn’t really want or need to track the zeitgeist of the time. In fact, he spends most of the book describing the delusions of everyone around him; collectively failing to see it for what it was. Dozens of authors have written books on a similar premise—Everyone wants to know what America is, but none of them can agree. It's this ambiguity that's forced me to come and see for myself.

Construction3

My college at home: perpetually under construction. Maybe it’ll be done when I get back.

I’ve experienced Australian colleges & boarding schools and my degree hasn’t yet reached peak difficulty; this might be the best chance I get. Aussie dollars aren’t worth as much as they could be, but I’ve got a tasty interest-free government loan to mop up the excess. Let’s see how it goes.

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