here, gentle reader is the story of the day i left britain for america in its full, unedited glory. enjoy:

By the time you read this i'll be safe and sound in Houston, duh. the following was typed on the plane. so if you happen to eed a plane letter you can print this out and read it on the plane. you might find it very relatable.

Tuesday 29.7.03 2:56 pm GMT

hello. you might have noticed how i didn't update yesterday. that is because i had to pack. i'm moving, right now, to the united states of america, you see. to sunny Houston, nice little city in texas.

but first: meera is the coolest person for randomly turning up at my house to say goodbye and buying me an american cookie from sainsbury's. for her efforts, i left a pair of shoes i've worn thrice for her in my recycling box. couldn't fit them in the five suitcases.

this morning at 5:22 am, ticca sent me a text. our text convo (she said she'd say something about it on diaryland) continued on and off until i got to the gate, when i called her after calling amy to say goodbye. we talked about goodbye being one word and thank you being two. that is how inappropriate we are.

while queuing for check-in, i had this horrible feeling that i made the stupidest decision of my life, that I'd be so much happier if i had stayed and gone on to the sixth form. I'd also have3 weeks more holiday. however, i remembered my life-plan while eating pretzels while my mum called t-mobile to cancel our accounts. my plan for life is simple and flexible and if followed correctly, it would ensure fortune and happiness.

my life plan is to get a fabulous education, which would lead to a wide range of careers which i can choose from. having cleverly chosen the best job with my intellect and intelligence from my fabulous education, i go on to make lots of money doing something i am passionate in and with this money, i can pursue my other interests, for example go to all the aqualung gigs in a tour. of course, this Hales thing might blow over, in which case i will pursue my other interests, for example photography, or writing shite fanfiction.

anyway, in order to follow my Life Plan, i want to go to a well-funded american university (preferably ivy-league) and for me, the bet to do that is to do the groundwork now. get used to the american life, the school system, surround myself with people familiar with said system who can help me achieve what my Life Plan prescribes. so this is, in the long term, good. and two years can make a lot of difference. it's all about the rest of my life, basically.

so i got on the plane and had a short crying spell, as if i have a phobia of flying. anyway, it went away and i listen to some aqualung while watching Shanghai Knights. i have no respect for the writers gough and millar cos they're the creators for smallville. however, i do like Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson so it was nice to watch. they can act, unlike TW and KK. the story was contrived and pathetic, as expected, but there was HoYay, which is always good. the evil guys were to gay. they were like "i cannot be seen with you in public" "meet me at the stables" and the fondling of the phallic machine gun. ha ha ha.

and i liked the inspector guy. i mean francis conan doyle. he was cool.

3 hours of power left. mmmm� 5509 m to Houston. apparently i have 6 hours. time to crack out the pinball, doncha think? maybe watch some RUTH vids.

it's all too like my annual holiday. the one moment when i realised that i wasn't coming back was when the "stupid decision" thing happened. last time i moved, it took several months to hit me. i had gone to school for one month already, then had the summer holidays, and right after that i got very very depressed and developed a bit of a phobia of school. then i found some decent friends. this better happen quicker and lesser this time, cos i hate taking shit from myself.

i took the maths on the plane. i'll do it when I'm less asleep. amy said that it's easy. amy said.

feels wrong. i feel british. i really do. not just because i prefer british big brother to american, but i like it� there. i like the accents i enjoy the smallness. i'm afraid of not having a nationality. i mean. what am i? i don't belong in HK, I've left London after 6 years. what to do?

it's now 3:47 pm GMT.

early this morning i tried to remember everything in my house. i had to feel everything cos i saw this thing on that lawrence llewellyn show about wallpaper, some scientist said that feeling is the mostt important sense, that without feeling, things would just be shapes and colours. so that was why i had to touch every door handle, the stair railings, the curtains�

i saw half of angel. it started at 7:30. at 7:30 i thought, hm� is there anything i need to see? angel's in half an hour. clever.

6:25 pm GMT.

after an hour long sleep and a quick piss, i am ready and raring to go. this has been a nice flight. i've got what, 3 hours left? all is fine. i didn't even fret about the tv or the fact that i can't see Bringing Down the House which has michael rosenbaum in it because i'm not going back to London. i am completely calm and composed.

part of the charm of air travel is the trips to the loo. you have to calculate it to avoid the rush after meals and the big sleep. this makes you stop your iPod just before the heartbreakingly beautiful ending of Tongue Tied and when you return, you start at the beginning go the song again and you miss the ending because you are typing in your personal computer.

and ten, of course you've got the incredible experience of pissing during turbulence. thank god for those loo-seat covering thingies.

and there used to be the flush, but i've overcome that fear now. i used to have to brace myself for it: push the button, take a deep breath, wait, then sing or yawn or something to disguise the noise.

and while you're draining the basic, you look up and contemplate how shit you look. maybe you're daring enough to re-do your parting. which is a bad, bad idea because you don't have a brush and your hair is so tangled that it's all matted together in a completely unattractive kind of way.

matt hales is the best. my pinball skills aren't.

cold. they gave us ice-cream. surely they are trying to kill me. i've been drinking everything they have that contains caffeine. i'd get lucozade if i can.

my mum is watching Agent Cody Banks. i ust told her about that lizzie mcguire girl. it's the most pathetic show ever. but she's all grown up. aww. like i give a shit.

so. onto more important matters. when i was wallowing in despair and self-pity about my supposed stupid decision to move to america, i got one of those vision things. not the divine intervention kind but the over-active imagination kind. the same type of thing that conjured up the image of The Tourbus. chess and i were the founders of The Tourbus, although it was originally inspired by something ticca said. i won't go into it now, because you really would not thank me, but i'm sure you'll find out if you want to. it's somewhere in this diary. wow, look at me shrouding this is mystery. anyway, this has nothing to do with The Tourbus, although i do love it very much.

and once i see it (H: do you see it?) i can't let go of the image. the image: i saw that same time next year, i'm not going back to Houston on my own, i'm dragging my friends along with me. the plan is this: i go back to London after their AS's and attempt to sneak into school and blend into the lessons i was gonna take (maths, chemistry, physics and RS, although had i stayed, i would have changed it to DT). and I'd stay 2 days in everyone who's invited me(a lot of people because i'm so popular)'s houses. and then they come with me to houston and we shop like it's the end of the world and there's a big party on judgment day. i may as well drop cool apocalyptic sounding words like apocalypse, armageddon and parousia. this crappy computer does not contain the word "parousia" in its little dictionary. it thinks i mean arousal. it means the second coming of Jesus, if you're interested. the things you learn in RS. hope i get a good grade.

an iPod just appeared on Cody Banks.

yesterday, as i was packing (like i was doing anything else yesterday except eating the cookie meera gave me. i didn�t even bloody sleep so i had the neck ache of the century), my Spanish neighbour maria came to give us a card. she's so cool. her and her Italian husband know 6 languages between them and she likes all the harsh sounding languages cos she thinks they're cooler.

anyway, she said to me, "you're the one who speaks Spanish, right?" fabulous, what has my mum been saying about me? "me digas algo" she said, or some grammatically correct equivalent. pathetically, i showed off my second year Spanish by saying hello and that i'm well, thank you. and my name, she said, "that's to difficult for Spanish people to pronounce. you're maria." right. apparently, they call everyone maria. her real name isn't maria. it's like Spanish Mary-Sues. which put the juan/maria ship in a whole new perspective. (although what perspective i don't know.) chess and i are the juan/maria shippers. generally in Spanish textbooks and things, you get the juan/maria/pepe triangle. chess and i don't like pepe. it's also relevant to note that chess enjoys singing 'Maria' from the West Side Story and i enjoy prompting her to sing as i know not the lyrics. when thinking about maria from the west side story, i get that Santana song in my head for i have no culture but the recent pop variety.

ooh. 1 hour left of power. it is now 7:26 pm GMT. should i watch RUTH videos? yes i should. just saw los videos. good stuff. had to suppress laughter. did i mention that I'm sitting right next to a loo? good yet bad. I'm having the dream/fantasy where matt n ben are behind me queuing for the said loo and notice the big fat 45s logo on my wall paper. then they can sign all my CDs that i have with me.

Scary Mary by RUTH

she's my baby
she got my life in her hands
and she's looking so crazy

she's saying wake me up
from this horrible day dream
she's eighteen
oh yeah

it's murder
she says her nose couldn't possibly stretch any further
she said she gave fair warning
but nobody heard her
oh oh oh oh yeah.

mary
she used to be cute
but now she's just scary
and i used to be her miracle man
her right hand
her right mind

she said i was selfish
said nothing could loosen me from my tight fist
she said pointing this out was surely a health risk
death wish
oh yeah

'cause she never
was all that good on us being together
but she could see how badly i had to have her
oh oh oh oh yeah.

mary
she used to be cute
but now she's just scary
and i used to be her miracle man
her right hand
her right mind

so i say
do you not remember
the love i used to send ya
and the letters that you wrote me
sayin' you're my one and only
we should just forget our fears
daddy wants a little kiss
she pushed me out the window
and as i was fallin'
i heard someone callin'
come back to me
but gravity said no
let me go

so it's over
and she invoiced me for the money i owed her
it was a pleasure
all in all to have known her
oh oh oh oh yeah

[spoken] mary, you used to be cute, but now it's just scary. well, i used to be her miracle man, her right hand but those days are gne now, and i just wanna say this:

mary
she used to be cute
but now she's just scary
and i used to be her miracle man
her right hand
her right mind

<< finally, the long awaited plane entry. >>

th since 5th october 2001