Oh God Oh God Oh God

The day of departure approaches like a flying brick (i.e. alarmingly).

I'm once again in my room, with a suitcase that just won't lose 2llbs and a hand luggage that won't fit in a hand luggage. Bloody baggage restrictions, how do other people do this! Do they just not take stuff? What stuff can I not take? The things that I could get rid of only weigh about an ounce so there's sod all point, I'd have to get rid of about 12 items of clothing to make a difference and that would pretty much leave me with leotards and shoes which may work for Lady Gaga but is not a look I will be sporting.
But I can't get rid of the shoes either cos, well, they're flipping shoes aren't they! Need them on my footsies. And since I've sensibly decided to go to New York in the middle of winter, guaranteed to be vicious and freezing, I've got 2 pairs of boots coming with me, both of which are filling up the weight quota aLOT on their own. Plus tap shoes, jazz trainers, warm jumpers...I did consider discarding a cardi (would that make it some kind of ex-cardi, if it got discardied?) but again, highly necessary item to take due to aforementioned cold.

I'm slightly freaking out. The butterflies in my stomach will not CALM DOWN. (Aside - credit now to Theo. Last night in das Pubben I said 'I've got butterflies in my stomach' to which he replied 'Tess you've got to stop eating caterpillars'. Ahh witty repartee.)

And he's not wrong either I do feel like I may have eaten caterpillars.

Eurgh.

I didn't feel nervous at all last year when I left. I felt excited. I've concluded that this must be because last year I went with a job to go to, a place to stay, an agenda to adhere to and grown ups everywhere to do the worrying for me. This time I'm really taking a metaphorical cliff jump and falling down a bloody great abyss of doubt, where I won't know what I'm doing or why I'm doing it. Not that I do most of the time but at least I know the way to the shops here.

Am also feeling a little emotional - have done all the goodbyes now. Spent a fab fab fab couple of days in York with Ellie, enjoyed a delicious breakfast and goss fest with Rachel, had an awesome time at the Granny Mansion party with Thee y Jose, laughed a lot over G&Ts/beer with Dan and Dave a la Tommy Lord, did some good reminiscing and piss-taking with Jonasz and Sam last week, bid farewell to the Boppin office and Lucy, visited my grandparents today, spoken to Emili, had my final dancing on Sat plus a few more. All done. V. final. Going to miss everyone lots I think.

Suddenly got really nervous now about the baggage allowance thing again - oh bloody nora what am I going to do. This is when I start cursing myself for not owning a smaller laptop or generally being smaller, then my clothes would be smaller and consequently weigh less, right? At the moment my only plan is to wear about 50% of my clothes, which is about 16 layers. I should look super cool on arrival in the coolest city in the World.

Back to packing - methinks tis time for a bit of Spin Doctors for chillaxin' purposesxxxxxxx