10 years ago this August I said goodbye to my family and friends and left for the United States. I was going to study, or so I thought. In truth I did not know why I was leaving home and a still unwritten future. It seemed like the thing to do; the rite that was expected of me and whose crushing inevitability then still mystifies me now. The University of Birmingham, Birmingham - AL. Where licence plates did not make bold statements as in the North but suggested a quiet, deep faith that reflected the local religious fervour. ' Stars Fall On Alabama '. Yes they do. A strange, alien state vastly distanced and different from the images covered by popular television shows like Remington Steele, Baywatch and CSI. I was someone else back then. Unable to say if I now am a better or worse man. Nursing my grief, unsure of an extended existence away from home and family, lonely in my journey, lonelier when I reached another shore and plagued by the infinite demons of self-doubt and fe...