How ya goin?!
If you have spent any amount of time with me, you have probably heard me say "I almost died," followed by some crazy (and usually hyperbolic) story at least a couple of times. I realize that in looking back at my earlier blog posts I think I have yet to include this in any of my stories, until now...
Earlier tonight Jenny, Sarah, Sharlene and I all met up in Jenny's room to watch an episode of True Blood (stereotypical vampire story, only more addicting than most); when it ended our conversation meandered from topic to topic until finally when we were talking about the nasty red back spider that Sharlene saw last night near the vending machines on the first floor. Red back spiders are one of the (many) poisonous things that live in Australia and they are similar to Black Widows (nasty, nasty, nasty). As Sarah and I were walking back to the main part of St Cats where we live we were talking about how awful it would be to find a spider in our rooms and I was thinking about how happy I am to be living on the second floor, where spiders are LESS likely to be. It's like karma. I was thinking about how fabulously lucky I am...and then BAM. Tonight it's kind of cold, we have a bit of a cold spell (rain and all) moving through right now, so I figured I would turn on my heater until I was ready to go to bed. I have one of those old-school-oil-radiator-on-wheels heater deals and I was pulling it out away from the wall when this GIGANTIC and toally disgusting spider darted out from underneath it. I almost died. Naturally, I screamed (loudly). I jumped up on my bed when it ran TOWARDS me (I kid you not, the spider charged me. I fully do not believe that fluff about them being more afraid of me than I am of it) before leaping from my bed, out the door and into the hallway where I proceeded to sprint towards Den's room (still half-screaming). Den is from the outback and she lives on a legit farm, she's a total rugged country girl, I figured she would be able to kill it for me. At this point I realize that I have now left the massive (and potentially poisonous) spider unattended, it easily could have found a new hiding place where it would have laid in wait for me to fall asleep so it could come out and bite me. I thought I was going to have a panic attack! I really hate spiders. A lot. Anyway, it turned out to be something nasty called a Hunstman, which is similar to a nasty Wolf spider, and Den half picked it up, half carried it in tupperware to the balcony door where she released it...instead of killing it... I'm pretty sure the thing can get back in and refind it's way to my room. Ugh. So nasty.
Prior to the vicious spider attack that I suffered, I had a really good night. Right now we are doing something hall Hall Games which are based off of the Harry Potter books. In the books (and the movies, if you haven't read the books...shame on you) the houses all compete and get points that go towards winning a cup at the end of the year; all of our different hallways are doing the same concept and we get points for things like attendance and participation (since we can't play Quidditch). Tonight was the first event and we did something called Sock Wrestling where the goal is to get your opponent's sock off their foot before they can get your sock. I played, more for the fun of it than to win, and lost. I was really afraid of hurting my opponent with my long nails...and at one point I had her in a choke hold...there's picture evidence of that. If you can't picture sock wrestling in your head (don't worry, I couldn't either when I first heard about it) then you should just look it up on YouTube, it's hilarious and totally worth 2 minutes of your life. It was a lot of fun, if I'm every an RA again I think I'll have to bring it back as a floor activity.
If sock wrestling isn't enough to make your day pretty darn good, there is one thing that surely will! Good food! Which is what we had to eat today (no bugs!). This morning was waffle morning (just like it is every Thursday, which makes getting up and going to 9 am tutorial that much easier) and for dinner we had fish! I know y'all are probably pretty tired of hearing about food, but I seem to be living on a pear, rice, and bread diet, so when there is fish (AND WAFFLES) I get pretty stinking excited. I honestly think I ate waffles until I was almost too full and tired to go to class.
Today I also went and paid for my portion of the camper van rentals, which makes it official! We are going on a road trip (Northern west coast, watch out!). Jeni and I went together since all of the other girls had already been over to pay their shares; while we were sitting at the desk waiting for our agent to finish a different phone call he was dealing with we were looking at a world map. A couple of students at the desk next to us were talking with their agent about their plans to travel to the US and then up to Canada; they asked a lot of slightly ridiculous questions, one of them being if planes flew to Canada from the US east coast. Through listening to their conversation and looking at the map Jeni and I got to poking fun at Canada about how big it is and how incredibly empty it appears on the map...turns out our travel agent is from Canada. Talk about a situation with major potential to be very, very uncomfortable (open mouth, insert foot). Thankfully, he was really cool about it and seemed to have just as much fun harassing us for being Americans. And I got a funny joke out the situation (well, I think it's funny...you might not): How do you spell "Canada?" C-eh-N-eh-D-eh. I don't know about you, but I laughed. Anyway, back to good stuff about our trip! Earlier in the process we were informed that we would need to go to the DMV equivalent and get Aussie driver's licenses, possibly after having to pass a driving test. But! It turns out that my Colorado DL is valid to drive here with too! Woot, woot! Now I just have to learn how to drive manual...on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car, shifting with the wrong hand. It shouldn't be too hard, right? I think I can do it. We leave in a month and I am so excited about it, we can hardly wait to get going!
Tomorrow I am also planning on going to the SCUBA place and registering to get my Diving license so I can do some diving up north. I am really, really, really excited for it! It seems like a really solid deal, and as a bonus the Dive Master Jeni and I talked to is really cute. I'm kind of sort of hoping he ends up teaching my course, I wouldn't mind spending a couple of weeks with him! We also have big plans for going to the beach again this weekend, the cold front is supposed to be gone and sunny warm weather should be headed our way!
I didn't have any good "Aussie Adventure" stories for you tonight, but hopefully I'll be able to find something more exciting to write about this weekend!
I hope this post finds you happy and well (and not being attacked by massive spiders, that would be ideal). Have a good Thursday afternoon, I'm headed to bed!
Love always.
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