I'm Alive!!

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Ahhh, THAT was the longest 3 weeks of my LIFE! I had to work extra at the bookshop AND I had to do a big project, research presentation, AND write 11,500 words worth of essays (I don't even wanna know how many pages that is...probably somewhere between 40 and 50). Needless to say, I didn't do much of anything besides sleep, work, and WORK in the past couple of weeks, but it is such a RELIEF to be all done!! Now I have a bit of a review week and then I am off to HONG KONG next week! That's right, we have a "study break" before our two weeks of finals and I couldn't pass up the opportunity! One of my friends here has an uncle in Hong Kong so we will be staying with this family. The flights for us were cheaper, too, because everyone on the crazy bomb-threat flight got Qantas gift vouchers = ) I guess it was worth all of the chaos and stress after all... Anyway, we actually leave on Halloween, this Friday! Apparently there are a bunch of Halloween celebrations in Hong Kong this year, maybe we'll be able to check those out! My backup plan is, of course, Hong Kong Disneyland!!! I'm not sure how Andria (the girl I'm going with) feels about that... Okay, STORY! Sorry, that was an abrupt transition but ONE interesting thing did happen to me (and Eric too) in the past three weeks. Okay, so last weekend we went to Rottnest Island, an island off the coast of Freo that used to be home to an Aboriginal jail but now is used for tourism. We biked around the island, which has tons of pretty beaches, but it was a kind of miserable rainy day so mostly we just learned about all of the history. So, as we are biking, we see this giant GUN up on a hill (it was huuuuuuuge because it was a big military gun used in WWII to protect the coast of Australia). We decided to bike up the hill to see it, but we were only allowed to take the bikes so far, so we walked the rest. On the way back down, we noticed there was a dirt staircase that would be a much shorter way than the paved road we came up on. Well, we were about three steps down when I stepped ahead of Eric onto the same step as.....a dugite snake!! Which, naturally, has venom that is (and I quote, from Wikipedia, no less) "potentially one of the most lethal in the world, causing coagulopathic and procoagulant effects..." But don't worry, they usually avoid biting humans however..."they may be dangerous during the mating phase between October and November" !!!! So, naturally, I screamed and ran away further down the stairs, while Eric swore at the snake and backed up toward the pavement (probably the wiser choice...). The snake was HUGE...I feel like I need to attach a picture to do it justice. Fortunately, it was not interested in us at all and disappeared in seconds, but it was DEFINITELY cause for an adrenalin rush! So...it's a good story considering I am alive and safe and am not visiting any more snake-infested islands anytime soon!! Sorry for the major delay in posts, I'll make sure to send updates from HONG KONG!!!

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Photos

Our pal the Dugite!
Doesn't he look friendly?