20/11/06 - The Most Feared

I almost missed the weekend. Well, I did here, but I could act like I snuck it in just before midnight on Sunday night, while you were all tucked into bed. Why was I so late? Maybe it was because I spent all weekend playing shirtless soccer under the hot Australian sun, trying my damnest to outflex Goose in Top Gun. But mostly it's because my computer has become an entertainment center around here, mostly for the fact that it has the only copies of the first 6 episodes of the 3rd season of Lost, which have been dominating everyone's lives since they first arrived here. Strange how that works.

But that's all beside the point, as I'm here this week to tell you a little bit about the wildlife around here. First off, when I first arrived here in Australia, one of the first things that was said to me was "If you go down to the beach, watch out for the brown snakes. They're in season. They're aggressive, and highly venomous." It was quite the warm welcome. Then, in the first week of classes at SAE, we had a health and safety lecture, where they warned us again about the snakes, and then added on top of that the threat of spiders. They told us about the black widows or "redbacks" as they're called here, and another kind of spider that when it bites you, it actually dissolves your skin. Super!

Luckily, I haven't seen any snakes, or poisonous spiders, thusfar, but there was one more threat that they mentioned. Everyone laughs at it the first time they hear it, but when it happens to you... Oh boy. They warn you about the magpies when they're in their mating season. Maybe you've even heard of this, or seen the silly damn hats that some people wear with eyes painted on the back of their heads, because what these demon birds do, is after you pass them, walking, or riding your bike on the road, they'll swoop down behind you and drill you in the back of your skull with their beak. The only way to stop this, is if you see them before they get to you, and you look them in the eye, then they won't attack until you look away. This also brings up the issue of people getting their eyes plucked out when they turn their heads at the last second...

So when I got here, everyone was finally getting back to their normal lives, done living in fear of these nasty creatures, because their mating season had just ended. I didn't get attacked at all, so I completely forgot about it. You know where this is going... Then earlier this week, I was riding my bike home from class with my friend Melissa, when CLICK CLICK CLICK WHAP! A magpie had swooped down behind me, and while it didn't auger its way into my brain, it clicked it's beak about 2 inches behind my head, and then hit me with its wing as it flew past. I was so confused. Surely I did something to piss him off. So I do as they say, and keep my eye on him, and I see him up on the telephone wire, but as I ride on, he hops along up there, following me the whole way!

Melissa is laughing her ass off because I'm staring this bird down, while trying not to wipe out on my bike, when I look and the bastard is coming down again. I start flailing my arms wildly at it, much like a little girl would wave cobwebs off herself. Luckily it did the trick, and it left me alone, but my dignity was sorely bruised. Perhaps that birds name was Karma, telling me that I drank too much the night before. Or maybe it was a sign that I need to watch my back, because I'm making too many enemies. But it probably just means that birds hate me. We have a history.