How To Die Whilst Scuba Diving

    I guess tis that time of the week again, and my what an interesting week we've had here at LPC. So radies and rentelmens listen up etc!

    So the weekend was purdy good, Saturday consisted of a coral monitoring medical exam in downtown Jordan which was pretty tucked away so with the help and company of Chloe Lau we made it to the eighth floor to be measured, weighed, told that our ears were dirty and that there was no way we'd be able to equalise so to go and buy ear cleaning stuff, and we may or may not have been instructed to pee on a stick. Congratulations are in order for Halfdan who navigated his way there sans local help and also to Dilene who was the only one of us with clean ears.

    After that I went in search of ear cleaning stuff with Dilene and Khet, and after coming across some real dodge semi tradtitional chinese medicine shops full of jars of shark fins and shredded shrimp bone marrow etc we decided to wait until we got back to the pharmacy back in Wu Kai Sha.

    When we got back home (I've started calling campus that now, and sub consciously too), Dilene and I went to explore the beach and attempt to study. I drew some mandarin ab characters in the sand but mostly the study part was reduced to gossipping until we realised that the masses of shells around where we were sitting were actually hermit crabs. Muchos gross.

    Then dinner. My daily life in this place now revolves around mealtimes. 6 o clock is easily the most anticipated thing for me around here. I've not even yet been deterred by the fact that it's generally just rice and some bony meat. That said, I got tempura veg today which was nom. Actually, I got tuna pasta bake too! Hmm, today was an exception food wise. Oooh and we got jelly too! It may have had the consistency of soggy soap but it was still pretty good.

    Sunday was triathlon day! Kinda wish I'd done the individual one now but I did enter the team event as the swimmer, with Liz doing the cycle (we thought we'd fullfill the dutch stereotype), and Maxim running. As with all other LPC events there was lots of dancing on the pool side and twas a fairly good atmosphere for an early Sunday morning! PLUS they had bananas in the canteen. Heellloooo banana honey toasted sandwich(es...). The experience was only topped by finding out on Wednesday that we'd won. Yadda yadda it wasn't competitive yadda yadda...but y'all know it so was.

Mise, Maxim and Liz. Rawr.

    After all that strenuous work there were 5 hours of scuba diving theory. 

To summarize:  

• If you hold your breath your lungs will explode and YOU WILL DIE
• If you don't equalise the pressure between your ears and your inner ear and sinuses YOU WILL DIE
• If you attempt to sit through 5 hours of scuba diving theory without allowing yourself to have small naps/ become hysterical YOU WILL DIE

    The week was pretty intense too. Starting Monday night we had an hour of uber man style lion dance training. This time Savitri upped the ante to 5 minutes of squatting and a good aul lot of planking too. Twas eh good fun too?? Classes went grand (not gonna lie I aced me mandarin ab test booyakkasha), and although chemistry was a killer I answered all the questions on the test we had this morning. That don't mean by any means that I got any of them right, mind you.

    Thursday was typhoon day. Now before I start praising the heavens for this gust of wondrous wind, I'd like to express my deepest sorrow for those who were killed by the same typhoon Nesat in the Philipines and to all those whose homes were destroyed. Fortunatley for us, it didn't get too bad up in the New Territories aside from some bikes wrapped around trees and said trees no longer residing in the ground. Tragedies aside, however, one can imagine the excitement that a Typhoon 8 signal can bring to a campus full of extremely tired IB students. I watched half of Moulin Rouge with Olivia, hung in the block four day room, experienced typhoon weather at its best up on the roof, attempted to study for chemistry and spread the goodwill message of HAPPY TYPHOON DAY! Made a change from the days of Loreto Convent KK when snow days were only implemented after attendance levels dropped to below 10 per year, and even then were granted grudgingly.

    Friday was a full day of classes for yours truly, but now I'm free we have HOLIDAYS! Until next Thursday. And so I'm casually popping over to Mainland China to visit Mia's house in Zhu Hai for a few days. As ya do like. Now when I say casually, I hope none of you ever have to experience the hassle of trying to organise 12 visas for China in 4 days. I'd rather not elaborate.

Much grá, Hannah x



That'd be mise and my boat tickets to Zhu Hai