This weather is so tiresome… it’s just so humid every day. Temperatures aren’t so bad, getting up around 30°C in the middle of the day, but the darn humidity is pretty much pegged on 100% all night, and only drops to around 70% in the heat of the day. Overnight rain doesn’t help at all as it simply steams up the air the next day when it heats up. I checked the past few days and the humidity hasn’t dropped below about 70% at any time for the at least the past four days. Probably longer, as that’s as far back as the detailed hour-by-hour records go on the Bureau of Meteorology website. So I’m just spending as much time as I can at home with the air conditioner either on cool (in the middle of the day) or dehumidify mode (in the morning and night).
I did take Scully out for a couple of walks, because of course she needs the exercise. At lunch we went up to the fish & chip shop, which has reopened this week after an extended closure over Christmas. I got my usual choice and we went to the high park overlooking the harbour to eat (as opposed to the low park down by the waterside, which is a bit further away).
Apart from that, 5 ethics classes today, and a bit of comics work, and that was pretty much it.
New content today:
Speaking of weather… in my class today, my teenage students got me off topic and I started complaining about winter. (It’s currently -6 C outside, with snow and ice.). When I claimed that winter is the worst, they said, but what about Christmas? So I went on my usual rant about how the majority of people who celebrate Christmas do so in a climate that doesn’t have snow. I specifically mentioned Australia and how cool it would be for Christmas to be in summer. One of my students said, “but Australia has all of those deadly animals!” And then another responded with “yeah, like kangaroos!”. Which I thought was incredibly funny as I was thinking of snakes, spiders, and crocodiles. But then I got curious to see if somehow kangaroos are considered deadly or dangerous animals.
It depends. Wild kangaroos, especially large ones, should not be approached as they can be aggressive and are strong enough to injure people. But the same kangaroo used to human contact could be in a petting zoo and perfectly fine to interact with.
The whole “deadly animals” thing is, as you might know, vastly overplayed. I’ve done a lot of hiking here and very rarely encountered anything that could potentially be dangerous, and none of them are actually aggressive. Just don’t provoke things and you’ll be fine. Compare hiking in the USA, where I’ve seen huge signs warning of mountain lions and bear, and detailing what to do to maximise your chances of survival if you see one!
From our trip to Australia a long time ago, I remember all the warnings about swimming. Currents, crocodiles, sharks, irukandji and probably something I have forgotten.
I think that a tourist was bitten by a crocodile in the Cairns area a couple of weeks after we had been there, so I think the warnings were there for a purpose.
Oh, yeah, well if you’re in a tropical region it’s just common sense not to go swimming unless you know what’s in the area. Crocodiles are definitely not to be trifled with. 99% of Australians don’t live in places where that’s an issue though.