Survivor Palau: week 3

Here’s some interesting facts about Kim:

• She earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree majoring in Middle Eastern studies, with minors in Psychology and Political Science.
  
• She is currently undertaking a Master of Humanities.
  
• She wants to do a Ph. D. in Political Science.
  
• Her career goal is to become a Professor of Political Science.
  

That’s really nice, Kim. I’m happy for you. Can I make a suggestion? How about you ditch the books and instead buy the DVDs of the previous nine series of Survivor because if you’re fascinated by human behaviour, group interactions, power struggles, voting intentions, and who gets what, when, how and why, it’s all there.

Every season somebody gets ostracised for either; a) not doing enough work around camp; b) not trying hard enough in the challenges; or c) getting cosy with a tribe mate. Kim, who is supposed to be an expert in knowing what makes people ticked off, has managed all of these and it’s only week three! Last week she didn’t participate at all in the immunity challenge, and it was only Ashlee’s meltdown that saved her. Kim's special friendship with Jeff is really getting up some noses, too. Don’t worry folks; James has vowed that he’s "keeping an eye on them" in case they start "y’know, sucking face and stuff". He’s not stalking them, he’s not a pervert, he’s just "keeping an eye on them" in case they do "stuff". He assures us, most earnestly, that he has ears like a bat.

Her third mistake was resplendent of another interesting fact about Kim: she was Ohio’s representative in the 2002 Miss USA Pageant. Only a beauty queen could pause from an exhausting session of sunbathing to bemoan Bobby Jon’s tireless work around camp with the words "He'll be of no use if he keeps doing this for two weeks and he crashes and burns." She claimed everyone has been trying to tell him to slow down, but I think she missed the subtle point that they did that by actually helping.

Koror is suffering the fate of the successful tribe: day seven and no opportunity to get rid of the annoying ones. If you believe the editing, Katie has been harping non-stop at Caryn for days about little stuff, and eventually she snapped. As tiffs go it was kind of boring because Katie’s cool indifference made it a one-sided battle and Caryn just kept repeating the one example of being told what to do. What was once a personal gripe is now a full-on source of animosity, so hopefully we’ll see some more impressive action from this quarter in coming weeks.

Far more exciting was the bit where the Koror boys found some highly poisonous sea snakes, which Gregg with two Gs pointed out "can cause cardiac arrest, coma … even death!" Thanks for that Gregg. The highlight was having Ian plead that he hates harming animals, then gleefully lopping the head off three sleeping snakes and using them as burly to have a better chance of stabbing a baby shark with a stick.

The challenges this week had the same outcome as last week; Ulong again convincingly won the reward but lost the more crucial immunity challenge to Koror. The reward was a sewing kit and fabric, which Angie thankfully used to make a dress. I was getting really sick of doing a double take every time a long shot made her black string bikini panties resemble a map of our most southern state.

They’d probably have had a decent shot at immunity, too, but personal trainer Jeff stood on a coconut the night before, rolled his ankle and had to pull out of a challenge that needed all the strength and stamina the teams could muster. Back at camp he pleaded to be voted off rather than hold the team back. Nobody wanted to do that since, as Ibrehem put it, "then we’d be down two people because Kim doesn’t help in the challenges, she doesn’t help around camp…" Even with a bung leg he was still opening coconuts while Kim watched. In the end, however, the majority followed his wishes and he hobbled off into the night.

That’s Cathy out of our sweep, and Sharon saved for yet another week thanks to the mysteries of a game where Kim can have three strikes and still not be out.

Janu, you got off light this week; next time I’ll have no choice but to mention those Nana Mouskouri glasses.