I've been a bit busy/lazy lately....

Here I am! At Bayon temple! I think it is my favourite of the temples because I like all the faces. It was built in the late 12th or early 13th century as a Mahayana Buddhist temple, after the death of the king (Jayavarman VII) the state religion was changed to Hinduism, and the temple became Hindu as well. At some point after that the state religion changed to Theravada Buddhism and the temple once again changed religion too. That's about all I can remember my friend and tour guide Da telling me about it, it you want to know more, google it!

Anyway, so I've been busy backpacking, it's been super, check out my travel blog for more details! Now I'm being lazy in Siem Reap with 4 days until I move into the school house and 10 days before I actually start teaching. So really, I now have all the time in the world to do things, but instead I'm not really doing things, just hanging out in cafes and reading my book. It's a great book... not great literature by any means, but a good holiday read. Once I finish it maybe I'll write a review of it.

19 Days 'til Liftoff!

One day I'm going to write more about pangolins, they're cool as. But not today.

Here's where the pic is from

 

 

 

Here is a picture of my soon to be ex-workplace. I quit today, with 19 days to go until I leave for Cambodia. Have I mentioned how excited about that I am?
Anyway, it's alright, as workplaces go. My boss and my workmates are usually pretty cool. And, believe it or not, most of the customers are pretty cool too. And, as I think I said in an earlier post, the scenery is not too bad either ;-)  ...
So I suppose I will probably miss it.
As for my other job, my Sunday job, well I accidentally didn't go last Sunday because I accidentally had too much to drink and accidentally stayed out to late and accidentally didn't wake up in the morning :-/ and now I'm a little scared to go back... but I will. I need the money. But, oh man, I'm supposed to be getting to old for that sort of behaviour, surely??

Urrgh I have quite a lot of THINGS to do before leaving. I've come across heaps of blogs with helpful hints on packing lightly, which is something I really want to do. But also, I've got all sorts of STUFF that I might wish that I took if I don't take it!!
hmph I should really get of the computer and start doing some of the THINGS and sorting out the STUFF...

And Now for Something Completely Different...

(pic from here)

Just to prove this blog isn't only about animals, here is a post that isn't about animals. (Even though there is a kangaroo in that picture!)
It can be about me instead :) I am currently in Australia (Melbourne if you wana be specific). And I go grocery shopping with a kangaroo. It's great. My kangaroo doesn't even need a leash.
Melbourne is pretty great, but I'm super excited to be off on a new adventure to South East Asia in 27 days! Then my supermarket buddy can be a pangolin.

 I'm flying into Bangkok on the 5th March with one of my best friends. We are travelling around Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and hopefully Laos (if time allows) for 3 weeks, and then I'm settling in Siem Reap for 3 months volunteer English teaching. After that, who knows! I'm super excited. (and I know I said that already, but I really really am).

Anyway. Right now, living in Melbourne. Thursday night is $1 champagne night at a bar in town so that's pretty fantastic.

I work at a cafe. It's at the training ground of one of the AFL teams. I don't follow the footy, I'd never even heard of it before I moved here. But there are still perks, the main one being getting to see a whole lot of incredibly fit men run around with their shirts off...

I'm a little bit obsessed with this song at the moment.... (Somebody That I Used To Know - Gotye ft Kimbra). Kimbra is a New Zealander living in Melbourne, just like me. Unfortunately that's about all the similarities between us. She is much more talented, more beautiful, and waaay cooler than me!

And just before I go do my laundry, here are a couple of fun animal facts:

- The female kangaroo will give birth to a new offspring right about the time she ejects the older joey from her pouch. During this time of transition, she will simultaneously produce two different types of milk for the different needs of her young. Each joey knows which teat is theirs and will only nurse from the appropriate one. (source)

- Pangolins are covered in scales. These scales are made of keratin, the same stuff that fingernails and hair are made from. The scales grow continuously. (source)

xx

A Business of Ferrets

source

These are ferrets. As I have mentioned, a group of ferrets is called a BUSINESS.
These guys do look pretty business like, I guess.
I grew up not liking ferrets because they were always eating Mum's chickens. But these guys don't look so bad. Once I saw a girl taking a ferret for a walk on a lead in the botanic gardens. I really enjoyed the way it moved.
Here is a video, just in case you haven't seen a ferret running. I love that weird bendy bit in the middle of their back.
They kinda make me think of long, stretched-out cats.

source

- A male ferret is called a hob, a female is called a jill.
- Queen Victoria was a big fan of ferrets, and gave them as gifts to loved ones.
- A newborn baby ferret is small enough to fit in a teaspoon.
- Ferrets are easy to train.
- And they can SWIM!!

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Actually, after spending the past half-hour  watching videos of ferrets and reading ferret facts I may just have a new favourite animal :)

Click here to find out all you need to know about ferrets!

I've got gnus for you!

This gnu is running.
Gnu is another name for wildebeest.
Wildebeest an Afrikaans word meaning 'wild beast'.
Baby gnus can run within 3-7 minutes of being born.
One of the world's most incredible animal spectacles is the annual Great Gnu Migration.
80% of gnu babies are born in a 2-3 week period at the start of the monsoon season.
The gnu population is 15 times larger than it was in 1950.


(info and pics come from here)

gnu new

This is my new gnu blog. I like this suit-gnu.
I don't think this blog will be solely about gnus. Or news. But there might be a little bit of one or the other from time to time.
So today I learnt that a group of gnus is called an implausibility of gnus. I think that is quite fantastic. So fantastic it inspired me to start a blog! Well, not really, I was going to anyway, but now I have a title that makes me happy.
Something else I learnt about 2 minutes ago is the difference between learned and learnt:...... They are one and the same!
(I'm not sure if that's worthy of an exclaimation mark, but I'll put it there anyway, because I like exclaimation marks!)
Anyway, learned is more commonly used in American English, and learnt in British English. The same applies to spilled/spilt, burned/burnt, kneeled/knelt, leaped/leapt etc etc etc.

I need to practice writing because right now my ideas are jumping all over the place. While learning about implausibilities of gnus I found some other interesting animal group names:

- a congregation of alligators
- a coalition of cheetahs
- a cloud of bats
- a sleuth of bears
- an obstinancy of buffalos
- a nuisance of cats
- a murder of crows
- a business of ferrets
- a smack of jellyfish

... and many more that can be found here!

Oh, and while I'm thinking about animals, I was talking to my Australian housemate the other day and she had no idea what a stoat was.

Ok, I think that's it for today.