Animal Instincts

I have been away from Xanga for over a month. Something happened to one of my kitties on Mother’s Day and since that day I just have not been in the mood to come online and blog anything. I guess you can say that my motivation to write disappeared.  Okay I will not get into that now.

If you have ever had any domestic pets, have you ever looked at the way they act? Well I had 2 cats a male-Snoopy and a female-Milo and it was interesting to see how they behaved. Even though they were animals, they really did act like the way human males and females act (okay I am totally generalising here). 

Here is a piccy of them when they were little.

Snoopy was all Mr Cool who didn’t like being picked up and getting attention all the time, who just went about his business every day. He would of course come and brush against my leg when he wanted to eat and wanted cuddles (typical male  ). He was the explorer of the two cats and ate the most although he was real gentlemanly when it came to food. He always let Milo pig out and eat first then he would step up to the food bowl and eat the rest. When they jumped on fences and other things he would make a thud while Milo never made any noise.  And when he slept, he slept on his back half the time with his legs up in the air soaking in the sun that use to come through my bedroom window.

Here is Snoopy (and you can also see Milo curled up) sleeping on his back. LOL.

Milo on the other hand is all high and almighty. She walked around as if she was the Queen and owns the whole house. She walked more gracefully and required attention all the time. When she doesn’t get the attention she would start to cry. She eats a fair bit but does not put on the weight. And when she sleeps she will go right to the top of the bed where the pillows are and sleep right in the middle all curled up or all stretched out like complete royalty. When Milo seemed lost she would cry out until she found Snoopy and then she would feel safe again and go about her thing. When they were young they use to sleep together but as they got older found their own separate favourite places to sleep.

Here is Milo...

One other thing I have noticed is that male pets prefer the female owners better while the female pets like the male owners. Is it just me or have you guys realised that too?

Life I guess works in funny ways. My cat was the main reason that I stopped blogging and now the cats are the reason I am back blogging again while I should actually be studying. I have actually been pretty good with my studying this week (for a change). But I guess I have no other choice since I have 4 exams in 4 days next week. Good luck to those who have exams coming up. I completely envy the ones that don't have one.

Free at last

Well kinda... Not really... Still have assignments and stuff to do. At least I am free from exams for a good 5-6 weeks then a lot more stress. How fast has this semester gone??? It seems like every semester is flying faster than the last. Well the good news is that I think my exam went well on Friday but the bad news is that there is a great possibility that my final exams for the 4 units I'm doing this semester are going to be held 4 days in a row all in the first week of exam week which starts on the 11th of June I think. I'm trying not to think about it. The good news is I know early so I can prepare for it early.

I had a pretty busy weekend. I went shopping with my parents early Saturday. My Mum is still keen to buy some more furniture even though I am sure we don't need any more for the house so we went looking. Then I met up with my Uncle and cousin to watch Spiderman 3. I dragged my brother along too. We hadn't had a chance to eat lunch so we quickly bought the tickets then rushed to the the eatery and got from woodfire pizza. I managed to chow down 3 slices of pizza in 5 minutes which is a record for me considering I am like the slowest eater in the world. Then we hurried back to the cinemas and waited in line. We got there 20 mins early and there were already heaps of people there outside Cinema 2 waiting for the workers to finish cleaning the cinema. And here I was holding this massive bucket full of popcorn while the others went to the bathroom. I felt embarrassed. When we finally got in we had to sit a bit closer to the front than I am use to but it wasn't that bad. My cousin and I managed to finish the whole thing on our own. It took us most of the movie to do it but we did it. LOL. The movie ended up being pretty good but I think the second one was better. The special effects were good especially with the Sandman although I think the acting isn't that great. There probably will be more Spiderman movies in the future to watch out for.

Saturday night my rellies came over and we had a nice family dinner followed by the young ones sitting in front of my computer.  The night was spent in front of the comp being entertained by my childhood friend who had just bought a new webcam and he did the whole video conferencing thing. He is learning to play the guitar and my brother and I were joking around with him. There was also some singing, harmonica playing and a whole heap of laughing going on. We are a bunch of dorks I tell you.

Sunday was really busy. We had guests coming over for lunch and I still had my assignment to finish. So I spent most of the morning doing my assignment while the rest of my family cooked and cleaned and got everything ready. Finally something good came out of studying. I got away with not doing the house work. Hehehe. Come lunch time we all had a nice bbq outside in the patio and then my cousin went for a swim. No one else wanted to go in cause the water was freezing. The shorts my cousin was wearing was falling off him cause he borrowed my bro's ones so I ended up giving him my basketball shorts which I use to wear when we painted the house. We mucked around for a while and ate a lot. Lunch turned into dinner and everyone stayed over for dinner. It was a nice Nepali meal with lots yummy food. After dinner we decided to play some DDR. I have some really fond memories of playing DDR with Kazi in Darwin. We use to play it at the most random hours sometimes like 1 or 2 in the morning after a massive sugar high from the desserts we use to bake. It was so funny watching cause my Uncle and Aunty also had ago. They had no idea what they were doing but at least they were enjoying themselves. Eventually the night ended and everyone was exhausted. I also managed to watch a bit of the Logie Awards. I like checking out the dresses that the celebrities wear. There were some nice ones and some not so nice ones.

Well I am off. I have a class at 8 in the morning .

Busy as a bumble bee

I've been very busy lately with uni work and my preparation for my last mid semester exam for financial accounting which is on Friday. It's worth a whooping 39% so I really want to make sure that I do good and plus it'll take the strain away from having to perform really well in the final exam. So I've actually banned myself from using msn, watching dvds and everything else not uni related til Friday night when all in my life will be good again and the fact that I will actually have a life.

I leave you with some pics from riding a cable car on the way to Manakamana. Manakamana was actually named after a goddess and there is a temple up in the hills where thousands of devotees visit the shrine with a strong belief that the goddess will fulfill their wishes. Most tourists go up to prominent ridge which is 1302m overlooking the river valleys of Trishuli to the south and Marshyangdi to the west, to see deep valleys, terraced fields and the snow range of Manaslu-Himalchuli and the Annapurna Himal. This is what the base looks like.



The cable cars cover the 2.8km stretch from Sheres along the highway right up to hill to where the temple lies just over10 minutes (we actually timed the journey). Each car can hold up to 6 passengers but because Saurav and Luke had their massive trekking backpack with them we had just the four of us in our car, my cousin, myself, Luke and bro.  

My parents were in another car stuck with a young guy in his early 20s who was scared of heights and apparently looked terrified throughout the whole 10 minutes journey. This is my Dad making some kind of a strange face just as he got into the car and wearing a dorky beanie. LOL.



This is a view from the top. You can see the mountains in the distance if you look closely. Its easier to see it on a more clear day. You can also see views of Trishuli River Valley and of the Himalayas towards north if you walk around the top.


This temple had a massive line that could easily have had a waiting period of up to 5 hours for people to go inside. This really goes to show how devoted people can really be. We weren't that devoted so we went and had a look and walked around the temple and gave the pandit (like a priest) our offerings and he took it inside and did everything for us and plus we had to make it back to Kathmandu by night and that was going to take at least another 4 hours drive.



The Cable car was built by the Swiss for free. My brother and reckon there must have been some kind if a catch like it was some kind of experiment to see how well the system would work before they improved their existing one in Switzerland or something like that. Before the cable cars were built, the only way to make it to the top was a 4-5 hour steep hiking which I have done once as a child with my Mum and brother.

ANZAC Day

Today is ANZAC Day and it marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. And on this day today something weird happened. I was cleaning my room and all the paperwork in my bedside table drawers (no that is not the weird bit ) and I found a letter inside a Christmas card from a primary school friend from Perth whom I have not seen in more than 10 years and have not spoken to/written letters to since 2002 (yeah I'm one of those old fashioned people that still enjoy writing letters and receiving them from time to time). The thing is I have never seen this letter until today but somehow it has been opened . I have no idea when it arrived because the stamp on the letter was never stamped/dated by Australia Post (I guess around X-mas time they get so much mail that they forget to stamp a few) and it was sent to my Darwin address (because my friend didn't know that I was in Perth) but I am sure it had to be in the last 2 years because thats when I left Darwin to come to Perth to study and that's when letters/parcels are left on my table by my Mum so I can look at them when I go home for the holidays every 5 months. My friend told me that she wrote the letter in 2003 when she went to Europe but didn't send it until now (which I have no idea when the date is/was). It may also have arrived this X-mas that had passed because I had a lot of letters/cards n parcels to open after I came back from Nepal and I actually didn't know I had them until a month later and found them inside the drawers of the bedside table. We had some people house sitting while we were away on holidays. But somehow I still managed to miss this one particular letter. Luckily she has given me her new address, home phone and mobile number so I'll give her a a call in the hope that she has not moved away from that address or that she has not changed her mobile number because people seem to change numbers so frequently these days unlike me who has had the same number since 2000.

Okay I hope that didn't confuse anyone. LOL. I thought I would post more pics from Nepal trip since I still have so much more.

From Begnas Thal My cousin, Mum and I travelled to Pokhara. We stayed at my Dad's cousin's place the first night and then at my Aunty's place the next night. For the rest of the week we stayed at my Dad's friend's Lakeside Hotel. My Dad and his friend go back so many years. They've been friends since they were 13/14 and he can cook the nicest food whether it be Nepali or Western.

Here is a pic from the side of the road. Its not unusual to see animals on the road.

Here is the Shanti Stupa aka World Peace Stupa. It took us almost an hour and a half to make it to the top and half an hour to come back down. A lot of places to see are way up in the hills of Nepal.