Here are a couple of photos of the wonderful hand carvings at temples in Siem Reap, Cambodia (the most famous temple there is Angkor Wat):

 

 

 

If you go, I recommend the Smiling Hotel, where the staff really are smiling!  Tell Conway Bronwyn, from Australia, sent you.  Need a tuktuk driver?  I recommend Sophea!  Conway can arrange for Sophea to take you 'round, & it might only cost you about USD15 a day.

Due in part to airline safety regulations I arrived in Kuala Lumpur sans nail file.  Having wasted ringgits at Carrefour, Kepong, on a metal nail file which was as blunt as can be (ie took 10 strokes to achieve what one stroke of a decent nail file could), I finally picked up the new improved version at a convenience store, packaged as "Original Product" "Quality Watch"!

 

 

 

See the cuticle trimmer on one end?  Great idea, just what I needed after being unpedicured for weeks.  It has a clear plastic cap to cover it, because it's sharp.

My ideal nail file, however, would have a more narrow tip for cleaning under nails; & one side of the file would be significantly more coarse/powerful at filing than the other.  I'd like the file itself to be at least 7cm (3 inches) long too, longer than the one above.

When I was a teenager I could buy "diamond" files, but now all I can find is "sapphire" files.

I'm sitting here, hungry & a bit hot, as though glued to my chair.  I could get up, walk a few paces to the kitchen, & organise some food, & while I'm up turn the ceiling fan on, but feel compelled to continue my facebook conversations with a family member & a friend, & divest myself of some of the tabs & windows I have open.

Sorry I haven't updated since August, have actually been doing a bit of work, but mainly stressing about my income, or lack thereof.  Working full time seems like servitude to a company, to me.  I prefer to have a lazy/catch up day at home between work days, actually.  I need the time & freedom to unwind. 

While I love to have plenty of money, my lifestyle is more important to me - but I'd love to have both:  wealth & freedom to do what I want to do, when I want to do it!  :-)

So, I found my "angel" at church in July last year, while overseas, & we were going to marry in October(!), but there's been a hitch (not our fault) so looks like it'll be next year instead. 

The way he makes me feel:

 

He's big & strong, popular, well respected, kind, ambitious, & Christian - & we love each other.  I'll be away visiting him again soon, so you might not hear from me again until November.

Where I like to snuggle:

 

Any questions?

 

(more here )

Please read the following news story, my questions follow:

Gorilla HIV strain jumps to humans

A woman from Cameroon has been found to be infected with an AIDS-like virus that came from gorillas, French researchers have reported.

The woman, who has no symptoms of HIV infection, is well and was likely infected by another person, not an animal, the researchers said.

Their findings suggest this newly discovered gorilla virus is circulating among people, they reported in the journal Nature Medicine.

"We have identified a new human immunodeficiency virus in a Cameroonian woman. It is closely related to gorilla simian immunodeficiency virus and shows no evidence of recombination with other HIV-1 lineages or with chimpanzee SIV," Jean-Christophe Plantier of the Universite de Rouen in France and colleagues wrote.

The 62-year-old woman was diagnosed in 2004, soon after she moved to Paris from Cameroon.

Routine genetic sequencing of the virus showed it looked like no other sample of AIDS virus and it was eventually compared to a gorilla simian immunodeficiency virus, itself only discovered in 2006.

AIDS, which has infected an estimated 33 million people globally and has killed another 25 million, has been traced to chimpanzees. Scientists say it likely jumped to people who hunted and butchered the chimps, which are the closest living genetic relatives of humans.

"Our findings indicate that gorillas, in addition to chimpanzees, are likely sources of HIV-1," Plantier's team wrote.

"The discovery of this novel HIV-1 lineage highlights the continuing need to watch closely for the emergence of new HIV variants, particularly in western central Africa, the origin of all existing HIV-1 groups."

The woman, a widow, herself had no contact with gorillas but said she had several sex partners after her husband died. She remembered having been sick once.

When people become newly infected with HIV, they often have a fever and minor illness at the time but rarely know what it is. They are usually diagnosed later, after the virus has begun damaging the immune system.

There is no cure for HIV but drugs can control it for years.

- Reuters

My questions: 

*  how does hunting & butchering a chimp give a human AIDS?  (maybe one of them had an open wound & the chimps' blood splattered onto it?)

*  how did one of the woman's sex partners catch a gorilla virus? (similar to above suggestion?)

Is this for real?!  Check it out here !

I kept expecting that at the end of her 'perfect world' description there would be a "Ha!  Just kidding!" in small print.  :-)

 

I thought I'd try my hand at writing up my life:

 

I always knew I wanted to be an artist/designer/traveller /philanthropist/multi billionaire, ever since I slid gently into this warm, welcoming world & quickly clutched the nearest diamond encrusted platinum spoon.

I went to school in the delightfully fresh country air of south east Queensland, Australia, & later studied graphic design at Shillington College in our capital city, where I spent many a delicious hour dining out at wonderful restaurants & experiencing thrilling shopping sprees with my fabulous friends.

I have travelled from Park City, Utah, to Quebec City, from Kuala Lumpur to Genting Highlands - & that was just the start of my wanderlust!  I'm told that my travels have influenced my art and that it has a mystical air - yeah, Baby!

My admirable professional life began in Queensland as an object of desire for chain smoking bankers, continuing on as an interpreter of a lawman's indecipherable mutterings...oops...I mean: began in fashion, designing a much admired line of actually flattering clothing for the bbw with taste, inner lit handbags of just the right shape, with a place for everything, and ultra comfortable-but-gorgeous- and-feminine shoes for ladies who leave a larger footprint, continuing on as a real estate queen, specialising in renovation transformations, and ending (ending?  I'm not done yet!) as multi billionaire philanthropist extraordinaire, especially loved by the children of the African continent, and those who care about them.

I still had some time on my hands, so together with my big, strong, exotic new husband we had the cutest, most adorable, intelligent, beautiful, talented, loving, good, biracial twin boy and girl you could possibly imagine...and we all travelled internationally to further his business empire.  In between trips abroad we designed and built our completely solar powered, ultra luxurious mansions, in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland of Queensland, and in his home country. *

 

I thought you might like to see:  Most Expensive Things The World Has To Offer , from purpleslinky.com?  Spot the diamond encrusted golden spoon!

 

*Time will tell just how fictional - or not - the above is.  ;-)

Check out this She Builds Quick Machines guitar cover:

 

- & let me know what you think of it?