emilyonearth

Margie asked me to tell this tale… (my mother :D )

I’m a fan of sleeping with my window open. Back home I will always have a window slightly ajar, even in the middle of winter. I like the fresh air. No longer! A couple of weeks ago a rodent came through this window. At first I thought it was a mouse, though now I realise it was more likely a rat, seeing as it was considerably larger than any mouse I’ve ever seen, and I have seen rats running around the neighbourhood. I didn’t know what it was straight away. I was woken up around 4am by a noise, but in my sleepiness didn’t really register what was going on, and eventually convinced myself I had just imagined the whole thing, until I heard scratching noises unter my bed. Turn on phone light; can’t see anything. Turn on real light; still can’t see anything, but am convinced I’m not crazy. Sit on my bed for some time, freaking out just a tad. Eventually see it emerge from behind the couch and squeal a little, which frightens it back behind the couch. I open the front door and then bang on the opposite side of the couch with the hopes of scaring it outside. It does make a run for it, but instead of going out into the hallway, runs into the kitchen. New plan: It has to move again at some stage. Assuming it is as terrified as I am it will take the path of least resistance, and so I create a barrier back into my room.

Luckily this worked, as after maybe 20 minutes or so the light sensor in the hallway went on, and there were no more noises. I was a little paranoid for a day or so after this, but soon life went back to normal. Kept the outside window closed from then on, but opened the window leading to the dorm hallway so that I still got a little air circulation.

One week later I woke up around 3:30am and thought I heard noises. Bravely thinking I had handled it ok last time, I jumped up, turned the lights on, looked under the bed, behind desk, fridge, couch, in the kitchen and bathroom. Nothing. Residual paranoia, I decide, and go back to bed. Continue to hear very very faint noises, try to ignore them but can’t so I get up and check everywhere again. The sound is coming from the couch, but there’s nothing behind it, so i prop one end up with a thick book, and have a look under it. Nothing, but as I tilted the couch, out rolled a couple of pistachio nuts and a cherry tomato. A little weird… so I sit and watch, just like last time. Sure enough, after a while my wee rodent friend makes a dash for the kitchen (I assume he was INSIDE the couch) and I set up my “path of least resistance” contraption again. He’s quite noisy this time, and I can hear him climbing on my shelves, but I just let him do his thing. After some time I hear a loud bang and the hallway light turns on. I go to have a look to see him running down the hallway to the outside door, which he can fit under. He had climbed out the kitchen window and jumped down onto the washing machine on the other side.

At this point I’m a wee bit worried as I don’t know if it’s a repeat offender or whether there’s a small family of rats nesting inside my couch. I ask my school for help and they provide me with these…

I’m not a huge fan of these. There’s the whole “this isn’t all that humane” side of things, but honestly I’m just not sure how I would handle a live rodent stuck to a piece of cardboard. Anyways, I have a few set up around the place. It’s been a week and a half since the last incident. I spent a couple of nights with friends as I was hearing paranoia noises, but really there has been no sign of company since then. The traps are staying out though, and the windows are staying shut!

In my normal life, the weather has definitely gotten a lot colder, and has been raining the last couple of days. We had sports day, which was quite cool, and of which I’ll include a couple of photos below. I’ll also include some photos of the toilet themed restaurant a few of us visited. Spring festival plans are coming together, plenty of travel to be done, so I’m hoping my January pay happens before the holidays begin! The school has started getting a bit slack, and 2 months in a row now I’ve been paid late – November was two weeks late, and so far we’re one week late for December…

Hard to believe Christmas is next week! China doesn’t celebrate at all – it’s a normal work/school day, though apparently the Education Bureau has organised for us foreign teachers to have the day off. Aanyways, nothing else too interesting I don’t think… Oh! I was given 5 fish by a student. The big one died within the first half hour, as it jumped out of the water while I was in class. Two smaller ones dies soon after, and I still have 2 remaining small fish…