Urgh and double Urgh is the how I feel about this semester.
Anyway, today I had a dream that sort of highlights one of the issues I've been having lately, that being the rats in my care.
Unlike the young rats I had before that were nervous but quickly acclimated to human contact, these rats are adult and want nothing to do with me. They freak out if I try to pick them up, freak out of I try to put them into a ball, and generally behave as if I am the enemy, with a single exception, and she still doesn't like being handled all that much.
After getting bit by two of them and then developing a pleasant rash (which is already going away) I pretty much gave up on trying to give them handling time.
On top of this these rats are extremely rambunctious with each other, but only between midnight and 5AM. They seem to enjoy body slamming each other all around the cage, which is constantly waking me up. On top of this two of them like gnawing on the cage bars, which makes this extremely loud grating noise. Last night I had to get up something like three times and give them a stare down so I could go back to sleep.
So the only thing I can remember about my dream tonight was wrangling around a bunch of baby rats that varied in size from as small as a grain of rice to about the size of a hazelnut. They were so small that the bars of the cage meant nothing to them and they were skittering around desks and I had to use pieces of paper to corral them back like they were insects. And then I picked up the mom and she apologized to me.
Usually dreams come and go rather quickly, but apparently I was very focused on getting all these baby rats, because the scene felt like it lasted around 10 minutes.
Le sigh. I have to admit I am looking forward to when I can bring these rats back, but their prospects for adoption are not all that good (at least for three of them).
No comments:
Post a Comment