I smell a RAT

How many of you saw the movie Ratatouille? How many of you thought Disney made a cute rat character? Wait, keep your hands up. Look to your left and right, everyone with their hands up has never had a rat in their house.

In October of 2007 Mirinda and I moved out of the sprawling metropolis of Vientiane (pop. 600,000) and into a small village close to the University where I teach. Some of the drawbacks from this decision have been: long commutes into town, neighbors who have never seen a foreigner, dirt roads that turn into swamps during the rainy season, and rats. Lots and lots of rats. I had never dealt with a rat before moving here, even in the States all I had seen were little house mice. Observe exhibit A:












Today I want to share some of my exciting rat stories with you all. We'll start with our first rat experience. I was sitting in the living room on a vinyl couch when I heard something thumping below me. Curious, I turn the couch over and was looking through a hole that had been chewed when...bam! Flying out of the hole at my face a huge rat! I almost fell backwards and Mirinda screamed as the rat ran through the house and into the kitchen where he disappeared. After this harrowing experience we bought a pile of glue traps and have been baiting them non-stop since.

My second note-worthy experience was after we came back from a conference in Thailand. We had been gone about four weeks and the person who was taking care of our house had accidentally locked the office door. Unfortunately we didn't have a key to that door. When we finally managed to get the door open, we noticed an unusual odor, but it wasn't very strong so we ignored it. A few hours later, we thought it was getting stronger, so we let the dog in to pinpoint the source. Underneath a chair lay the rotting carcass of a long dead rat. Disturbing the body made the whole room stink worse and we were bleaching and airing it out for weeks.

Finally, when my parents where visiting this past December, Mirinda heard some activity in a closet under the stairs. I grabbed a flashlight and a broom stick, set two glue traps across the door, and went in to flush the thing out. I was pulling out boxes and making noise to get the rat to run out the door. All of a sudden I picked up a box and (again!) a rat jumped out towards my face. I almost hit my head on the ceiling, but my plan worked and the rat got caught on the trap. Unfortunately, as soon as we cleaned him up another one ran out and got away. Only 50% that night.

Participation

Two of my distinguished classmates; Aaron and Brad.




For the past three years I have been working on my Masters in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages). The classes have been part-time, twice a year in January and July since 2006. Usually we have 2-4 weeks where we complete around 4-8 credit hours of class. These have been some of the most stressful times of my life. One of the ways that I cope with the pressure is by talking a lot in class.
Some of you have never had a class with me, but the former statement probably doesn’t surprise you because you know that I talk a lot out of class, so why would I talk less in class? I would like to say that I only share relevant things that I think everyone can benefit from in our discussions, but the truth is, I think that I’m really smart and I like the sound of my own voice.
This past January we had a class called “Intercultural Communication.” I was practically salivating at the thought of participating in these discussions, and Dr. Moreau did not disappoint. There was another student in the class named Ben who works in China. Now Ben is not like me, because he actually is smart and the other students enjoy hearing his insights. One day a group of my friends decided to place bets on which one of us would talk more in the next day’s class. Every comment translated into a tally mark and at the end of the class, the man with the most tallies wins. I guess it was a close race, I got off to a slow start and Ben pulled ahead. Around 3/4’s into the class though I came roaring back and took the lead. We were neck and neck at the finish, with me up by one tally when...

Ben asked a final clarification question about the homework and took the crown.

I guess real life doesn’t always have happy endings.

Tiger Kingdom

Remember Zoobooks? It was a magazine that came out in the early 90’s about animals.

My parents bought a subscription and so every month a new magazine would arrive packed with pictures and information. There were three issues that I looked at so many times the pages fell out. Lions, Tigers, and Big Cats. I have been obsessed with lions and tigers since childhood. And on January 18th, 2009, I got to fulfill a boyhood dream of touching a live tiger.
The location: Tiger Kingdom, Chiang Mai Thailand. Yes Thailand, they would never allow something like this in the U.S. The premise: there are dozens of tigers in enclosures, and because they are nocturnal creatures, visitors can pay to touch, lay on, and take pictures with these beautiful cats during the day while they are resting. I know, this is just a “When Animals Attack” episode waiting to happen, but I had to gamble on the chance I wouldn’t make the highlight reel. For fifteen dollars our group got to spend about an hour in the cages with the tigers. We spent twenty minutes with the 3-6 month olds, and forty minutes with the adult tigers.
If I had to rate the greatest days of my life so far, I think it would be: Tiger kingdom, my wedding, and then the birth of my son. If you don’t know that I’m kidding, you should stop reading now and navigate to a new site.





But it was interesting that I was smiling bigger in my “tiger” pictures then in my “newly reunited with my wife and son” pictures.



I know that you are all insanely jealous of me and wish that you had this life experience, but not everyone can be that cool...