The Growth of a Forest

Adorable Rats

But enough about depressing backstories. Let's talk about something more fun!

I'm working in a research lab this summer and I get to work with adorable rats 8-9 hours a day! Sure, they might sometimes squeal when I try to pick them up, scared that I'll do harm to them, but most of the time, they're gentle and quite cute.

I remember, at the beginning of the summer, us lab assistants had to get the baby rats accustomed to our touch. We would take them out of their little litter box, plop them down on our lap, and let them roam around. At the beginning, they were really scared, so they pooped and peed a lot. And I do mean a lot. The lab coats that we put on our laps were perpetually poo-stained and smelled funky.

But it was worth the smelliness when they finally started opening up to us. They would stand upright and twitch their little whiskers back and forth, sniffing out the environment. The miniscule movements of their noses are quite endearing. Not to mention their little black eyes staring at you in wonder. If only they were able to learn their tasks quickly, they'd be perfect!

I know you're probably thinking right now, dear diary, that I'm positively crazy. Here's a girl who opened the journal entries with accounts of dating and romance. And now she's talking about rats. But this journal's an account of my life and my life is more than just a love story, waiting to play out. It's also more about rats (although they've been inhabiting a large part of my days recently...) Life sometimes has excitement, but most of the time, it's just monotonous stuff that fills in the gaps between each life event. Like someone used to say "you can't have a rainbow without rain" (you also can't spell rainbow without rain...). So you can't live life with just exciting stuff happening, because you'll get used to them and they won't be exciting anymore. It's the moments of boredom, of mundane existence, that makes your life exciting. You can't have light without shadows.

Oh gosh, I'm making it all depressing again, aren't I? I can't help it, I'm pre-dispositioned to be melancholic.

And to add onto that depressing sidenote: one of our rats had to be put down today. The electrode implants in his brain fell out due to excessive movement (he was very crabby) and we had to put him down-- the dorsal side of his brain was completely exposed to the elements and we didn't want to risk him getting an infection... We had to cut off his head afterwards and preserve it, it's floating in a clear solution of paraformaldehyde in the lab fridge right now. You can probably guess that I don't keep my lunch in that fridge...