Mouse: Remixed

So our very humane trap caught a mouse within an hour. Yay for us, being so smart and loving! Yay for hippies! Yay for coddling the smug bastard of a mouse into a new home... or... not.
Apparently the husband killed the mouse. I was very upset about this, but did some reading about it- you can't catch and release a mouse unless you are going to release it miles and miles from your home, and it was past 1am and below -20 when the husband came home. I understand not wanting to sit beside mr. smug supreme in the car so that he can be let go. I was still very sad (and took the opportunity to remind the husband that I still need to learn how to drive again- I have kept paying for my license, but haven't driven seven years, and never in the city. Plus our car is standard, and all of my driving experience, except my initial few weeks of training, have been on an automatic)- I was already contemplating letting it go just because it clearly didn't know it was caught. It oscillated between grooming itself and throwing itself at the top of the cup to get more cream cheese. And pooping. I probably should have just knocked the cup over and told the husband that the cup wasn't heavy enough. As far as modes of execution go, the mouse froze to death. Apparently this is one of the most humane ways to let them go, which made me a bit more happy.

This happiness was crushed shortly after when I dragged my lazy bum out of bed an hour after the husband had left (to be fair, I usually stay up quite late working, and then sleep until ten or so) and found that he had re-set his trap. I say "his" trap because we had both made humane traps- he had made the glass trap, and I had made a bowl trap (a ramp for the mouse to get up into a metal bowl that has been oiled- the mouse can get in, but can't climb back out) . So, he has reset his trap, which leaves me a bit hurt. We we had agreed to leave my trap up to give it an equal change at mouse-catching, mostly because we had bet each other a massage that our trap would catch more mice, and here he was mocking me by trying to catch way more mice because his trap is better. Unfair!
And then, I noticed the mouse poops. I immediately put more cream cheese into the glass (it is the more effective trap) so that it would be fresh and attract this other mouse.

How many can there be? Will this trap be successful a second time, or does it now smell like mouse-leader death? internet, if you have a god/dess, please pray for our mouse problem. Pray that I learn to drive in time for our next mouse release, and also that we catch these mice before they give us all the red death. This effects you too, internet. That is how plagues work.

PS: I really enjoyed reading that comment that was mostly me commenting on my own blog. It was great, real satisfying. I know that there are a group of people that are keeping track of when I blog, because there is a flux of traffic here whenever I post. Do you like what you're reading? I am very excited to finally be doing this blogging thing- I think this medium is crazy interesting, effective, and versatile. And I want to keep it up, internet. Tell me what you've liked and haven't liked. And, perhaps answer this question:
Have you had mice? How did you get rid of those mice? How many mice are probably in our walls still if one is dead and one is pooping next to a trap? Were you humane about it? If this were reality TV, would I learn to drive in time to release mouse deux?
Ha! I have fooled you, internet. That was more than one question!

Of Mice and (Wo)men. Yes, this title is that corny.

So we've had a mouse. Not just any mouse, but a mouse(!). This thing is the smartest and boldest rodent I have ever met. Seriously. We've had trouble with mice before, as ours is a hundred year old house with plenty of mouse-doors and such. We've also had trouble with humane traps- mice quickly become too smart for any trap at all, and our mice are organized! We had tried everything- live traps, snap traps, poison (I hate this, btw. This is inhumane, plus it almost killed my aunt's dog the day before our wedding, which is another post for another day. Also, the poison has never killed a mouse). We have tried glue traps. The only glue trap that has ever caught a mouse in this house was the one that my husband forgot about for years. We didn't know this particular mouse was in the house until it started screaming. Don't use glue traps. Just don't. Not only are the inhumane, but mouse get way too smart for them very quickly. In fact, our mouse was all "bitch, please. What do you think I am? A vole?"
Did I mention that our mouse is bold? Yeah, so bold that he started calling himself "sir mouse-a-lot." So bold that he not only stole food from our rabbits, but mocked them. "Oh yeah," said our mouse, "well your mama's ears were so big she couldn't wear fashionable hats!"
(Ophelia, our lop, responded by saying:

and Wolfgang Van Halen the 2nd replied to with:


That's right, mouse. We know all about hats.
Aside from terrorizng our loving and lovable lagomorphs, this mouse was mostly a terror and a pain. And besides all of this, we caught him, and we did it with a trap that was pretty much free, and without killing/torturing him. Heck yes.
Here's how we did it:
Get a glass (about a dollar ten at ikea)
Put something delicious at the bottom (free: anything in your fridge that is spreadable. We used cream chees)
Prop the glass up onto a nickel (0.05$ in Canada)
Wait (also free)

It took less than an hour for us to catch our mouse.
For me, being too squeamish to remove the mouse, and with the husband being gone and all, this meant two hours of mouse-mocking.
I saw him throw himself at the top of the glass to get the cream cheese. I contemplated letting him to and blaming it on a bad trap. I had to leave the room to stop myself from doing this.
Anyways, humane traps, all the way. Also, they are cheap!

On Teaching: wherein I ask you questions, internet.

Alright. Pull up a chair, and ponder some stuff with.

While sitting in on the class that I TA for, I witnessed an exchange between the professor and a student that just didn't sit right. Basically: the student brought up something related to the current text but outside of the prof's expertise, and the prof said something (very politely) to the effect of "sometimes we have guests that experts in those things, you should save your questions for those times."
Now, I don't think that either the prof or the student meant anything negative in this exchange, I just wonder (as someone who wants to be a prof someday) if there is a good way of getting around situations like this when they arise. I mean, let's face it, students... wait... EVERYONE synthesize information all the time. We all know how awesome it can feel when we make a connection between two things we hadn't seen as related before- in this case it something high-tech (and beyond my own capacity, can I indulge a bit and say it made me really happy to have this high-tech thing I can't explain come up from a female student?) that all of a sudden made sense as related to a text. Cool beans! How do profs/teachers/role models address things like this in a way that lets the student have that "wow, neat" moment but doesn't overtake the class or take the discussion into unrelated tangents?
Let's break it down:

Good Things that Happened in this Exchange:
*the student felt comfortable speaking out about something obscure (though connected) even if it might have made them look like techo-nerd (which, btw, I was super jealous of. OMG, you understand how my computer's BRAIN works!!)
*the teacher addressed that the classroom would (at specific points in time) have space where those things could be explored by people who are actually able to engage.

Bad Things that Happened in this Exchange:
*the student may have felt brushed off.
*possibly the prof addressed the student in this way because there was only a small amount of time left in the already short (50 minutes) class.


So. What next? Where do we go from here, is there something that could have been done differently, and who, really, is the most important person in the classroom? Does it all go back to the idea that the teacher has some know-how, and will then put that know-how into words that you can either listen to or not? Anyone?