Rats

The rats are so cute!  Frank is black and white and is the chunky one because he loves these little yogurt treats we feed them when they come out of the cage to play.  Chuck is beige and white and is the playful one who loves to run and explore and climb.  It makes me happy that they have already developed recognizable personalities!  They are still young, so they mostly just climb around and scamper about, but I think when they calm down a little they will happily just lay around with me on the couch.

Surprisingly, they do not like the rat ball we got them.  The instant we put them inside, they shit and pee all over the thing.  In contrast, if we just let them run around on the floor they don’t shit at all.  I think they are frightened of the inside of the ball being so enclosed.  If we wanted them to use it, I think we would have had to never let them run around freely and only let them out of the cage to be in the ball, and I feel like that would be some kind of cruelty to animals.  I would much rather watch them run and play with one another outside the ball anyway.  Plus, only one of them can be in the ball at a time, so that leaves the other one lonely in the cage.  Maybe some animals like running around in the balls, but not our little rats.

Anyway, we love them so much and are so glad to have them around.  Their cage is really easy to clean and they don’t eat all that much, so if you are ever looking for an absolutely great pet without all the problems of larger pets, rats are totally wonderful!

Women and Childbirth Timeline

We’ve come to the decision that we have to set a timeline on this whole childbirth thing, especially if we want to have like three or four kids.  I want to get started in my mid to late twenties to avoid having any children when I’m over 35.  However, we also realize that if we think finding a mutual girlfriend is hard now it will only get a zillion times more complicated with children in the picture.  Consequently, we’ve discussed it and kind of decided that when I turn 26, regardless of whatever else is going on in our lives, we’re going to start trying for children.  We hope that we find a girl before then, and we hope that I’ll complete my PhD by then, but regardless of those things children are the most important thing to both of us.  We want to have children and raise them above all else, careers and relationships and all that.  It’s what gives meaning to both of our lives, honestly.

And I got a phone number.  More to come.

This is one of those entries when so much has happened recently that it’s all a huge jumble in my head.  Much of the emo/anstyness has passed since my last entry and I’m basically back to my normal (relatively) state of existing.  Let me list things for my own convenience:

1.  We got two pet rats, Frank and Chuck, a few days before my last entry.  We became very attached to them and we’re both so glad that we have two wonderful little pets.

2.  I got horribly sick (probably stress induced) and began contemplating deeply my decisions about the future.

3.  I found out that it was against the terms of our lease to have pets, even though I thought I had read it was fine.  I flipped out and over a weekend, while being sick, we moved to another apartment in the university system that allowed pets.  It was probably one of the worst weekends of my life, made all the worse because it was completely my fault that we had to move.

4.  I thought very deeply about my PhD and realized that I just didn’t see myself researching forever and wanted to be done with it as quickly as possible.  The main reason I wanted to stop researching is because I worry about my ovaries and having healthy children.  Also, this place is pretty lean for “progressive” thinkers or, in other words, women who would be interested in dating a couple.  For a while we thought about moving to California and having me transfer schools to an education program so that we could hopefully meet a girl and settle down.  However, I realized that it’s not that I want to teach high school, it’s that I thought becoming a high school teacher would take less time and thus get me out of school faster and away from research.  I really do want to teach college age students.

5.  My parents suggested teaching at a community college.  I jumped on this and went through a lot of effort to research the feasibility of getting a faculty job at a community college.  I really liked the idea because it would mean I would only need a Masters (and thus only a few more months of school) and then I could start my “real” life.  I also realized that I didn’t want to move away from my parents because I want them to be involved in their grandchildrens’ lives more than just passingly.

6.  I met with my professor to discuss how long it would take to get my Masters.  He explained that it would probably take another year and a half.  I was crestfallen and realized that if I had to stay that long I might as well stay and extra year and get my PhD.

7.  I talked with some other graduate students who are of the same mindset as me (teaching before research) and found that they unanimously made the same decision as I had.  We all want to teach, but we don’t want to be limited to ONLY community college when a PhD would let us teach anywhere.  It made me feel validated in my thought process and strengthened my resolve to continue forward.

8.  We had an apartment warming party to break in our new (and super amazing) place.  It’s so amazing that I kind of think the whole rats thing was a boon in disguise.  And the party was really fun.  Good times had by all.

That brings us to the present day.  I’m not completely happy about continuing research, but I realize it is a necessary evil if I want to become a college teacher.  I’m really really really satisfied with the new apartment.  I’m overall happy with life again.

I’ll go into more detail about:
- women
- rats
- childbirth timeline
later when I have more time to type.