An Animal Abundance

A few weeks ago we began out unit on animals in both my marine and life science classes. Amusingly just as we were getting in to the animal kingdom my room was attacked by a plethora of critters. On Monday I was at school early to get my class set up and to prepare when I suddenly realized that I had been under attack by a horde of starving lady-mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes here have one major difference from the ones in good 'ol Erie, PA. In Erie when I am bit by a mosquito I feel it and the result is usually a squashed mosquito and a vigilance for any of its friends. Here in AmSam when the little buggers bit you don't feel it which means that by the time you're a little itch you might discover that you have ten nice obnoxiously itch bites. This is what happened on this past Monday as I was working hard on some lessons for school. Once I realized that I was covered in bites, I was pretty ticked off and confused as I usually never had mosquitoes in my room. I notices that there were tons of the mosquitoes just flying around my room, and I figured there must have been some eggs laid. As luck would have it I found that one of the lab sinks in the back of my room had been plugged up and there was some standing water under the garbage the kids put in there (yes my room is a mess, but the kids here are walking litterbugs). As I moved a crumpled paper a swarm of mosquitoes flew out - yuck. For the next few days I was slathered in DEET while at school, and was still constantly getting eaten alive. I was about to lose it. Thankfully I survived til the weekend.

Mosquito attacks where not the only animal invasion of the week. I few weeks ago I started running after school since the campus is covered in areas and free of attacking dogs which make it so I can't run around the neighborhood. Lately I have been leaving my sneakers and socks at school on weeknights since I only wear them to run. When I came in last Tuesday I found my sneakers still sitting right on my desk, but one sock was missing. I thought it might be the wind and searched all around the desk area, but couldn't find it. I just figured it would turn up. The next day I came in and the other sock was missing. That's when it hit me. Those dang rats in my classroom must have stole it. You might think that it would be unlikely, but these rats in my classroom have chewed through Tupperware that I left overnight in the classroom. They are not to be messed with.