The Snake and the Rat...

I work in the department of zoology for my phd... But to be honest I have had not much to do with animals in the course of my short academic career. I do not need to touch, handle or even look at live animal specimens for my work except the ONE rabbit I use in my experiments.This rabbit also is bred in captivity so is hardly worth the trouble of getting excited about in the first place. One tends to forget where one is if this goes on for a while. Yesterday, while I was feeding the aforementioned rabbit and was getting water for it from the adjeacent animal house, I heard a distinct sound of something sliding or slipping across the floor. I turned around and was not surprised to see a 7 foot long rat snake trying desperately get away from me on a hard linoleum floor with no grip. There have been reports of a snake in our animal housing facility ( goes to show the times we live in... :D). The snake was a beautiful specimen and really powerful and agile. One of my labmates knows how to handle snakes so i called him and we both tried to catch it. It evaded us beautifully and vacated the premises immediately. But this was the first time in my life when a real live snake has slithered within a foot of me, so naturally i made the most of it. Snakes are so beautiful.. there is elegance and grace in their motion itself. I cannot imagine moving without limbs, but to move so beautifully... one would have thought it to be impossible.
The amazing part of this thing is... in the morning i was talking about how we should go somewhere to see snakes and i was told " you need luck for that " and in the same afternoon i see a beautiful snake !! right at my doorstep.. i don't need to go anywhere to see them. they seem to come to me !! Now if this is not luck, I don't know what this is..
The corollary to the snake :
Our lab is housed exactly on the top of the animal housing facility. Mostly mice in there. harmless little creatures who at the most might bite your finger. There entered a huge black rat into the washing area of our lab on the same afternoon. Maybe because it was afraid of the snake below, who can tell. After 3 of us tried to either catch it or kill it, it jumped out of the window. I have never seen anything jump like that. This rat jumped 3 times its length to reach the open window. I am not saying that is great.. there are animals who can do more than that. This is great because it was on the same day and reminds me harshly of the fact that i work in the 'Zoology' department of this university. So far i had only seen dead and preserved animals in this department ( except for the rabbit and the mice ie.) but two intruders, one so beautiful and one so persistant, tells a lot about shutting ourselves in an ivory tower of phd doesn't it ?