Boiling water without burning it

I have actually done this. It was years ago, so I've forgotten the details — but, basically, with all the meticulousness of an undergrad doing something probably stupid, I took a plastic container that turned out not to be meltable in this way, put in water and pasta in arbitrary quantities that more or less fit, microwaved it for what seemed like a reasonable amount of time (this might take eyeballing to see when it starts boiling, plus trial and error), and... I think I drained it with the help of the container's lid, but an actual strainer/colander would probably both work better and be less demanding in terms of motor skills.

I think the moral of my story is that microwaving pasta is reasonably forgiving.