Chips with that?

Back at the algae lab. Today I ate a Spirulina chip that we dried. At first it tasted good, like a potato chip, maybe a stale potato chip but soon a piece got stuck in a cavity of one of my back teeth and oh my, it was bad! I started trying to loosen it with my tongue with no luck, Yuck, yuck, yuck! I start to become keenly aware that this taste is not dissipating, and my boss is trying to explain some chemistry something or other to me and I don't here a word he is saying. Finally he say's, "This really doesn't matter yet till are ready to harvest our first set, are you ok? Do you need some water or something." I'm relieved, I start to rummage through a cupboard looking for a clean beaker to get some water as he walks into the grow room. Good I can rinse and spit this stuff out. The first rinse is dark green, like something out of one of our jars in the grow room. I keep rinsing till he walks back in. Oh man this is bad. It tasted like buggers or blood or something else no intelligent human being would purposefully put in their mouth unless they were on a game show. I ask how much he ate, "I only ate as much as i needed to have a taste of it." Mine was the size of a dime and it's still stuck in my tooth! We start to walk out to the ponds so I grab a paper towel to pick at it in my teach. My boss keeps laughing at my misfortune.

Well now the taste has finally left and I'm eating my lunch. At first I didn't think I would have that much to do today but at the last minute he threw a bunch of stuff on me. I'm so glad to have a job I love in the horrible economy. My husband has a job he's not crazy about but it pays the bills. Mine just pays for school. I wish I could put every penny I make into an account just for school but we have found need of it more often than we would like to. I've found that I am much better at spending money than saving it. I should probably try to do something about that.

I start school next week. I'll be crashing many classes and I hope to convince Dr. Fisher to let me take his chemistry class without the prerequisite. I didn't test out of Math 90 like I was hoping. I studied really hard for the Accuplacer exam, I even hired a tutor. At least my algerbra class should be a walk in the park after all the studying I did.

algae lab

I've worked at the spirulina algae lab now for over three months. I love many things about this job. For one, it offers me lots of freedom on time. I can come and go as I please. I choose the days and the hours that I work. I get to bring my kids to work as often as I please and they fish for long hours in the pond. I get a list of things to get done and all I have too do is complete them. I find many aspects of the job fascinating, some of which have nothing to do with the algae it's self. The other day I came across a huge harry spider that was not a Tarantella. I was both intrigued and mortified. I've also found several very thin, very skinny worms that live in the ponds. They added some great conversation to my entomology class last semester.

Did I mention that I have gone back to school. I am a full time student at Imperial Valley College. I.V.C. is a small community college in the county of Imperial California. We have a great agricultural program.

The days on the algae farm are filled with beauty as well. Surrounding our lab are several wheat crops, alfalfa crops, as well as Sudan grass crops. We also are very close to a bird sanctuary which has brought several snowy egrets and ducks to our pond.

I don't know why I am writing about the algae lab except that it is charming and makes me so happy I want to share it with those that read this. So, enjoy!