Lab mice around...

...but this time to feed the snake.

I got the job. I still don't have a contract signed but i started working 2 weeks ago. I did my month's notice during the summer break that i, once again, had to endure with little else to do but to feed the fish.

First, the summer.

One of the teachers at the school where i worked at asked me to take care of his fish in his apartment, and so i did. As compensation, i asked him to bring me a FujiFilm finepix s1000fd camera. My plan was to pay him of course. The camera cost like $215US through amazon, pretty good deal for an amateur 10 megapixe, megazoom digital camera and came with a free 2gb sd card. Although the 3 tetras got eaten and the snail died, all other fish survived. Of course, i also watered the plants, aired the place out twice a week and swept the place twice, not to mention the fact of having someone checking the apartment daily... so he gave me the camera as payment, which was a very generous payment.

Then there were the other 2 tanks at the school. One was the biology one, which i've known for years. The other was this large goldfish tank with a guppy and a gourami. The bio tank did fabulous, the guppies reproduced. The other tank was different, the guppy got eaten and the gourami went belly up one evening. The goldfish on the other hand did just fine.

I also did a little of everything for the labs, but nothing out of the ordinary. Microscope repair, equipment calibration, inventories and helped out the IT guys a little.

The last week of july my notice ended, and that was that for the other school.

I took a few days between jobs, 4 to be exact. It was kinda relaxing.

Friday, August 1st was my first day at this job. As i stated in my previous post, still a lab tech but now i'm going to teach a little.

So far, here's the score.

Pros:
- bigger and better office. A whole chemistry lab for myself.
- my own desk, computer and resources.
- WINDOWS! my previous office only had tiny windows high above and even if they had been large, they would've just looked at the building in front. Here i have massive windows and a killer view of the mountain to the north and the hills to the south.
- no air conditioning! my sinuses are happy. Nice airflow through the floor, though.
- i'm a little higher up the food chain here.
- nice people to work with.
- the labs were pretty organized
- fridge in my office

Cons:
- struggling not to be come the teachers' secretary
- slower computer (but soon to be fixed with more ram)
- lots of older equipment, and a lot of it doesn't work, is almost fubar or is missing pieces.
- last time an inventory was done was 8 years ago.
- one of the teachers is younger than me...
- department head is a mathematician. This is a bigger issue than most people would think, hopefully this person does not become hostile.

In other news, it seems i've traded fish for a rabbit, several budgies and a medium sized python. The snake is by far the most interesting animal. She gets white mice a few of times a year for meals and she generally just rests in her glass terrarium.

Yeah. That's it.

I will miss working with some people, like the bio teacher at the other school, she was kinda nutty but she was always a good person. The admin staff as well, they were all cool.

But i admit it, i'm by far better off here.