I went to the beach yesterday. Actually, its not what you think, it was all in the name of research. I needed to get some seawater for an experiment that I am running at SFU. I am drying seaweed in order to determine if desiccation is a reason for the zonation of intertidal algae. You see, the ones that grow up higher are exposed to the air for longer than those that grow right near the water edge (at low tide). Expect a long and boring paper on the subject here in a week or so.
So I needed to get some seawater. I went to the village of Belcarra in order to do this, since this is a beach where there weren’t too many people, as I didn’t feel like explaining why I was going down to the waters edge and getting a big container full of water, and taking it away in my car. While there weren’t many people there, I had to explain it anyway.
Twice.
The first girl that came up to me suggested that I should get something from the pop machine if I was so thirsty. The sort of sense of humor that I like. I liked her since 1) she was genuinely interested in what I was doing (or at least acted like it) and 2) she was at the beach, and was wearing approximately 2 – 2.5 square feet of “beach attire”. This was distracting since I was attempting to explain intertidal zonation and distribution of seaweed. Actually it would have been distracting no matter what I was trying to explain. In short, I forgot my name. She had the audacity to think this was funny, and really, it was.
A second girl was hanging around the parking lot, and asked very much the same question about why I was toting a large container of water. However, her attitude left much to be desired, as the question was posed in very much a “you’re obviously a freak, and I am perfect so I can act like a bitch” sort of way. If you’re going to be nasty, pretentious, and condescending, why ask the question at all?
The real highlite of the day dealt mainly with me carrying this rather large container of sloshing, smelly, seawater back from my car to the lab at SFU. The closes parking spot that I could get was about 500 meters away, which turned out to be a lot larger that it looked from the car. Muscle fatigue while carrying heavy, wet objects in public is always interesting, every single time.
Back at the lab, Doug, the instructor of the course, says :”You didn’t have to go get that, I could have gotten you seawater at the lab downstairs”.
This basically sums up my whole week, and possibly next.