Chapter 4

This morning, I listened to Bleach on my way to work. Bleach is the band I listened to the most this year, they disbanded a long time ago and I knew a few tracks but only this year did I listen to their four full-lengths and I love it. They're categorized as noise-rock or some weird Japanese variant of punk, three girls from Okinawa with a triple vocal assault, the guitar player with a shrieky cartoony high-pitched voice, a screaming batshit crazy bassist, and a drummer with more of an energetic punk rock shouted approach.

I teach high school chemistry for a living. Today I had a full morning, three grade-11 classes, one grade-12 class. It’s always a bit tough to get them to hit the ground running after a three-day weekend (not to mention getting myself back into the grind), especially now that it’s been four months of almost non-stop classes. But I always manage, it’s my job.

During the half-hour break, I ran into a South African coworker by the water dispenser and we had a bit of a chat. I commented on the long fall semester, that starts on September 1^st but only ends in late January, and how everyone is in dire need of a break. She said that in South Africa, there are four terms of equal length, with about two to three weeks break in between, which sounds more sustainable indeed. I taught a year in Thailand back in the day, and to accommodate the Thai New Year which is in April, the school year starts in May and ends in February, with a “winter” break in October. But the Chinese copied the North American system, with a September start and the final exams in June, except that the winter break comes much later than the midpoint of the year. That leads to two very unequal semesters.

In my last grade-11 class of the day, I talked about the free radical substitution of chlorine on an alkane, and one of the steps is called “propagation”. To illustrate what propagation is to my ESL (English as a second language) students, I brought up the pandemic, how it started in the city of Wuhan and then propagated to surrounding areas and eventually the world, just like one of the chlorine free radicals reacts with a stable molecule, turning it into a free radical, which then turns another one into a free radical, and so on and so forth. I thought (and still think) it’s a good example, as far as the analogy goes, but I was met with a few awkward looks and realized that maybe it’s “too soon”. I rarely if ever talk about politics in class (I teach chemistry, it’s not really a topic that lends itself to overlap) but I hope it doesn’t come back and bite me in the jiji, you’d only need one particularly brainwashed or patriotic student who thought I was “insulting China” and goes complaining.

I went home for lunch, listening to a few tracks by a band called Forming The Void. They play a subgenre of metal called stoner, with extremely heavy guitars and a slow or mid-tempo beat. A nice discovery from this year.

I reheated a leftover hamburger from yesterday, and got in front of the computer for a Zoom call with a bunch of my buddies. I hail from Quebec, and speak French as my native language. In my city, there are very few French speakers, only four at last count (me included) so at times I’m starving good conversation in my language. I’m also a die-hard fan of metal music, something that is also in very short supply in my real-life circle of acquaintances. Some of my metalhead friends started an online discussion group and a biweekly podcast at the onset of the quarantine last year, where they talk about metal albums or interview bands, and I listen to it when the substantial time difference allows. So I spent most of my lunch time talking with them, reminiscing upon the excellent releases of this year, and exchanging tons of extremely crude jokes. It was nighttime in Quebec and they’re nearly all on holiday, so they had been drinking heavily throughout the night, but I had to go back to the office.

The band I listened to on my short commute back is Dödsrit, hailing from Sweden. They play a delicious mix of black metal and crust punk. I love evil music, it helps me go through my day.

In the afternoon, I did some review for the upcoming end-of-semester exam with the twelfth-graders. I’ve taught them for two and half years at this point so I know them well and they know me, but sometimes they give me a bit of attitude. They act like they’re above reviewing, but have forgotten a lot of the material and can’t answer questions that they could solve a few months ago. Some of them did the practice problems I gave them over the weekend and were actively taking notes as we were going over them in class, and some were doing nothing. I don’t chase them at this point, they’re about to graduate, they should know what’s good for them.

Going down the stairs on my way to the parking lot, I ran into a Chinese coworker with a basketball for a belly. We chit-chatted about that, she’s due at the end of the month, a little girl. She said she’ll get four months of maternity leave, that’s a sweet deal, by the time it’s over it will be summer vacation already. My contract says I’d have five days of paternity leave if I had a child, but the girlfriend is pretty adamant that she doesn’t want any. A week off would be pretty cool, but then there would be the whole having to raise a kid thing to deal with.

I listened to the album Everything Sucks by Californian band The Descendents on my way home. They are frequently credited as being the pioneers of pop punk, I love that particular album and the self-deprecating humor of the frontman.

I took the dog for a walk. He likes running in circles on the patch of brown grass behind the mailboxes. Then I worked out in my home gym: I did 110 pushups, 110 situps, 22 pullups, 22 handstand pushups, and 55 kettlebell swings with a 40-pound kettlebell, separated in two sets. Why those weird numbers? Well I used to do 100, 20 and 50, then added 10%. I’ll add another 10% in mid-January.

I took a quick shower, and opened a can of German hefeweizen. Maybe not the best post-workout drink for optimal performance and recovery, but it tasted wonderful.

To keep up with the German theme, I cooked sausages in the pan and ate them with a bit of sauerkraut. I also whipped up a batch of hummus in the food processor. I love hummus and how easy it is to make, I always put tons of garlic and chili peppers in mine. This time, I tried adding sliced black olives in the finished product, and it was a success. I peeled and cut a large carrot to scoop out my hummus.