Chapter 116

Up early, back into the groove. I spent too much time on the computer drinking my tea, and the girlfriend wanted to go walk the dog together, so I didn’t do yoga or tai chi.

I had a full morning of classes, like every Monday. It’s my last one though, as the final exams start next week. The remainder of the semester should be smooth sailing. Classes went by like a breeze then I rode back, stopping to buy vegetables and a container of rice. I mixed the rice with leftovers from the girlfriend’s takeout from yesterday, ground beef, bacon, and three eggs, making a spicy R n’ S bowl that I ate while watching stuff on YouTube. I then browned oxtail pieces and put them in the slow cooker with onions, hot sauce and spices, for dinner.

In the afternoon I listened to the Metal Minded podcast, and then to an album by Endseeker, an old-school Swedish death metal band. It was well done but nothing that blew me away. I had an enormous stack of lab papers to staple, I did it while watching various hip-hop videos, mostly French stuff. Then I stumbled upon a video from a YouTube series called “Analyzing Evil”, about movie villains. This one was about Alonzo, the crooked cop played by Denzell Washington in Training Day. Training Day is one of my absolute favorite movies, and one I’ve seen countless times, as it was one of the few DVDs I owned a while back when I didn’t have internet at home.

After three hours in the office, it’s a bit hard to get back in teacher mode for the last period of the day, but I did what I had to do and gave Attitude Class some exam review. Then I went home, took a nap, and primed myself for BJJ practice. My neck was all kinds of jacked up, a combination of Saturday’s class, headbanging at the two shows in Shanghai, and a slouched posture watching TV, I guess. I considered taking the night off, but our old coach was in town and said he’d come so I told myself I had to go.

There was also a guy I hadn’t seen in a long time, a big muscular Chinese guy. I rolled with him for a round, he mostly just gave me advantageous positions to practice his defense, he was damn strong. I also rolled with the Italian, but my neck was too fucked up once the adrenaline wore off, and I reluctantly stepped off the mat. Damn, just when our purple belt coach is in town, I can’t even roll with him.

I got home and opened a beer, a 10% ABV “imperial NEIPA” from Dainton Brewery in Australia, one of my numerous harvests from the imported beer shops in Shanghai. The pão de queijo were in the fridge and turned hard as golf balls, I was a bit scared but a few minutes in the oven and they were tender, the girlfriend and I ate them quickly. I could eat my bodyweight worth of those addictive little balls of cheesy dough, if I lived in Brazil I’d weigh 400 pounds. I took a shower, then ate the oxtails and some broccoli the girlfriend just steamed and fried with a bit of garlic. I watched the two remaining fights from the UFC main card, both ended in grueseome leg injuries. The one sustained by Chris Weidman was the stuff of nightmares, be warned if you look it up.