Chapter 91

I was wide awake in bed a little before my alarm rang, listening to the birds chirp outside. Better than inconsiderate peasants blowing up fireworks.

I browsed the internet a bit before doing a quick tai chi routine, and listened to the next album on the Top 500, Eminem’s Slim Shady LP. As I said before, back when I was in high school the edgy Detroit bleached-blonde rapper was pretty much the only one who was liked by both rap fans and punk/metal fans, but I didn’t care for him then, my musical diet was all hip-hop-free until Cypress Hill opened the gates a few years later. Now I’m an enormous fan of lyrical hip-hop and though he’s not my favorite, I have to say Eminem’s early material is pretty damn cool.

I had a grade eleven class and it went super well. The students were attentive and engaged, and I was in the zone. I really like chemistry as a discipline and the rational thinking skills you acquire from studying it. That’s mostly what I focus on in my classes.

I had a break and listened to the live Metal Minded podcast on YouTube. The guys were reviewing the Nine Treasures anthology, and didn’t care for it, one of them even gave a really negative review. I was frowning and shaking my head, a tear might even have pooled in the corner of my eye. Ah well, tastes and colors and all that, they won’t stop me from loving the shit out of the album. In fact I played it as soon as they were done, and was grooving on my office chair to those great Mongolian folk metal beats.

I got home and finished the macaroni in the fridge, with half a pack of Italian cold cuts. I watched random shit on YouTube, there was a trailer for the season 5 of Rick And Morty on the front page. It’s due to start on June 20^th, and I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s a great cartoon, well-animated and funny as hell, and I don’t give a shit about all the chucklefucks who hate on it and its allegedly “toxic” fanbase. Not a single episode is bad, and though the wait between seasons is excruciatingly long, it’s been worth it thus far. Here’s to hoping they maintain that quality level.

My afternoon was leisurely, no classes. I still had a sizable pile of papers to grade and I did it while listening and distractedly watching clips and analysis of the Derek Chauvin trial. It sure is a very politically charged one, and both sides of the spectrum (I even watched The Young Turks’ take on it, I felt pretty strong today to endure all that smugness) are calling it a travesty if the Minneapolis cop walks or gets convicted, depending.

The exam papers were from the weakest group, that I thankfully don’t teach anymore now that they are in grade 12. Quite a few papers were left blank or with just a few scribbles, I could go over them pretty fast. Zero, zero... OK I guess that’s one point, zero, zero, oh, a full blank page, zero, zero, what the hell is that, zero, good job, three points on this one, zero, zero, zero. Next! Seems like this one is bound for an Australian university.

During the breaks, I had some shy eleventh-graders coming to my desk. I knew it could only mean one thing: asking for recommendation letters. That’s one of the things I dislike the most about my job, it’s so incredibly boring, but I always say yes.

My evening was leisurely, I decided to take a bit of a break after almost a week going to either BJJ, climbing, soccer or badminton. I poured myself a piña colada and watched a documentary on dubstep narrated by a British guy, he made a pretty compelling description of the history of that electronic music subgenre and what it means to him and other aficionados. He lamented how the most well-known dubstep music by Skrillex and other American producers is unoriginal, low-quality and unrepresentative of what dubstep can be, I guess the same problem afflicts a lot of music styles. I should check out more of that early British stuff, electronic music in general (a big umbrella term I know) isn’t my favorite but I do find a lot of it very interesting. I then watched some short metal documentaries that YouTube sensibly put in the sidebar to steer me back towards hairy music.

The girlfriend made an enormous batch of muffin batter, and baked them nine at a time in our tiny oven. She had to go to her pole dancing class so she hired my help, every fifteen minutes I’d go take the muffins out of the oven or turn the tray 180 degrees. I ate one straight as it came out, it was fluffy and delicious, but even though it was pretty small, I felt all bloated afterwards. I don’t eat a lot of cake or other doughy sugary things, though I have constant cravings for oily, fried, salty and spicy foods. In fact I ate so many cheese crackers as a 5 o’ clock snack that it made up my dinner, along with the muffin. Not the healthiest thing. I punished myself slash tried to offset it with a bunch of push-ups, pike push-ups and pull-ups, and then, with a nice burn in my upper body muscles, I relaxed on the couch with a cold pale ale. It’s always about balance, you see.