Chapter 140

I woke up at 7 and walked the dog. Then I rode to work, listening to Jocko Willink’s podcast. He had a guest on named Colonel Bill Reeder, a helicopter pilot from the Vietnam War who got shot down and held in captivity. Pretty humbling and scary stuff.

I got to the office and sat at my computer. A friend sent me a link to a side-to-side comparison of military recruitment videos: the Russian one was a gritty clip of a hard-looking young man waking up at the crack of dawn in his bunk and putting his uniform on, the Chinese one was a montage of huge numbers of soldiers on parade, explosions, fighter jets and Xi Jinping shaking hands with officers on a battlecruiser, and then the American one was a colorful cute cartoon narrated by a girl saying she has two lesbian parents and then it cuts to a real-life version of her in uniform. I won’t read too much into it, but let’s admit that the contrast is quite hilarious.

I listened to the Metal Minded podcast, shitposting in the chat with the other guys listening live. I listened to two of the albums they were reviewing and they were OK, but not more than that. Halfway through, I had to go take a shit. Like everyone, I dislike having to shit at work, especially since the toilets here are just holes in the ground and it takes a bit of muscular effort to hold the squat position, as opposed to a relaxing shit on my own toilet at home. Still, when it comes to public washrooms, I’d rather have the hole in the ground than a seat where others had been sitting before.

I listened to the Finnish death metal album by Convulse again, then felt like listening to Natural Born Killaz by Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, after learning about the death of extreme wrestler New Jack. I kept listening to more hip-hop after that, the next recommended link on YouTube was East Coast (Remix) by A$ap Ferg, that starts with one of my all-time favorite verses by Busta Rhymes. The man has got an inconsistent discography and plenty of bland tracks, but when he’s on, his flow is unparalleled. Then I put on some Flatbush Zombies, a trio of eccentric rappers from New York, one of my favorite modern hip-hop artists.

I got home, ate R n’ S and watched some stupid videos on YouTube but had to cut my lunch break short, as I had to go invigilate an exam. 170 eleventh-graders were bunched up outside, waiting to be let in. The principal told me to go in the room and make sure the students don’t talk, but this is like trying to stop a waterfall with a shovel. It’s in their nature, birds fly, trees grow towards their light source, and Chinese people make noise. The exam was held in the dining hall again, and though the tables had been wiped, they all had a thin film of greasy water on them. Students called me over.

“Tissue”, one said.

“Can you make sentences?”

I know it’s not necessary and borderline infantilizing, but c’mon now. That’s the whole point, she’s almost an adult, that’s not how you communicate, especially not with a person in a position of authority. At the price of a seemingly extreme effort, she did produce a complete question, though she seemed to have forgotten the word “table” for a second. Yet she’s about to sit a physics exam in English, in a curriculum that only advanced British students undertake (and she’ll probably do well). My life is so weird sometimes. I went to get a box of tissues and walked through the aisles so they could all get one and wipe their greasy-ass tables.

I had no classes in the afternoon, and barely anything to do. I browsed the internet a bit, and feeling drowsy, I took a nap in an empty room that has couches in it. I woke up a bit later, no idea how long I was out, my phone was on the charger. Two coworkers, a Croatian and an Australian, were chatting in the hallway, I joined them and had a chat about various topics to pass the time. So yeah, not a very hard day, can’t complain.

The big hash weekend is just around the corner so I went to the print shop to get beer labels and do some reconnaissance for the Sunday trail. I spent about two hours doing that, marking with chalk, though I’ll have to do it again on Sunday morning. When I ran out of chalk, I went home. Only when I was settled on the couch with a beer and my bowl of R n’ S did I realize I forgot to go to the florist. The girlfriend had been sending me pictures of the flowers her friends got from their husbands, as today is May 5^th, which reads as wu er ling in Chinese, and because it vaguely, vaguely sounds like wo ai ni (I love you), it’s a Valentine’s Day of sorts, one of the several they have every year. I’ll try to remember to go buy a bouquet tomorrow.