Chapter 144

I woke up at 6, and was still dead tired from all this sleeping. I drank a lot of water and put on a mixtape by The Roots, the great hip-hop band from Philadelphia, and then did a quick yoga routine to get the blood flowing.

I got to school, gave some assignments to the students, and sat at the front desk writing my diary and listening to music. The only albums worth listening I had on my hard drive were by Rorcal and Eyehategod, two bands I got into quite heavily in the last week or two. I also listened to the Lotus Eaters podcast, covering recent news, a lot of it was about a border crisis in Spain, with migrants rushing over the fence to enter the enclave of Ceuta, located on the African continent. Like the story of Francis Ngannou showed, it’s a very strange situation, because while illegally crossing into European Union territory is a crime, illegally being in the EU doesn’t seem to be treated as such. So border guards are constantly blocking those migrants from entering or even just throwing them back in the water, but as soon as they have a foot in they can claim asylum. It’s very weird to me, can you imagine any other crime being legislated like that? Stealing a hamburger from the buffet being subject to punishment, but sitting there holding and eating a very obviously stolen hamburger being fine?! And the whole issue raises questions about national sovereignty and the right to be on a foreign territory, as almost none of those migrants come from war-torn areas and can be called refugees, they’re nearly all men in their twenties looking for better economic opportunities, which is something we can empathize with but to what extent? For sure, the west is a pretty damn benevolent place, I’m not sure I want to know what happens to Burmese or Tadjikistan nationals who get caught crossing illegally into China, or Bolivians or Paraguayans staying without a visa in Brazil.

I got home and did a calisthenics workout. I was still a bit hazy and bloated and sore from the weekend but I gotta do what I gotta do, I want to get three good workouts in every week, plus BJJ and other accessory exercises. I was sweating profusely, and my sweat smelled like stale beer. Then I ate a giant bowl of R n’ S, with some of the fried chicken and other leftovers chopped up and mixed with rice, and took the dog out for a quick walk, as I didn’t do it in the morning.

I had no classes in the afternoon but had to be at work anyway. Sometimes I question my life as a salaried drone and tell myself how cool it would be to be a self-employed entrepreneur and not have to do useless things such as “being there because the boss said I have to” but I can’t say life sucks that hard, being fully paid to do very little could be much worse. A few years I tried my hand at freelance entrepreneurship and it was only a mixed success at best.

I looked at things to do, my last few review periods are prepared and I can’t write recommendation letters until I get the form from the students, so I just sat around and did some reading and writing. I played Commandos for a bit but then told myself it’s a bit much and could get in trouble if one fellow teacher snitches on me. I like to think I have a good relationship with my coworkers in my office but who knows if one or more of them is a two-faced snake who hates me?

Some twelfth-graders came to the office with a camera and asked me to say a few words for their graduation video. I briefly considered doing it in Chinese but swept that dumb idea aside, as it wouldn’t do anything but elicit racist chuckles. “Wa, it can speak our language!!!” So I just gave a quick generic speech in English, congratulating them for the hard work and wishing them well.

I got home, ate a protein slurry and slept for an hour before going to jiu-jitsu practice. There were five of us, plus a teenager (well, I say a teenager, but who knows, he could be 31 years old) who joined us. There was also a kickboxer who knew one of the blue belts, and he learned a few basic moves. I proposed we roll for a round and he said “Slow and light” but went all out like an absolute spaz anyway, like every newcomer on the mat (including me a few months ago, and I’m only a little removed from newcomer level). He was quite strong and looked to be in good shape but after 45 seconds of trying the most ineffective attacks and ending up in bottom side control with my fat torso pinning him down, he panicked and gave up. Both of them inquired about where to buy gis, hopefully they can come regularly, we’re in need of new bodies to roll with. I did two more rounds with blue belts, and would like to think I did well, I escaped and positioned myself in ways I couldn’t not long ago.

Tired as a motherfuck, I got home, showered, drank a Goose Island IPA and ate a steak with asparagus. I put on a mixtape I randomly clicked among all the hip-hop that YouTube sends my way, by a guy named Black Thought. Some great lyrical hip-hop, I can listen to that shit all day. The girlfriend came home from walking the dog with one of her friends who also has a little pooch, we went to bed and tried to watch an episode of Love Death And Robots but the sound was all crappy, so we watched The Office instead.