Chapter 252

When I woke up I also remembered my dreams, and one was of a very sexual nature, which is quite disturbing, it feels like cheating on the girlfriend somehow. I walked the dog, did my shit-shower-shave routine, and browsed the internet a bit. The mining sector in Quebec critically needs workers, and some people on a forum were talking about a professional qualification in a trade school that takes six months to complete and is completely free, they even subsidize the flight from Montreal to Chibougamau (the remote northern town where it’s held). Interesting. I asked the girlfriend what she thinks about moving to Quebec, where I could work as a fly in-fly out miner.

“Hell no”

“Why not? It pays quite a bit. I’ll be gone for two weeks at a time, but you can stay home and work part-time on the internet, and then I’ll be home for two weeks”

“But you’re going to die!”

“It’s not China, they have safety standards there”

On my short commute I listened to Jocko Willink’s podcast, he was talking about a book written by a soldier in the Falklands War. Though this strange conflict happened over only a few weeks in 1982, it was still brutal, with lots of casualties on the Argentine and British sides, and the author, a paratrooper named Vince Bramley, saw some gruesome shit. Jocko prefaced his analysis of the book with a reading of a Kipling poem titled Tommy (slang for British soldier), which has a line that goes “And if sometimes our conduct isn't all your fancy paints, why, single men in barracks don't grow into plaster saints”, explaining why the language used in the book is so graphic. I understand fully; though I didn’t fight in a war, I was in the army for a brief period of time, and know how military personnel talk.

I had a class with the weak eleventh-graders and it went much better than yesterday. They were not half-asleep from their midday nap, for starters. I really really fucking hate how they just sleep at their desks, and instead of getting up to walk around a bit, get the blood flowing and maybe splash cold water on their faces, they just raise their heads from their books and are completely useless throughout the whole period after lunch break ends. It’s been addressed in meetings but we all know how well feedback moves up a Chinese chain of command, don’t we?

I caught the Metal Minded podcast, all four albums that got reviewed, in various areas of death metal, had dithyrambic reviews. I’ll have to check them out. I also did a bit of prep downstairs, talking to the lab technician about what we need for next week’s practical session and making photocopies. I didn’t have any other classes scheduled in the morning so it was relaxed.

I went home for lunch, and the dog had chewed a small plastic bottle containing one of the girlfriend’s make-up products. He was swiftly thrown in jail. I made spaghetti with zucchini, a recipe I saw on YouTube a few days ago, and it was amazing. I love pasta, and the feeling of being grossly full but still eating. I can’t do that too often if I don’t want to become a big ball of adipose tissue.

In the afternoon I had a double class with another group of weaker eleventh-graders, and then one with the strong group. They’re really fun to teach, I can go on small tangents instead of strictly sticking to my planning, and throw stupid dad jokes around to lighten up the atmosphere and grab their attention. If I tell those dad jokes to the weaker groups I just get blank glares in return.

I went back home and watched more fights from the OneFC female card. They’re holding an atomweight tournament with the winner getting a shot at the champion, and the most notable fight was between a Chinese named Meng Bo who has one-shot KO power (a rarity at 105 pounds) and an Indian wrestler named Ritu Phogat, who’s from a long line of wrestling champions (they even made Bollywood movies about them) and won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games. A classic clash of styles, then. Meng almost KOed Phogat twice, once with a flurry of punches and once with a punt to the face, but the Indian was absolutely goddamn relentless, sticking to her opponent like a leech and taking her down repeatedly. It must suck so hard to fight an opponent like that, Olympic-level wrestling is a scary skillset to have.

The dog and I went to meet the girlfriend at her workplace, she was once again staying late. After we made it back home, I kicked back with a negroni and watched a short documentary about the Great Northern War, pitting Sweden against Russia at the beginning of the 1700s.