Chapter 260

Up at 6:30, walk with the dog and a bit of stretching outside. I blasted an album by Dödsrit, another great band I started listening to this year, in a crust/black metal vein, two genres that weirdly mix very well. Later, at work, I listened to two albums by Canadian band Iskra, in a similar vein. One was more black and was magnificient and incredibly violent, one was more crust and I didn’t like it too much, the vocals (presumably from a different vocalist) got on my nerves.

I had a day packed with classes, and there were a few funny moments. One kid in the front row pulled out a hip flask from his backpack and took a swig, my eyes widened and I stopped what I was saying mid-sentence, to the hilarity of his classmates. It was engraved with the USSR banner, and another kid said “It’s vodka!” Turns out it was just water, what a strange choice for a drinking vessel.

There are two rather weak grade-eleven groups, one is perpetually catatonic, but the other one has quite a few lively souls in it. I walked in the classroom, and two girls were wrestling, under the high-pitched screams of their classmates. While I set up my stuff on the front desk, I asked them with a smile and a shake of my head if they’re crazy, and one kid replied they’re the naocan class, a word I’m not sure how to perfectly translate, but it’s something like a severe mental disorder. No doubt they were not in the mood to sit through a lesson on electron orbitals, but with a few stupid jokes thrown in there and by eliciting their participation, I made it an instructive one.

There’s a three-day weekend coming up for Mid-Autumn Festival, but it starts only Sunday. One of those good ol’ Chinese deals where you work one extra day to get two days off in return. The school also gave us a box of mooncakes, some kind of flaky pastry either containing meat or a red bean paste, and a box of pomegranates. I got home and ate one mooncake with each of the fillings, and cut down one of my pomegranates. It’s messy as hell to eat but whatever, I could wash my hands, forearms and chest covered in sticky juice afterwards.

I spent about an hour cleaning the kitchen, emptying our shelf, moving it and wiping off the disgusting slime on the floor underneath it. It’s getting a bit dirty in there, with fruit flies buzzing around. I was about to start disinfecting the counters and sinks but the girlfriend sent me a message, she said she already hired a cleaner to come over this weekend. Cool. So I plopped on the couch and watched the latest episode of Dark Side Of The Ring, they just restarted the third season and I’m all giddy. That one was a bit boring though, it was about “the plane ride from Hell”, an incident that entered wrestling lore but not much happened. They really tried hard to stretch it over 45 minutes.

The girlfriend got back from work, and we walked the dog together to the demolition site. Then we got home and I ate an improvised sandwich with kebab meat, cucumbers and mayo. It was pretty damn good.