Chapter 292

Woke up, took the dog out, started my day. I looked for some chill music and clicked on a live set by a British DJ called Mala, playing a compilation of old-school dubstep. Good stuff.

I got to the school grounds. The tenth-graders were wearing the school uniform tracksuit top, with camo pants. They’re spending their afternoons doing some kind of military training, with PLA sergeants teaching them how to march. It looks a bit LARPy but overall I approve of it, anything that gets them out of the joyless rote memorization cramming classrooms and gives them a bit of exercise and fresh air is good.

I had a few classes, and in between I sat in the office, proof-reading the letters of recommendation I wrote last June, and listening to music. A friend suggested I check out Backxwash, a rapper with extremely dark aesthetics and industrial elements in his sound. It’s OK, reminds me of some of the old horrorcore pioneered by Three Six Mafia and the like, and apparently this fusion of trap, industrial and metal is quite popular among Gen-Z kids nowadays.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, I took off my headphones and took the call. It’s a delivery guy, who said that my package has arrived. I said “OK, thank you, just leave it at the gate, I’m working now” and all my coworkers went “WOAH” as if they’d never heard a white person speak Chinese before. Their expectations are incredibly low.

I rode home and had tacos with the meat I cooked yesterday, and ate quickly. I had to go back and invigilate an exam during the lunch break, about twenty twelfth-graders wanted to take the Chinese language A-level exam. I told the administration they shouldn’t do it, even though they are guaranteed an A* score, it won’t do anything to boost their university application, and in fact it’s a bit counterproductive, because now the students won’t be able to take Chinese as their second language credit once in university. I looked at the paper, they had 90 minutes to write a 250-word essay on a topic of their choice among five options. Most of them were done in 20 minutes and fell asleep on their desk.

I browsed Clown World news. Quebec is falling deeper and deeper into a pit of self-flagellation and ethnomasochism, and more and more corporations and government bodies start every public event they hold by acknowledging and apologizing for being on an unceded Native American territory. The whole thing is so dumb on so many levels. The more I see shit like that, the less I want to go back and the more I consider getting plastic surgery to become Han-passing enough to be given citizenship by Xi Jinping.

I went home, slightly depressed, and also feeling a bit off, physically. I considered going to the gym but I know my body enough to know when exercising will make it worse, not better, and I’d rather rest now and be in a better condition for BJJ tomorrow. So I stopped at the stinky market, which is becoming less stinky now that the cold weather has arrived, and bought vegetables. I spent an hour in the kitchen, browning meat, rendering the fat out, making a roux, frying carrots, onions and peppers, and then adding chicken broth and the browned chicken and sausage. I let that gumbo simmer for the rest of the evening.

The live set from French black metal band Regarde Les Hommes Tomber (a name that fits my constant impending doom mood) was almost done when the girlfriend came in, and she requested a change of music. Fair enough. The gumbo was still simmering, so I heated a seafood chowder, two corndogs, and made a quick tomato and cucumber salad. We ate while brainlessly watching The Office, the debut of Season 6. Then she did the dishes, and I watched two UFC fights. It’s harder to get excited for MMA when there’s a card every week and most are very thin in terms of talent and names, but I really wanted to see what Manon Fiorot is capable of. The Frenchwoman has caught the attention of fans with her karate attack, and after dispatching two lower-level opponents, she was facing a game midcarder. She won quite handily, impressed with her bottomless cardio and showed she can grapple, but her striking was a bit monodimensional, with the same 1-2-3 combos and side kicks spammed over and over like me when I play Mortal Kombat.

I was in bed at 9, exhausted.