Chapter 305

Up at the ungodly hour of 4:45. I drank water and then headed out in the crisp cold dawn air, grabbing a rent-a-bike to go to the train station. I made it with time to spare, the way I like it, so I sat in a massage chair for half an hour before boarding the bullet train heading home.

I was still tired but didn’t want to sleep and miss my stop. I read the book about the history of Franco-Americans, a chapter on conspiracy theories about plans to annex New England to Quebec and Acadia to form a catholic French-speaking independent state, which led the northern Ku Klux Klan chapters trying to intimidate that race of badass descendants of lumberjacks and coureurs des bois, to no avail. Then the last chapters were about assimilation, how the textile industry moved elsewhere and those mill towns turned into ghost towns. Franco-Americans then migrated to bigger cities like Boston or further afield, losing their language. I do think it’s a bit sad, but it’s also fairly natural and even desirable, after all I do want immigrants to whatever land (including my own) to learn the local language and not form enclaves.

I got off the train and took a taxi home. I had a few hours left before going to work, the principal had given me the morning off since there was no way I could go to that show and come back in time. I was honest when I asked him for that favor and said it’s for strictly hedonistic personal reasons, and he said it’s cool as long as I find someone to cover my classes and teach those groups at another time during the week. That’s nice, and fair, I feel like. Some bosses would just make a sour face and say “No!”, just because, and those are the bosses that coincidentally have their subordinates cut corners and be unwilling to do anything extra. Now, conversely, those small favors make me more likely to volunteer for additional tasks and enjoy my job even more, and also some open communication like that is better than calling in sick or lying.

I whipped up a quick pasta dish, ate and took a nap. Then I got to work and taught a grade-12 double and a grade-11 review period. Between classes I compiled questions for the mid-term exam, and when I went to refill my tea, something caught my attention. The Srilankan economics teacher who’s still quarantining is teaching online from his apartment, and I heard his voice coming out of a classroom. When I peeked in, half the students were gone, and the remainder were dead asleep in the dark, nobody paying any attention to the Zoom lecture playing on the screen.

“Should I do something?”

I didn’t do anything.

I got home, and watched the UFC. I just skipped three or four cards, but Saturday’s event was too big to miss. I watched the first four fights, all of them won by a Russian or Russian-adjacent. Magomed Ankalaev outpointed Volkan Özdemir, tower of power Alexander Volkov did the same to Marcin Tybura in a slow and forgettable battle of heavyweights, but the most memorable fight was the return of Khamzat Chimaev, the most hyped fighter to drop on the scene in a long time. The Chechen-Swedish wrestler won three fights flawlessly in a short succession last year but then caught Covid and was out for a year. Now he was set to fight Li Jingliang, an exciting welterweight gatekeeper, and he slaughtered him, taking him down immediately and dominating with a varied and smothering grappling attack until he choked my fellow Chinese out. Choo-choo, the hype train is now at full speed.

Another practitioner of Caucasus-style wrestlesmashing was next up. Islam Makhachev has been climbing the ranks of the lightweight division and many see him as a future champion, picking up the trail of destruction where his longtime training partner Khabib left. He totally dismantled highly-regarded New Zealander Dan Hooker, taking him down, smeshing him and finishing him with a nasty kimura armlock. He used to have the personality of wet cardboard but now hopefully with his mentor’s guidance he will embrace the role of the extremely confident yet humble badass with bone-dry humor, like he did in his post-fight interview. He mentioned that he should be next for the title, since most of the other top contenders have already lost and now are only there to “do business”.

Seeing all those incredible displays of fighting prowess pumped me to go to the gym, where we trained submission setups from X-guard. Then we sparred and I got smashed pretty hard, but hey, life of a white belt. My beard is getting annoyingly long, to the point that not only my hairs get tugged at, but they often end up in my mouth. I should trim it soon, I’m starting to look like an Amish.

I got back home, took the dog out, and ate the barbecued mutton the girlfriend had made, along with a small portion of spaghetti and some steamed asparagus that was going bad. I watched the rest of the UFC card. Piotr Yan has been absolutely impressive in his UFC run culminating in the 135-pound title, but then lost it in one of the derpiest in-cage moments of modern MMA, when he threw an illegal knee on a downed Aljamain Sterling he was dominating. They were supposed to rematch but Sterling got injured, so an interim belt was set up against Cory Sandhagen. Great. I hate constant immediate rematches, even when they’re necessary I’d rather have a fresh matchup. Yan once again impressed with his relentless angry Russian little man boxing attack, in an action-packed fight.

Then Glover Teixeira won the light heavyweight belt in a frankly strange fight, the champ Jan Blachowicz and his Legendary Polish Power™ didn’t seem to be in the fight at all, and the 42-year-old Brazilian won in the second round, becoming the second-oldest champ in UFC history. Good for him, though that probably means he’s fighting Jiri Prochazka next, and that’s not a fate I wish on my worst enemy.