Chapter 326

Today was a bitterly cold day, especially in contrast with the sunny Saturday we had. Be grateful for having nice weekend days (shitty rainy Sunday notwithstanding) rather than sun through the work week and then shit weather on rest days.

I had one class with the eleventh-graders, and then during the half-hour break, talked to parents from Crazy Class. I had to excuse myself at 10 because I had to go teach Catatonic Class, but when I went to the classroom, the students were nowhere to be seen. On Mondays, the whole school assembles for a flag-raising ceremony, and oftentimes there’s a big wig making a speech and the students come back late. That could prove to be a compounding problem, as I only teach eleventh-graders twice a week, and now it could very well become 1.7 times a week with all the time lost.

I went home for lunch, stopping to get fried rice and duck legs at an eatery. It was absolutely delicious. Then I went back to school, dreading having to wake the twelfth-graders up. The bell rings 5 minutes before lunch time ends, and they’re supposed to get up and walk around but they just stay hunched over their desks, in deep slumber, until the teacher has to wake them up as if he was their goddamn mom. I talked about it before, it’s fucking retarded, everyone who disagrees is a fucking retard, and it’s one of my biggest peeves about this school and how it operates. But when I walked in the lobby, I saw that the drum kit had been taken out of the music room for whatever reason. It gave me an idea, and I was giggling to myself as I walked in the dark classroom holding the snare drum in one hand and a stick in the other. You know what happened next, and it was glorious.

Naturally, they gave me a bit of attitude, but it would have happened anyway and I can handle it, been there done that. I went over an exam question and finished the chapter on polymers. During the break, one student had a big plastic tub full of bubble gum, and she gave me one, which was nice of her. One girl asked her friend “Do foreigners know bubble gum?” Uh, I’m pretty sure it’s a stereotypical piece of Americana, and like pretty much everything that exists, it was invented outside China. Their ignorance is quite endearing, they don’t know much about the world beyond the borders of their country.

In the second half of the afternoon, I did some class prepping, and listened to some clips from Gavin McInnes. He must be one of the funniest men alive, he’s cancelled to hell now but his political views are not even that extreme, he’s just a classic Gen-Xer ex-punk who likes to stir the pot and be contrarian, from what I’ve seen.

I stopped at the stinky market to get a big bag of freshly ground meat and other ingredients. Something caught my eye above the meat trays, is it... is it Harbin sausage?!?! The northernmost provincial in China, where I lived over ten years ago, has a local specialty that is quite similar to a Polish kielbasa, and I used to eat it all the time. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find outside the deep north-east, and after a few very, very disappointing attempts that led me to inferior, vacuum-wrapped imitations, I gave up on the idea of finding those sublime pork cylinders. Those looked like the real thing though, so I bought one. And it was excellent! They only had the lean version, back in the day I always got the extra fatty ones with 1 cm³ blobs of white lard throughout, that I’d squeeze out in my mouth and then fill the cavities with Tabasco. Still, great success, hadn’t had a proper Harbin sausage in years, and the girlfriend loved it too.

Then I went home, cleaned the apartment, and headed to the gym. We did some no-gi jiu-jitsu, which is weird, being used to all the grips allowed by the thick pyjama. Also I had to be mindful of my ass injury, I had banged it pretty hard when I slid on the steps leading to the lake and it was quite painful when I’d sit directly on my tailbone. Still, a good time was had by all. I listened to tracks from an old Quebec hip-hop group called Cavaliers Noirs on the way, but I didn’t like it that much, DJ Horg makes some solid beats but the rapping was monodimensional and saccadic. I put on a Manu Militari album while we trained, and it was much better.

On the way home, and while walking the dog, I listened to Saccage, their black/death/crust is great and not many things sound like that. Then I put on a Scorpions album while I cooked dinner, it’s okay, but a teeny bit sappy for my tastes, like a lot of 80s rock. I made meatballs and steamed broccoli, and after eating my meal I started making a homemade sausage and brined pickles. I forgot to buy more white vinegar, so I mixed what was left with Chinese dark vinegar and leftover brine from olives and pickles. The resulting black sludge wasn’t too appetizing but it should turn out okay.

With all that cooking, I went to bed at 23:30, a bit past my usual bedtime. Ah well. Worth it.