Chapter 328

I started my day normally, and browsing Facebook, I saw someone posted a link to the Tales From The Hood soundtrack. No idea if it’s from a movie or whatever, but it was a nice compilation of hip-hop from different sub-genres and scenes, including a real banger by a hitherto unknown Bay Area rapper named Spice 1. I looked him up, and he’s got a huge discography, I shall investigate. It was unfortunately followed by an Ol’ Dirty Bastard track. I do not like Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

I taught grade-12 classes in the morning. I use the same materials I prepared last year, and the dates on the PowerPoint presentations I’m currently using are in the mid-December range. That means I’m way ahead compared to last year, since I have more classes per week and also because Cambridge removed big chunks of the curriculum. Conversely, for the grade-11 classes, I’m lagging behind compared to last year, because I only teach them twice a week, the curriculum has been beefed up, and well, I already talked about the academic abilities of two of the three groups I teach. I asked my former Hells Angels coworker if he’s on track to finish in time and he said “No fucking way”, we might have to cut some lab sessions and give them more practice to do at home.

The problem is that many of these students don’t have autonomous study habits to say the least, and that’s something I adressed in the short parents’ meetings we had on Monday. They’re not little kids anymore, they need to be a little responsible.

There was another parents’ meeting scheduled for the second half of the lunch break, which is a bit unpleasant but you gotta do what you gotta do. I didn’t go home, I rode my bicycle downtown to buy a huge bag of dog food, we ran out yesterday. Then I ate a quick plate of Muslim noodles, dropped the bag of dog chow at home, and went to meet the parents and give some tough love to the members of Crazy Class.

I had two classes in the afternoon, then did some class prepping in the office. I checked out some Clown World news, and saw what is likely the clowniest shit I’ve seen in a long time: a bunch of universities in the USA offer therapy sessions for students who get anxiety after hearing that Kyle Rittenhouse got acquitted. No shit. That’s the state of young western adults now. Should we laugh or cry?

I went home, renewed all the stuff in my mp3 player and headed to the gym. It was leg day. Leg day sucks, but there’s no way around it. Then I went home, walked the dog, and ate some leftovers while watching a documentary about the early years of Pride FC. The Japanese organisation was huge, at a time the UFC was in its dark ages stateside, and like a lot of old MMA fans, I remember it fondly.