Chapter 350

I woke up at 6:30 and started my day. I played the song The Way by Fastball, a forgotten late-90s one-hit-wonder, and one that was everywhere at the time but somehow didn’t get overplayed like some other one-hit-wonders. It put me in a great mood. Then the girlfriend left to go to work, and I put on some violent death metal to further enhance my mood.

I had a lab in the morning and it went okay, then I rushed home to make the most of my (slightly extended) lunch break. I joined a friend on his metal podcast, and together we dissected four new releases. Quebec City’s Guerre plays a slow, crushing, beatdown hardcore, a style I really don’t have much affinity for, but I gave them their dues. Montreal’s Fracturus (fronted by Alex Leblanc of Atheretic, Neuraxis and Point Blank Rage fame) dropped a superb EP of tightly-knit modern death metal that is a great continuation of the Quebec tech-death sound that has been a staple of the scene since the turn of the millenium, and left us begging for more. The next two were lukewarmly received by both of us, Thulcandra being a poor Dissection clone and Carthage churning out some rather paint-by-numbers brutal death metal lacking the punch of some of their genre counterparts. It was good to shoot the shit with the guys.

I barely had time to wolf down a bowl of R. n’ S. before rushing back to the lab. Crazy Class does much better in practical sessions than when they’re sitting in a classroom, bored out of their skulls and at the brink of exhaustion, but I still have to keep an eye on them. Today’s practical involved burners, a 3.0-M solution of hydrochloric acid, and plenty of glassware, as always. I told them to stay away from the HCl fumes but one girl caught a strong whiff and went to vomit in the toilet. Another girl went to check on her, the sight of her classmate’s half-digested lunch made her retch and puke too, and they were to queasy to come back in. So they sat on the steps outside.

I notified the head teacher and the principal of that incident, and checked on them later, they were fine. Still, next time I’ll make it even more clear, and perhaps even turn on the fume hoods.

The rest of the afternoon went by normally. At night I went to the gym for the fourth night in a row, I felt a bit stiff but I had to go, since I have something tomorrow night. I did my deadlift 5/3/1, and the huge muscular personal trainer who’s always there, sneering, gave me a nod and a thumbs up after I one-repped the heavy-ass weight. I’ve been to that gym at all sorts of hours and never not seen him there, I imagine he sleeps on a cot (or on the bench) at night, eating only trays of hard-boiled eggs and creatine powder.

Then I went home, took the dog out, and ate a big plate of dumplings and fish. I watched a 7 Jours Sur Terre video about the geopolitics of Canada, and how its doors wide open to immigration are part of a plan to increase its population drastically and eventually have the means to occupy the northern part of the territory. Yes, I’m sure “refugees” from Pakistan, the Caribbean and East Asia are lining up to go settle down in Nunavut and Yukon. It’s all very post-national, part of a paradigm change that is observed elsewhere in the Western world, and I’m glad to see that good ol’ Quebec is the thorn in the side of the engineers of that plan (which seems doomed anyway, it’s not as if the USA or Russia or whoever ends up being the superpower in the year 2100 won’t just come and take the northern passage if they want it).

I mixed a cocktail for the girlfriend and delivered it to her in bed. I heard canned laugh tracks coming out of her phone, she was watching the Big Bang Theory for the nth time. Chinese girls love that show, in fact for the longest time I thought it was “the Big Bang Series”, with how they pronounce the /th/ sound.

Then I did something I’ve been meaning to do for some time, I inquired about what I’d need to be a teacher in Canada. I went on the Ontario Ministry of Education and called the toll-free number, which put me in some kind of endless limbo of menus and robotic voices. When someone would finally pick up, I’d explain why I’d call, and they’d transfer me to another menu, rinse and repeat. I eventually got a hold of some guy from the Teacher College, and he was quite helpful. The whole process wasn’t very encouraging, it involved a river of paperwork, hundreds of dollars, and though I have a British PGCE, I’d have to jump through tons of hoops because I don’t have a Canadian bachelor’s in education. I’d need to be a certified teacher in England, which sounds impossible or very hard. He gave me the phone number to the office in charge, and with the time difference I imagined they would still be at work. This time, no endless string of menus and annoying elevator music, a woman picked up immediately. She was also quite helpful but didn’t quite know how to answer my strange request. Ah well. Teaching in Canada isn’t my Plan A for many reasons but I thought I’d check anyway. The picture they painted is quite bleak, I guess I’ll go work in the mines instead.