The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. It's Sunday. I inexplicably wake up at 8.30 am (usually I get up around 10-11 am). I lie awake in bed, unsuccessfully trying to get back to sleep. Eventually, it’s 10 am, and Girlfriend wakes up so I decide to get up with her.

I recommence working on an essay I'm midway through. It's for a Russian guy and it's supposed to be 40-50 pages. It’s his final essay for his Master’s degree. I'm meeting him at 2 pm to hand over what I've done so far.

Meanwhile, Girlfriend's laptop has been installing updates for an hour, during which she can’t use it. A goddamn hour. She should have just deactivated the stupid automatic updates as I've done on my laptop. So while she's waiting, she's playing a game called The Door on my tablet. It's an "escape the room" game, except you have to unlock boxes instead of a door. I've already finished it, and I'm secretly pleased she's playing too.

After I get tired of the essay, I dick around on my keyboard. I try to reproduce some music that's in my head. I'm not sure where the music's come from. Probably I've unknowingly nicked it from somewhere.

At 2pm, I leave to meet the student. In my building's elevator, a Chinese guy talks to me about the weather. "It's great weather today!" he enthuses.

"But it's only two degrees." I reply.

"Yep, great weather!" he insists.

At the cafe, I give the student what I've done so far, and he gives me $400, part of the full payment for the essay ($800). By the way, I don't usually get paid this much for essay. It's just that this essay is unusually long. The price is representative of the time it takes me to write it (40 hours).

This Russian guy likes to take drugs, so I tell him about a drug I took for fun on Friday. It's called aniracetam, and it's supposed to increase concentration. He looks it up on his iPhone, he doesn't know it. Anyway.

When I get back to the apartment, Girlfriend has just finished taking a shower. I try playing some more of the music in my head on the keyboard. I'm frustrated because I can't easily capture it. I try to film myself with my camcorder, but I need both hands to play. Girlfriend wants to go to a restaurant, but suddenly I want to stay here and compose this song before I forget it. I realise I'm acting immaturely and I try to stay in a good mood.

We go to Cacao 70, a chocolate-themed restaurant. They do a pretty good breakfast too, so that's what I order, even though it's now 3pm. Girlfriend wants to talk about the future – specifically, the next countries we'll go to after leaving Canada next month. Girlfriend wants to go work in Ireland, but I want to go to Japan and Australia on working holiday visas, which Girlfriend's too old now to get now. My heart isn't really in this conversation. I'm surprised by how tired I feel. I'm still not on the right dosage for my hypothyroidism, I reckon.

When we're back, I test my blood sugar level to see what effect the meal had. It comes up at 9.9, which is indicative of diabetes. Scared, I test again. The next results are 6.5 and 7.4 which are pretty normal. Stupid fucking cheap unreliable glucose test monitor piece of shit.

At 6pm, I have to go teach English to a private student for an hour. This is only his second session with me. Initially, he said he just wants to have conversational classes, to ensure his English doesn't get rusty. But in this class, he starts getting bored with our conversation. At the end, he asks if next time we can do phrasal verbs and fucking shit like that. By the way, I'm not a good English teacher. I don’t have the training or the experience. I know it’s only a matter of time before this student leaves me. Oh well.

After the student, I go to the gym for an hour. I always run 200 kcal on the treadmill at the back, while glancing at the arses of girls in yoga pants on the treadmills in front of me.

When I get back, I take a shower then prepare dinner: a roast chicken. While it cooks, I proofread a document for another student.

After dinner, I do what I've been waiting to do all day: play games on my tablet! First I play a new game called Monument Valley, where you have to manipulate the landscape to guide your character through safely. But unfortunately, it's easy, and I'm disappointed. I don't have to use my brain. It's almost as if the game's on rails. It's more of an experience than a game. I'm left unsatisfied.

Next, I play The Door's sequel, the imaginatively titled The Door 2. But this game is too easy too. I'm just going through the motions instead of testing my brainpower. There are no "Aha!" moments when I solve a puzzle. The solutions are obvious or just boring. Also, I keep accidentally pausing the game or bringing up menu screens because the screen is so big and there’s barely anything to hold on to without touching it.

Finally I try out a composer app. I manage to compose a bit of my song, then I encounter a problem - a seemingly never-ending loading screen, like Girlfriend’s laptop earlier. It's now midnight, so I finish writing this in bed, as Girlfriend plays The Door. Fuck knows what I've achieved today, if anything.

The next day I managed to compose the song on my laptop using a program called MuseScore. Here's the song: