When UD religion teacher Paul Mari strolled onto campus a few weeks ago sporting heavily tinted sunglasses, his students knew there was something amiss.  As it turned out, their hunch was correct: Mari was hiding twin black eyes behind his Ray Bans.

Callie Karpman, a freshman in Mari’s class, described the seeing the teacher’s injuries as “freaky.” She went on to say that it almost “wasn’t easy to look at him,” just because his black eyes looked “so painful.”  But that raises another question: how exactly does a high school religion teacher end up with two black eyes? Rumors spread around the Berkeley campus like wildfire, and the possibilities became more and more ridiculous.  With the intent of putting said rumors to bed, I spoke with Mari, who casually dismissed the black eyes as “just a typical sports injury” incurred from jiu-jitsu when he “caught an elbow in an unfortunate spot.”

Hold on… jiu-jitsu? Yes, he does jiu-jitsu. And that’s not all. Although his typical day is, well, typical (“wake up, prepare for class, do the whole class thing” and attend to occasional yearbook duties), Mari has some surprising hobbies. The twenty-nine year old makes a point to pencil in time for athletic pursuits after school; some of his favorites include biking and slack lining, a type of low-to-the-ground tightrope walking that requires both balance and strength. Mari says he really likes slack lining because it is so challenging. He says that once you get on the rope and take your first wobbly step, all you want to do is work until you can make it across.

Another surprise is Mari’s passion for travel. When I asked him to list some of the places he’d visited, the exotic names rolled off his tongue faster than I could write them.  Just a small sampling of his travel destinations include France, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Southeast Asia and Puerto Rico. In fact, Mari was born in Puerto Rico and revealed that he frequently visits his homeland. Although he does have his favorite glamorous getaways, Mari confessed that he’ll travel to “anywhere there’s a plane ticket.”

Mari’s black eyes may have faded but his adventurous spirit lives on, making him a favorite among students.