huh?

today i was marking some mid-terms to try and stay on top of the mountains of paperwork building up on my desk when i came across this;

my hope is hardly human's figure. the mean hardly is ants. then, the result is very nice. so my hope is hardly human's figure.

hmmmmmm....what does that mean? that was the answer given by one of my third-year students in response to the question 'what are you hopes and dreams?'. i'm tempted to give her bonus points for writing such an intriguing answer.

dirt in my teeth

.....my hands and feet are filthy and covered in black gunk. my hair hasn't been brushed for days and i'm quite certain there is a small family of robins nesting in there. my fingernails have been torn off and i'm bleeding from a small hole on the palm of my hand. another bad dream? nope, just a great week-end of climbing.
this past saturday and sunday, i hooked up with the sok'cho crew to head into unknown climbing territories; daegu. it was bryan's birthday earlier last week and he was keen to get everyone together for a road trip. the numbers were originally high with up to 12 of us going but the draw of a warm bed was too great for many and then there were six, perfect for climbing. we arrived into the park, yu-hak-san, about 2 a.m and hiked around for ages looking for a place to camp. we finally settled on a beautiful grassy, treed spot next a roadside pullover. it was perfect at 4 a.m when we went to sleep but not so great at 7 a.m when the transport trucks began to zoom by, shaking our tents in the distance.
alas, we woke to sunny clear skies and proceeded to have a leisurely breakfast under a canopied picnic table until the boys could resist the draw of the rock no longer. we packed up our gear enough just to lug it all up a steep trail til we found some choice spots under the crag and next to a natural spring. the rock looked interesting; aeretes, dihedrals, overhangs and crimpy, slabby-looking routes, some really short and some quite long with reassuring shiny bolts abound (although more than a few run-out starts). i have only been climbing a few times in the past months and hadn't been feeling much motivation to do so but the sight of the rock stirred up some excitement in my belly. i'm not sure though if it was the anticipation of the climbing or the vast amounts of fabulous food and drinks awaiting us when we finished.

ouch

well, it finally happened; i made one of my university students cry. making students cry is nothing unheard of for me at my past school. some weeks, it seemed like it was happening every day but this is to be expected with young children who are exhausted after a day at public school. a 24 year old student is completely different.
after handing back the mid-term and pronunciation tests monday night, one of the better students in the class came to me during the break and asked me why her grade was so low (she got a 7/10). she told me she thought her english level was much higher then other students in the class and therefore her grade ought to be higher. as i told her that her english was indeed good, that she spoke well and i appreciated her participation in class, she needed to focus on her pronunciation, particularily r and l, an area of extreme difficulty for koreans speaking english. as i gave her my explanation, her face got redder and the tears swelled behind her eyes until she could no longer say anything. i felt so horrible and ready to cave to tell her she could repeat the test again. i had to remind myself how unfair that would be to all the other students and that i felt i marked quite easily as it was. i was surprised at how bad i felt afterwards and its stayed with me til today. i find it hard to mark the students fairly while still instilling confidence in them to be comfortable to speak. ahhhh, the challenges of being a teacher.