it appears you have taken a leave of your senses.....

....by not writing in my blog for over a month. yikes! where did those days go?
i'm sitting in my apartment sipping a beer in last-grade-entered-in-the-computer-finals-are-finished bliss, surrounded by small piles of stuff i think i might like to take with me when i return to canada next week. the hardest part of travel to me is not getting everything together but to actually start putting it in my bags. then its a freeforall as i try to stuff as much as i can in there.
alas, i do have a bit of time before i head to seoul as i will be flying out monday morning to tokyo with a 5-day stopover to have a quick visit with greg and bring him his guitar. i'm looking forward to actually seeing some of japan for a change. although i've made two trips there in the past, its only been for visa runs and some international grocery shopping. then it will be on to canada for two whole months. wow. it feels as though i've just started to get settled after my trip to thailand/india/n.z and here i am putting the pack back on again. how blessed am ito be working at a university.
bryan and shauna, in a tremedous act of generosity, have lent me their car which is in storage in rochester, n.y. i have plans to take a bus over there shortly after i land in t.o to meet up with shauna's folks and pick up the car. yay! i can't wait to be in road trippin' heaven. i have plans for south carolina to see my dad and desiree rumbaugh, head to boulder to hook up with some of bry and shaunas friends for some climbing,on to san fran for yoga study and hopefully a visit to one of my favourite places in the world, bishop, c.a. for some more stellar climbing. actually, as i'm writing this, it all sounds like a lot but just having the freedom and the wheels to go has me jumping around.
i also have big plans to pick another computer while i'm home to take on the road with me so the blog will be updated much more frequently. unless my senses took off again...

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.

vivid

the heat runs through my body and instantly i'm drenched in sweat. white rage flashes in my head, i can't see, unspeakable words lie heavy on my tongue. i'm naked, vulnerable, wanting to flee but my feet are glued to the floor. suddenly, my eyes pop open and i force air into my constricted heart. i hate waking up like this....
for as long as i can remember, i've dreamt heavily, vividly, and with deep emotional resonance. my dreams seem to intensify with the moon cycle also, like when it is coming closer to fullness or i am experiencing my own cycle. its hard not to let feelings that occured in my dreams to linger throughout my day but i can't help but wonder what they mean.
perhaps my new toys, an ipod and speaker set, will offer some distaction as i go on a downloading frenzy.

actually, i'm a road stranger

whew! i've made it 3/4's of the way through mid-terms and the end is in sight. this monday, i began the long and tedious process of orally testing 235 univeristy students. although some of my co-workers greatly advised against this testing method, i decided to pair up my freshmens and have them design a 3 minute conversation. honestly, i've been quite pleasantly surprised as the majority of them actually took the time to study and memorize their lines, regardless of how simple they were. they were also very nervous and when i would clap my hands at the end and say how good it was, the faces were beaming. one student even gave a loud whoop and ran over to hug me, so grateful that it was all over. now, the written tests are another story....yikes!
i've been continuing to work on the inner nuturance i talked about in the previous post without resorting to bread or donuts. what has been working i find is spending time with friends. i had a great week-end in seoul even though i didn't get to cosco, which had been the main plan. jai yoga studio turned out to be this posh place with fantastic atmosphere; the kind of studio i dream of working at one day. shauna and i returned the next day to take a pre-natal class offered along side 7 or 8 other ladies in various stages of pregnancy. it was a bit strange to be there, knowing i wasn't pregnant, but i have recently begun working with a few pre-natal women and wanted to get some experience. it was also fun to share the time with shauna too.
speaking of teaching yoga, i have also started up classes again in sok'cho on fridays (kelly, if you read this, come join us!). i'm doing a class with a friend who teaches at an elementary school in the early afternoon and have decided to hang around to do another class with the old ecc crew. although i was physically and mentally exhausted by the time the ecc class came around (hadn't slept well the night before), i had forgotten what it was like to have advanced students in the class and all the fun crazy stuff you can do. i ended up spending the night at carrey-ann's in my old apartment at ecc-up and had a very pleasant morning sipping tea and chatting with her. we made plans to do some food shopping for baking later and hitting the re-sale shops in the market.
after a relatively painless saturday afternoon trip to emart, we made it downtown where i began to do my infamous 'try-everything-on-and-buy-nothing'. although i do love to shop, most of the time i really don't enjoy trying things on. this day was different. i was willing to put on any ridiculous item of clothing i could slide onto my body, just for a laugh. and oh, did we laugh!
sadly, the baking part of the day wasn't nearly as fun as i repeated another infamous 'jenn' thing; mistaking baking powder for baking soda. shoot. i'm gonna remember that next time, i swear. after scooping out the uncookable muffin batter that had been in the oven for 45 minutes, i gave up and tossed the rest in the toilet with a decision to try again this week.
on a completely different note, i've been spending lots of time researching plane tickets home to canada and planning out yoga teacher trainings i'd like to do while i'm there. i'm getting excited, and a little nervous, about returning home to see all my family and friends. it's been almost two years since i've been there last and i'm looking forward to putting myself into some western culture, wondering if i'll fit in there again. i love living overseas and all the opportunties it affords me but i've been missing being a part of my family, being there for birthdays and christmas', watching my neices and nephews grow up, and to help out when i can. i have a difficult time imagining myself living back in north america, the same way i felt about ever living in asia, so perhaps its time to open back up to the idea. or move to new zealnd. i like that one, too.

toasted...

glancing at my side profile in the mirror, i notice my tummy has been looking more distended than usual. 'hmmmmm', i ponder, 'whats going on?'. could it be all the bread i've been consuming for the past few weeks? probably.
i don't what it is about bread that causes to me to turn to it whenever i'm feeling stressed or heavy-hearted. i've also noted that i experience intense bread-cravings after i teach a yoga class. eating bread, particularly toasted with butter, reminds me of my childhood when my mother would feed it to me whenever i wasn't feeling well or for sunday morning breakfasts. perhaps it's my body's way of reaching out for inner nuturance to replace all that i've given out after teaching.
in doing my best to give myself the highest level of sustenance i can, i'm making a trip into seoul this week-end to catch a few yoga classes, a pedicure and a trip to cosco. i've recently read about a yoga studio called jai yoga that will be hosting an anusara intensive retreat at the end of may and has classes throughout the week-end. i'm looking forward to being the student again to rejuvenate my spirit. i'm also hoping to pick up a inexpensive digital camera from cosco as i've been craving to take photos and get some new pics up on the blog. with the cherry blossoms in full bloom, there will be some pretty asian pics to come. perhaps that will take my mind of bread, too.