judgement day

every two years i face up to what seems more like my own exam results. i personally (excessively) invest my professional and emotional input into my students' grades not because they are a reflection of my competence, well maybe just a little, but honestly, i just hate to see them do badly because it really destroys their faith in themselves and the platitudes of encouragement and trust i place in everyone of them for two years. it's like a final crushing blow which undermines every single word and deed from day one.

i know in a couple of weeks or months even, i will look back and chide myself for feeling this way. but for now that unpleasant dull feeling resides in my heart and mind. i feel trapped in a helpless moment where i want to help them feel better but i can't even help myself.

guilt is a terrible thing, coupled with righteous anger against the injustice of the fucking one-exam system is enough to make me want to jump off a building or burn it down. i don't know which. i feel ridiculously torn and yet my hands are tied. i sat at my desk after giving out the results and just sobbed into my jacket to mute the sounds. i spent the entire day dodging the shock while trying to keep business at usual in class and later when facing my students at results release time. it was a difficult facade which i suppose culminated to that break down, triggered by students coming up to assure me with hugs and painfully masked expressions of resignation. and then one of my students wrote me this card attached to a chox and i just lost it:

anyway despite all the comforting pats from colleagues and ex-students alike, and the rock the wifey has been, i am scarred. a part of my idealism has died and when i go to class with a strange alter ego of enthusiasm and apparent engagement, deep inside i feel hollow and dishonest. i dispense knowledge as much as (false) hope and i wonder if this will pan out right.

perhaps it is a sign. i need to make a real change and work on something less painful and devastating all around for both students and self. i don't need another round of this in two years because that would mean i will throw in the chips completely. i need to devote myself to a job which makes more sense, bodes less potential setbacks, where my actions would directly control the outcome...

on a brighter note, a handful of my form class hit the jackpot and i was really happy for them. two of them genuinely deserved the straight As though ironically it is this very monster of a system which gives and takes away equally.

then there are sweeties who truly make your day:

(and as a sad attempt at payback i've reset my school lappy password to 'fuckcambridge69')