Yesterday the two TEPS반 refugee boys (by which I mean a cohort that once had 10 students is reduced to only two) were reduced further to just Jaehwan. Hyeonguk, the other student, had disappeared, and we couldn’t find him. The front-desk-lady didn’t know where he was. He’d simply disappeared.
So Jaehwan and I had class alone, the two of us. I always feel weird trying to conduct a “normal” class with only one student sitting in front of me. I feel like both of our time could be better used in some other way, at that point. But anyway…
We worked our way through the questions, and shared some joking remarks about how when Hyeonguk showed up, he’d have a lot of homework piled up (since the rule I have for this class is that the dictation homework is waived for questions with correct on-the-spot answers in class, and since he wasn’t around, obviously none of the homework was waived).
I speculated that Hyeonguk may have been abducted by aliens. I had to explain this by drawing a picture (at right), since Jaehwan was unfamiliar with the pop-culture-referencing idiom “abducted by aliens.”
Then about 20 minutes in, Curt reported in to say that Hyeonguk had been located – in the next-door classroom, where he’d decided to “audit” without telling anyone. I’m fine with that – these things happen.
Jaehwan and I shared a laugh about it, since we’d really had no idea where he’d gone. He knows I study Korean aphorisms, sometimes, so he took the opportunity to tell me one relevant to the situation.
등잔 밑이 어둡다
deung·jan mit·i eo·dup·da
lamp base-SUBJ be-dark
It’s dark at the base of the lamp.
The English expression might be, “right under one’s nose.” I wrote it on the board, to be able to remember it.