Spanish is the hardest thing I have ever done in college. I think it’s out to kill me. I am a dinosaur, it is an asteroid. I am coal mining, it is the solar panel. I am Jubilant Whimsy Itself, it is Death’s scythe, ready to carve me up like the pitiful chunk of bland ground beef yo soy. I’ll be lucky to pass my class.
I grew up nowhere close to Spanish. The only two cultures in my hometown were the most extreme ethnicities you can be in America—poor and rich. This was very Black and white. We all spoke bad English. Could you imagine trying to learn a foreign language on top of that? Like how they talk Yankee in northern Virginia? And whatever in Boston? And you’re saying I have to know Spanish to graduate? ¡Oy vey! (Is that Spanish?).
Before college, Spanish was never a priority, and there was no incentive to learn it. In middle school, to “learning” Spanish meant skipping the good electives (Choir, with the gay one). That, all to hang out with the pedophile Senor. I don’t remember his exact name, but I am sure they’ll come up with one for him in prison. High school wasn’t much better. Señora Woart had her own strange inclinations: she fetishized using instruction time as an opportunity to make us kids write Bible verses on her future deck decorations. She also thought herself to be the proper Queen of Haiti.
In college, I try my hardest. Recently, I managed about a week of doing my homework on time. The textbook and I, vis-à-vis, have a dour back-and-forth. It tortures me like a stupid puppy until, fitfully, I recite the Spanish version of the Dickens back to it. And if I am even close to Dickensian, it’s in the languid manner of one of his street urchins. It is impossible to take an interest in the language, especialmente porque no me gusta escribir frases que es dificíl, y todos los días las frases siempre dificíl.
Like a Dickens character, I am tortured by the ruthless class system. I am basically a pitiful child orphan in Victorian England. What they call class, I call a shift at the factory. What the college considers “Spanish at the pre-school level,” I consider forced child labor. Instead of Mom, Oldenborg packs my lunch. I was not meant to learn Spanish or do something useful. I was meant to count holes in the road, and not more than 15, because I can’t do that to be honest.
Colleges are supposed to be helpful companies, and right now, they’re wasting their time on training me. In Spanish, a kid could beat me. Today a 3 year old did on the train. If I had to speak Spanish every day, I straight up couldn’t. Their priorities are in the wrong place. They are wasting their time teaching me how to give commands (mandatos). It is foolish and outright dangerous. My vocabulary has the refined grace of a toddler; I am a boorish oaf, a gelatinous cretin. Put me in control of los mandatos, and I’d accidentally get someone killed, or worse.
Language acquisition is not in the cards for me, though the game forces me to play. At times, I estoy. Sometimes I soy. States of being, emotions, entire identities, these are all utilitarian things I use to convince Profesora Davila-Lopez I entiendo. Words stop being words that mean something. Words—palabras—are simply means to an end, and the end is at 10:50 A.M. on weekdays (except the word for Friday).
Even when I try, it’s no use. I write down notes never to be read again; the executioner, placing a “Get Well Soon” card in the head basket. My erstwhile English brilliances vanish inside Mason Classroom 5, sundering under the wave of orange corrections dazzling mis composiciónes. Sentences and cognates arrive in clown costume. Half-witted conjugations leak from my lips. When I write, so many things disagree in gender and number, the reader can only assume I’m thinking about a group of non-binary philosophers.
Everything gets mangled and piled-up. Right now, my class is working on giving people directions, using our campus map as a model. I have my own goals—I’d like to tell them, “walk toward the clock tower until it smacks you square in the face, and that’s how you get to the hospital.” Unfortunately, I’m still trying to remember the word for pedestrian. Sputters emerge, beautiful butterflies of “ahhhs” and “uhhmss” filtered through an accent of gay and stupid.
Once I am free, I hope there is a better life for me out there. I am sick of the Spanish modus operandi (Latin for something, idk). I cannot listen to more fake phone calls, look at more diagrams for children, fill in more blanks (those are the worst!). Is this what education is for? No. Something is wrong.Es ideal que mi educacíon involves doing what I already know, intuitively, with the least amount of attention. Duh-doy? No subjunctive case, just me talk now! I use good words!
Others live their lives free of this burden. Smoking the weed or the doobies, or doing great sex, or going outside, or maybe even having all that in Spanish. I think that’s fine and beautiful. I wish I could do that too. If I didn’t suck donkey cock at Spanish, my ass would never set foot in the classroom. Spanish has robbed me of countless Reels. Other small cuts and injustices pile up as tragedy, and also I’m supposed to translate that big sentence with all those huge words? No way, Joey!
All relationships should have balance. Spanish and I do not have a relationship. How can I love it when it treats me like its plaything? It is beautiful and I am ugly. It picks me up and I can only go limp. It puts me down, and I am spent. Nothing is private about what Spanish and I do. Everybody hears what dribbles out of my mouth. If it is a rose, I am its thorn. If it’s a mystery to solve, I’m Sherlock’s fifth cousin thrice removed. Try to translate that.