"soy pintor"

Throughout my 294830920 (... or maybe it's only been 19 or so..) years of schooling I, like any other normal person, have had my share of teachers and classes that I have not liked. It's normal. Well, right now, I am in the class that takes the cake. It's torture. One and a half hours of teeth-gritting, fist-clenching, wanting to scream torture every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I prefer coffee in the a.m. hours... not this cruel punishment (good God I must have committed some terrible, terrible crime to have deserved this..) called 'History of Architecture in Spain."

Having taken a lot of art and art history classes at Holy Cross and at the University of Sevilla, I tend to really enjoy art classes. I find them interesting. A nice break from the typical classes' subject matters. Photography, Digital Imaging, Drawing, History of Ancient Archaeology, History of Art in Andalucia, etc... I liked them all! It's an entirely different type of learning; they're an opportunity to expand your mind and to see the world differently. So, obviously, when I saw in the Middlebury class list that they were some art history classes being offered, I said giddyup yee-haw let's go! Sign me up! What could go wrong? I mean, I like the subject material, I've studied art history in the past, I'd like to know more, etc...

Two words: Alfredo Ramon. That's what can go wrong. So very, very wrong. He's hardcore Debbie-Downer and rains on my artsy parade everyday. I detest his class, and each passing day gets increasingly worse. Today for example, was so bad that I am already dreading Thursday's class. An hour and a half, which seems oh so short when that's how long I sleep at night, seems to last days. Years. Decades. I feel my sanity wanting to give out. I leave the class each day increasingly tired, weary, and feeling old. That's right... I'm 23 going on 80.

With each class, the amount of material he teaches us becomes progressively less... why? To make room for his lectures of course. To call tourism stupid (I'm a tourist... and tourism is fun, thank you very much), to tell us we can't "enjoy" architecture because then we'd be stupid (if I'm going to spend 5 euros to get into a centuries old cathedral, I'm damn well going to enjoy it), to mention 1948293 times per class that he's a painter (and, when he's at home... he has his own studio... where he, what? Oh right, he paints. We don't care! Your paintings probably suck!). I can't imagine him ever feeling "pleasure" in any facet of life. I can't even fathom this... I get all happy-giddy just from the sound a canister of tennis balls makes when you open it for the first time. I bet he eats stale bread because normal bread would be too close to enjoyable... and God help his poor wife if he's married. Poor woman's going into her 70's and probably never had a good romp in bed.

He half-yells at us telling us we need to understand the HISTORY of architecture in order to study the architecture. No shit dumbass, so TEACH us something. You can't lecture us on learning the history of architecture if you don't teach it to us because you're so focused on calling us dumb. And then he throws in a "Soy pintor (I'm a painter)" and maybe another "Las cosas.. hay que verlas'. (You have to go see things.)" He will, for example, mention a random plaza or street in Madrid, and if we don't know what he's talking about, he scoffs and throws out another 'Hay que VER las COSAS' before launching into another lecture.

Today, I almost stabbed myself with my pen in the eyeball because that would have been less painful than sitting through this class. I found myself wondering if I could get the pen right in the pupil. At least it would have been some sort of diversion. Even more disconcerting is that I actually subconsciously wrote "Kill me" in my notebook today. Hannah, out of nowhere, whimpered an "I hate him" and Susan said she wanted to kill him. Susan and I are both going to take ourselves out of a class he's teaching in the spring, one which had a lot of potential to be a good class. Because frankly, taking another class with him would be like volunteering to stay in a Prisoner of War camp in which they shove bamboo chutes down your fingernails when given a brief opportunity to escape...