Another Perspective

¡Cago En Tu Leche!

Un diatribe amargo, amargo contra la universidad, su departamento del idioma extranjero, y un poco del trivia sobre poop.

By Brandon Hartley

I have spent upwards of two months of my total lifespan in various Spanish classes and I still can't form a coherent sentence in that foreign tongue; my knowledge of the language is limited to the menu at Taco Bell. After all these years I've finally mastered "Burrito Supreme," but I'm still kind of shaky on the "Gorditas." Let's see, there's the "Supreme Beef Gordita," then the "Supreme Chicken Gordita" and... shucks, I always forget that last one.

The subject has been a rusty, multi-pronged thorn in my side for almost a decade now. Having overcome high school gym class, officiously incompetent GTFs in college and classes along the way like "Top Teen Girl and Pop," Spanish will be the academic roadblock that puts an end to my dreams of living off Tabasco sauce and cigarette butts in postgraduate destitution. I almost missed out on a diploma because of it and it will inevitably cost me a degree.

My winter break was spent curled up in a fetal position in a bedroom in Portland, strung-out and frothing at the mouth, terrified of what awaited me down here in Eugene: Spanish 202. Now a month later and four weeks into winter term, I spend most of my time locked in the bathroom of a tiny bungalow in the hills, afraid that my mutant refrigerator may attempt another frontal assault. And it's all the Spanish language's fault.

You see, I don't enjoy being forced, against my will, to pay $500 a term to study a subject I have absolutely no interest in and am absolutely terrible at while sitting in a tiny room filled to the brim with obnoxious Greek brats that spend all of their time in class critiquing each other's outfits and gossiping about their respective others, what tourist trap they're going to jet off to after finals and whether or not they'd like to live on a cul-de-sac or in a townhouse when they get married five minutes after they leave college with a degree in General Studies. A small group of these people could kill a cow in under 2.3 seconds with the sound of their incessant giggling.

Is it any wonder that the foreign language requirement has robbed me of my self-esteem and sanity? There are only a few things I truly despise in this world and having to conjugate "ir" in the subjunctive tense is one of them. I have a belly full of contempt and would take great pleasure in vomiting this black bile all over the cheap suits of the douchebag administrators who came up with the language requirement. I would love to press my lips to theirs and force this hate down their throats and into their digestive tracts so that it might eat at away at their insides and burn a gigantic hole in their bloated, bureaucratic bellies. I am an English major, dammit, and there's nothing more ironic and infuriating than having to speak broken Spanish with disgusted sorority girls in order to graduate.

Whew, that was cathartic and maybe even a little disturbing. Time to take a breather. How about a poop factoid to lighten the mood?

According to "Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English," the word "poop" comes from the Middle English word "poupen," and originally meant "to fart." This onomatopoeic word was based on the sound of flatulence. According to Robert Chapman, author of "American Slang," "poop" came into use with its current meaning around 1900.

We now return to the disjointed rant already in progress.

It would take a three-hundred page essay to adequately list all of the problems inherent with the University of Oregon's feeble attempts at teaching its liberal arts students a foreign language. Here's a collection of just a few of them, along with a compilation of very practical and reasonable solutions that would immediately raise test scores and morale in these classes.

1. Practically no one on this campus wants to learn another language and those who do, won't.
While many students in this country wouldn't mind learning a second language, they, unlike the administrative Nazi automatons who establish academic requirements, realize that it's an extremely difficult task and not one worth undertaking. There's a tremendous amount of grammatical quirks and thousands upon thousands of vocabulary words that a person must learn before they can even begin to talk shit in another language. Spending a few hours a week in a classroom filled with apathetic students like myself is no way to learn how to master Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, let alone German or Japanese. I've heard countless anecdotes from people who have studied a random language to the bone, traveled overseas and found themselves completely unable to communicate with the bartender at the nearest hash bar from the airport.

America's students simply aren't up to the task of learning how to speak another language, especially considering that most of them can barely speak proper English. Other nations begin brainwashing their children with rigorous dialect classes beginning in kindergarten and practically force them study abroad. The U.S. halfheartedly crams its students into these classes in the sixth grade and refuses to acknowledge the fact that the only way someone can properly learn a second language is by spending time in another country. By the time a student has reached the University of Oregon, they've spent at least four academic years not learning a foreign language in the public educational system. One would think that campus administrators would acknowledge the fact that most of us have neither the time nor the desire to immerse ourselves in foreign lexicon, realize this whole thing is a complete waste of time and cut the requirement altogether.

2. The average language class on this campus is humiliating and hellish.
I am a student in a UO Spanish class. I spend fifty minutes, four days a week trapped in a tiny desk so small I cannot stretch my legs or arms. My professor's tendency to call on me when I'm trying to look as inconspicuous as possible causes blood blisters to form on my brain. The air is so full of perfume emanating off the student next to me that my lungs hurt, my eyes burn and I think I am going blind. My mind is alert and my body is sensitive. I yearn to be at home fiddling with Napster, but instead have gone crazy from the close confinement. I am no more than a commodity. I am a student turned into a conjugating machine - pumping out incoherent sentences in Spanish, only to be laughed at by those around me.

Everyday students at this university are forced to suffer like me. In order to get a decent grade in a language class at the UO, a student must constantly volunteer answers and socialize with people they have absolutely nothing in common with. 10% of their grade is unreasonably based on in-class participation. A student able to speak fluent Italian could easily receive a B in an Italian class if they happen to be shy or just stoned all the time. Many like myself have grown accustomed to the anonymity of 500-person lecture halls and resent having to actually show up to and pay attention in class.

You can help myself and others like me. Here are the addresses of various officials in the romantic languages department. Please terrorize them incessantly:

Just kidding.

3. Students have to pass 203 with at least a C- before they can even think about graduating
This stipulation is complete and utter, bare-knuckled, 100%, unadulterated crapulence. As is the fact that B.A. students have to take two years of a foreign language while B.S. students only have to take one year of the equivalent in mathematics.

If a student can merely get through 203, regardless of grades, without killing themselves, they should be given a badge of honor and a ticker tape parade down 13th Avenue. The Register-Guard should run a banner headline on the cover of its morning edition, trumpeting their triumph over pain and sorrow:

Anyway...

If this university is still unwilling to overturn the foreign language requirement, despite my incredibly logical and well-developed argument, here are a few ways they can make things easier for both myself and my fellow liberal art students.

1. Get rid of those tiny desks.
Replace them with leather easy chairs. The university has funding problems and we might have a tuition hike on our hands. Those chairs will have to be leather, dammit.

2. Establish an alternative language classes for anyone belonging to a fraternity, sorority or NCAA sports team.
Both they and the university's more rational students will be much happier and more eager to learn.

3. Remind professors on a weekly basis that no one in these classes wants to learn anything.
Encourage them to scrap their itinerary and show movies like Desperado and La Femme Nikita in class instead of actually teaching.

4. Include field trips to foreign restaurants every Friday.
Sy's Pizza for Italian students, Taco Time for those "studying" Spanish, the Rhinelander in Portland for the German kids and the Alibi (also in PDX) for everyone else.

5. Four words: Monkey Butlers in Tuxedos. Six more words: Full-Service Bar in Every Classroom.

I used to be a happy, productive young man that didn't write rambling columns filled with anger and lame attempts at humor. I used to enjoy football and Maxim like all the other kids. Then something happened. Spanish happened. Administrators, if you're out there and actually reading this, please have a heart and get rid of the foreign language requirement. There may be no hope for me but think of the thousands of others. There's still time for them.

I will now return to the bathroom and continue sobbing quietly into a mildew-encrusted towel.

Brandon Hartley, a senior majoring in English, is a featured columnist for the Oregon Commentator