My friends Sherry, Jess and I have been taking a community college Spanish class for the past couple of weeks and I can sincerely say that my skills in the language are coming along. For instance, I now begin emails to them, "Hey hermanas!" ("Hey, sisters!") because we're cool. I might even go so far as to say we're the cool kids in class. For instance, last night, our teacher, Don ("sir" - formal) Victor, asked the class to tell him, through a show of hands, who'd rather begin learning numbers that night after the test, and who'd rather begin learning numbers next week - a.k.a. we would have gotten to go home way early. Needless to say, our hands shot up wildly after the go-home-after-the-test option while the other members of our class nerdily decided that we'd be learning how to count that very night. What the hell, guys?!

The class sort of echoes high school in all ways except the age of the students. In fact, it's a little unnerving. First of all, the class is taught at a local high school. Our classroom is obviously used for Social Studies during the day and is obviously home to a feminist teacher who wants all the kids, even the boys, to be feminists too. The walls are covered in women's rights posters and murals. Faced with this hearty learning environment, I'm tempted to etch hearts into the desk and make faces at my friends when the overacheivers in the front row do something dumb. Really dumb! Like point out some meaningless misspelling or ask a question that only serves to get them brownie points but not any real depth of education.

When they're standing in the hallway whispering about, oh, I don't know, probably how clever they are I just want to throw our youth and cool-factor in their faces. But when it gets down to the real deal, what we're going to have to do is beat them at their own game. And I'm a little concerned about this considering Sherry, Jess and I have lives which we dedicate to ventures besides reading "Spanish is Fun" cover to cover while nursing a decaf coffee at the kitchen table.

As mentioned, last night was our first test and we laughed in the snack room after it was over about the difficulties we had. One of the sections was to write a five-sentence paragraph in Spanish about a scene pictured on the page of a man with a broken down car. What?! This isn't Spanish Comprehensive Lit!

My paragraph (translated here for you to read) went something like this:

Pedro's car is in the garage. Pedro works in a bank. Pedro doesn't buy a new car. Pedro talks to the man. Pedro rides a bike.

Luckily, we think Don Victor, who's a pretty easygoing guy, won't grade us too hard. And if he does, well, it's kind of badass to be a slacker anyway.