Conclusions

For the last time, hi everyone! To be honest I am not entirely sure what to write about for this last blog, but I wanted to start by thanking you all for bearing with me. This class was miles and miles above my current level of Spanish, and that was clear from the start. So thanks for listening to my broken spanish and helping me along the way. I struggled week after week not only trying to carve out time for each weeks reading, but to carve out time to even attempt reading it in Spanish. I wish my courseload wasn't as heavy this semester because I truly believe I would have made better progress if given the proper time. But because of this, I was able to learn in a new way through finding any and every way possible to understand our texts. I really enjoyed hearing all the different perspectives everyone brough to each reading, because it really got me to think deeper about each text rather than finding one thing to analyze. I think that is the benefit of the seminar structure. 

If I had to choose one unit I liked the most, it would probably be the 3 weeks we spent on Borges. Although it absolutely messed up my mind, the concepts he came up with and the interpretations it facilitated were really engaging for me, especially Ficciones because some of the short stories Borges wrote had me daydreaming about a new Christopher Nolan film. I dont think there are any specific moments or parts of stories that stick out to me in particular, but I enjoyed the mental stimulation Borges provided me. 

I have to say that after the first two weeks I was not sure what I had signed up for between "In the Penal Colony" describing the groteqsue death of a man through his failing execution device and "Las Hortensias" describing a man falling in love with a doll. It got me worried about the texts we were going to read all semester because those were neither engaging nor interesting to me. But I think Borges turned things around and afterwords we got into texts that had more relevance to both literacy and Spanish history which were much easier sells for me to read. 

Anyways, I enjoyed meeting everyone and hope that everyone has as stress free an exam season as possible.

- Kyle