There were about 8 students in the class. About 6 were from South America or Central America and two of us were fresh off the boat RMs that only knew mission Spanish and almost nothing of the history of art & literature from the Spanish-speaking world. This was the only Spanish class I could get into that semester as I tried to get enough credits for a Spanish minor.

The professor was a very "out" lesbian who reminded us of that fact about 4-5 times per class and she regularly bashed the Church. After a few weeks, the other RM and I talked a bit and did not know what the hades was going on....other students would see a painting and go into all this theoretical babble about its meaning, so we decided to just start making crap up, "to me this tree represents life....and this leaf on the ground represents death, while the sun is a mystical force both giving life and causing death..."

The more we did that, the more our grades improved---it was literally a case of the more ridiculous I became, the better it was received.