A happy ending after all...

After having watched telenovelas all semester long, both in class and outside of it, I am beginning to see the world from behind a telenovela lens! Behind every relationship, I see a love triangle. Behind every moment with my twin, an interesting plot to trick, dazzle, and bewilder onlookers with our similarities. Thus, it only makes sense that when we had our final class yesterday night, I viewed it in such a way. As I left Dr. A's house, I pondered to myself: viewing our class as a semester-long telenovela, what sort of ending did we have? Obviously we can throw my telenovela's ending out of the window. Sin tetas no hay paraíso is a sad ending, and ours was anything but. I ending was not a rosa ending either. There was nothing cliche about our last class like there is in the rosa weddings that we saw. After all, in what other class can you eat pizza and tres leches at the professor's house during the last class?? In the end, I decided that Leonardo Padrón's post-modern endings were what best described the way our class ended. In most of the endings that we saw of his novelas, at the end the focus becomes much broader as the audience is allowed to step back and see the novela for what it is: La vida entera ended with cameras, set up crew, and raw production as the last images presented to the viewer. Cosita rica transformed into a 4th-wall breaking theater performance with Padrón himself making an appearance. In a way, this is exactly what occurred for us on Thursday. Having studied every inch of telenovelas during the semester, we were finally able to take a step back and view the completed project through the endings. All of the actors, writers, etc that we met on Skype we saw in action. All of the production, writing, design, directing, etc was right before us. Things were much more clear from this perspective, and I would have it no other way. Thank you again for all that you have done for us Dr. A! This was truly an amazing class, and I have learned SSOO much that I would have never been introduced to as an International Affairs major. The way you ended the semester was brilliant. Maybe Padrón is rubbing off on you too much!