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Spanish 101

MAN [ON PA]: Good afternoon, Greendale.

I am your dean with a few corrections

to the fall class catalogue.

Cosmology should be Cosmetology.

Astrology should be Astronomy.

The students on the cover should be smiling,

but that's a matter of opinion.

Whoever is growing a small patch of cannabis

behind the gymnasium,

congratulations, you have won a cruise.

Report to security to claim your tickets.

In order to increase awareness of homelessness,

security has been given binoculars.

In campus news,

the debate over our library's PA system continues,

with some students suggesting its volume be lowered,

while others question its very purpose.

More on that story as it unfolds.

That dude makes a lot of announcements.

I like it. It makes every 10 minutes feel like a new scene of a TV show.

The illusion lasts until someone says something they never say on TV, like how much life is like TV. There, it's gone.

Jeff's running late again.

What a shame. We should get started--

No, I think we should wait for Jeff before we start.

But when Jeff gets here, we could talk to him, as a group, about his tardiness.

Oh, come on now. Don't use that word around Abed.

If you want me to have a chat with Jeff, I'd do it.

We've got a bond going, kind of, sort of like brothers.

Hope your mom didn't make you take baths together.

One of you would have been like 30.

That's funny. Jeff probably comes late so he doesn't have to sit through your tardiness.

Sorry, Abed.

Hey, will you guys have some self-respect?

You are obsessing over someone who does not give you a second thought.

In Guatemala, journalists are being killed by their own government.

What's happening in Guatemala?

Nothing.

Journalists are being murdered?

Every day in that country, people are being killed for speaking out.

The worst part of it is, when it's all over...

Spoilers. ...it's as if it never happened.

Hey, Abed. ABED: Hm?

Real stories, they don't have spoilers.

You understand that TV and life are different, right?

Hey.

[ALL CHEERING]

My lady. My lord.

Hey, baby. Hi, sweetie.

You smell nice. Vitamin P.

Morning, Jeffrey. People were jazzed to see me too.

Word them up. Word them everywhere.

Good entrance. Thank you. It was for you.

Britta. Hey, Jeff.

Think there's something that the group would like to talk to you about.

[ALL SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

Okay. If you're gonna study with people, it would be cool to show up on time.

Oh. Were you waiting? ABED: No.

I just got here. TROY: No.

You guys usually spend the first 20 minutes talking about your interesting lives and your cool emotional problems.

I feel like I never have anything to offer.

BOTH: Ohh. JEFF: No. Truth is, my life is emptier than this three-ring binder.

Annie, do you have any Spanish notes that might fit in there?

Wow. Double-spaced. Thank you.

So, what's a guy gotta do to get a C around here?

[GROUP LAUGHS]

[THE 88'S "AT LEAST IT WAS HERE" PLAYING]

♪ Give me some more Time in a dream ♪

♪ Give me the hope To run out of steam ♪

♪ Somebody said It can be here ♪

♪ We could be roped up Tied up dead in a year ♪

♪ I can't count the reasons I should stay ♪

♪ One by one they all Just fade away ♪

BRITTA: Good study.

ABED: Thanks for good study. See you later.

Hey, you know what today is?

It's the two-week anniversary of my horrible first impression.

There's a card for that? Not specifically.

But if you think of grandsons as metaphors for friendship,

I think you'll agree with this Transformer here that it's time for ours to become a man by reading from the Torah.

You're harmless enough to me.

A life full of ups and downs has given me douche-ray vision.

But those are good people in there, and they trust and respect you, and watching you exploit them bums me out.

Exploit them? They're my friends.

Can I bring your car around?

No, Abed, I don't want you bring my car around.

I'll bring yours around, good guy.

You get going, all right?

You're cute but selfish, and narcissistic to the point of near-delusion.

She said I was cute. Tell you what. You take her.

I have less to prove.

Jeff, you can't pursue people so desperately.

It starts to creep them out.

Why don't we get a beer? I'll give you advice, and we can have what the kids are calling a sausage fest.

I'm not much of a sausage guy, Pierce. Maybe next time.

Next time then.

Hey.

Britta, will you tell us more about Guatemala?

I wanna be political.

That's good. You should discover that stuff on your own.

We need your help. We've been living on the wrong side.

You're like Jodie Foster or Susan Sarandon.

You'd rather keep it real than be likeable.

Can you at least tell us what to Google?

You could start with the journalist Chacata-Panecos.

Wrote an article critical of the government and they killed him.

That's horrible. Can we have a protest?

I wanna protest something.

A candlelight vigil, like lesbians on the news.

I could make brownies.

[BOTH GIGGLE]

Brownies?

Every once in a while, a student will ask:

"Señor Chang, why do you teach Spanish?"

[CHUCKLES]

They say it just like that.

"Why do you teach Spanish?"

Why you.

Why not math?

[STUDENT CLEARS THROAT]

Why not photography?

Why not martial arts?

I mean, surely it must be in my nature to instruct you in something that's ancient and secret like, building a wall that you can see from outer space.

Well, I'll tell you why I teach Spanish.

It is none of your business, okay?

Now, I don't wanna have any conversations about what a

[IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE] mysterious, inscrutable man I am.

[LAUGHING IN HIGH-PITCHED VOICE]

[IN NORMAL VOICE] I am a Spanish genius!

In español my nickname is El Tigre Chino.

[SQUAWKING AND GRUNTING]

Because my knowledge will bite her face off.

So don't question Señor Chang or you'll get bit.

Yeah, bit. Yeah, bit.

Okay, Friday mañana, we'll be having conversations with the rest of the class, using some phrases we learned.

You'll be partnering up in pairs of dos.

Heh.

So if you look under your desk, you will find a card with either a picture or a word on it, okay?

Por ejemplo, Blondie, aqui, has a card with a picture of a house on it.

So that means the person with the card with the word "casa" on it is her partner.

Comprende, Star-Burns?

Okay, see you Friday, find your partners, have a great day.

And what do we say at the end of every class?

[ALL SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

Come on, hands. Ninety percent of Spanish.

[ALL SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

CHANG: Good. Abed, Abed, Abed.

Do you want to trade cards? No.

I'll give you 20 bucks.

No.

Fifty bucks. No.

Don't want money. Want your shirt.

What?

I've had my eye on it since registration.

Fine. Give me your card.

I don't think you understand. I wanna wear it out of here.

Thanks. Gracias. Gracias.

What are the odds?

Are you sure you didn't adjust the odds?

I know Abed's been eyeing that shirt for three weeks.

It's almost like you gave it to him so he would switch cards.

I gave Abed my shirt because I'm not selfish.

Which is I guess you'll discover while we are working on this.

Tomorrow night? Dinner, drinks?

That's something we should discuss with our partners.

Oh, see, I did switch cards.

[♪♪♪]

Can you believe this? What are the odds?

That's a nice shirt. Wanna sell it?

Yes.

PIERCE: What's the moist towelette industry like?

Oh, believe me, it's nothing like the product.

No, it's a hard, dry, large business.

Destroyed all my marriages.

It didn't help any that I can't have children.

I'm not sterile. In fact it's a rare condition called hyper-virility.

My sperm shoot through the egg like bullets. Heh.

Can you believe that? I can't.

But you can, so that's fine.

So the assignment is to write a Spanish conversation using those five phrases-- Ooh.

Hemingway's lemonade.

Don't need to make this a long evening.

What am I, a piece of garbage to you?

What? No.

[CHUCKLES]

Got you. Hey, come on, let's have one drink before we work.

Mm, mm, mm.

To the empowerage of words.

To the irony of that sentence.

So, what's up with you?

It seems like you got a burr up your ass or something.

Well, I guess that it's, uh... I think it's Britta.

Forget Britta. All you have to know about her is her name.

What is she, a water filter? I mean, heh-heh, she's ugly.

Okay.

Why don't we start with me saying, donde--

What the hell are you doing? Our assignment.

Oh, no, no, no.

This is the first time people are gonna see

Winger and Hawthorne together.

We're gonna show them we're to be reckoned with.

Come on, let's brainstorm some story ideas.

Better yet, before we do that, let's ask ourselves...

...what is a story? Oh, my God in heaven.

CROWD [CHANTING]: Guatemala, we hate

Guatemala, we hate

If you like that brownie, you're gonna hate what's going on in Guatemala. Google it.

Oh, hey, hey. Hi.

Raise the truth.

Okay, once it gets dark, I hand out the candles, and we do what's called a speechless protest.

We put tape over our mouths and gather hand in hand in a sea of outraged silence.

[RAP MUSIC PLAYING OVER SPEAKERS]

Star-Burns, no, no.

[MUSIC STOPS]

What's gotten into you? This is not how you do this.

We know it's not how you do it. Because we're doing everything.

But this is tacky and lame.

I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry.

What I meant to say was that this cause is really personal to me.

Are you saying that we're not allowed to protest?

Britta, you sound like Guatemala.

Somebody has a case of "likes to use fringe politics to make themselves feel special but doesn't ever do anything."

Itis. No, I do things. I--

I went to--

I don't do anything.

[♪♪♪]

What can I do?

You can hang the Chacata-Panecos piñata.

You guys realize he was beaten to death?

That's where we got the idea from.

Poignant.

PIERCE: All right.

[SIGHS]

Okay, tell me what I've got so far.

What we have so far?

Well, we have something incredibly long and very confusing, and a little homophobic.

And really, really, specifically, surprisingly and gratuitously critical of Israel.

It's called "Two Conquistadors." Should probably be dos.

I mean, it is Spanish class. Oh, which reminds me.

The only thing not included in this epic are the five phrases required to get me a passing grade.

You're right. Needs more work.

What are you guys doing? I have no idea.

Headed to the demonstration. What, hippies?

Some cause Britta's into. ABED: It's a silent protest, lots of candles. Gets the ladies in the mood for social change.

Good chance to put miles on this shirt.

You realize these conversations are due in the morning?

Oh, yeah. Right.

What do you wanna do?

[BOTH SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

Pfft. Hacks.

Okay, what do we do about the ending of act two?

I'll tell you what we're going to do.

We are gonna take this and we're gonna put it in a museum for crazy people.

Then we're gonna take this and memorize five phrases tomorrow morning before class. Good night.

Wait a minute. You're bailing on our first sausage fest?

This is your definition of friendship?

No, this is my definition of you trying way too hard and me finding it harder and harder to stay polite.

This was a fine way to spend an evening devoid of hope, but the woman I kind of like is out in the moonlight caring about something stupid.

This is my chance to show her that I care enough to act like I care about it too.

That's all you had to say. That was it? Oh.

Would've been great if I had done that two hours ago.

[♪♪♪]

Nice sign. Thanks.

I like what you've done with the place.

I think was a little too harsh on you. I'm not perfect.

I am. I'd be happy to show you the ropes.

PIERCE: Awesome.

Look at awesome Jeffrey Winger.

Too awesome for old Pierce with your hip shirts and your gelled hair and your cool tape over your mouth.

Why is everybody wearing tape over their mouth?

It's a protest, Pierce.

Oh, good.

Because I know what I'd like to protest. How much you hurt me.

Conflicts like these will bring us together as an unlikely family.

You have horrible breath.

You constantly blow me off, then you want me to do your homework.

Then you tell me I'm trying too hard to be your friend so you have to go.

You had to come out here to pretend to care about the stupid stuff she cares about.

His words, not mine. He is paraphrasing.

I got an idea. Why don't you go get a cup of coffee and hold some waitress hostage with a monologue about sperm.

I'll show you some sperm, buddy.

Is this your idea? What the hell? I'm on fire!

No, I'm not ready to die.

[PIERCE SCREAMING]

Oh, he's-- He's--

[WATER SPLASHES] He's jumped in the fountain.

He's fine. WOMAN: Please call 911.

Have you seen it? We did it, girl. Page three.

It's about Pierce, but listen to that paragraph.

"The incident occurred during a protest"

"regarding events in Guatemala." Awareness!

This is a real damn newspaper.

There's a Marmaduke in here.

It's more than I ever accomplished.

Did you know about the ethnic cleansing in Burma?

We need to bust out that brownie mix.

[BOTH SQUEAL THEN GIGGLE]

Morning. Morning.

Oh, no, I get it.

Garfield's wishing me a Arbor Day, you'd like a fresh start.

Nice try. It's actually Secretaries Day.

It says I'm sorry about crashing your protest with that drunken, self-immolating baby boomer.

We don't blame you. Pierce has always been on my watch list.

That dude is crazy. He told me girls have two pee holes.

I sang carols at a nursing home.

I've seen the face of dementia, and last night, I saw it again.

You know what he did that's really crazy?

He offered me a $100 to switch cards with him just so he could be partners with Jeff.

I think he thought getting closer to Jeff would bring him respect in the group.

I think he spent his whole life looking out for himself, and he would trade it all for a shot at some family.

[PIERCE & CHANG SPEAKING INDISTINCTLY]

CHANG: Hola, class. ALL: Hola.

CHANG: Time for our presentations.

First up was supposed to be Jeff and Pierce, but Pierce explained the situation to me.

There was a falling out, things were said, people were betrayed.

[WHISPERING] Wow.

[IN NORMAL VOICE] Jeff, having heard Pierce's side of the story, the only humane thing to do would be to give you a C and let Pierce do his presentation alone.

If that sounds fair to you.

That doesn't sound fair to me at all.

I understand if you don't wanna be my friend.

But this thing that we've created, it is bigger than the both of us, and it deserves to be done right.

[♪♪♪]

All right.

Okay, um, guys, why are there costumes involved?

These are short conversations. They're not supposed to take--

Your breath away?

Well, tough.

You ready, amigo? Si.

[AIMEE MANN'S "WISE UP" PLAYING]

♪ It's not ♪

♪ What you thought ♪

♪ When you first ♪

Began it ♪

♪ You got ♪

♪ What you want ♪

♪ Now you can hardly ♪

♪ Stand it though By now you know ♪

♪ It's not ♪

♪ Going to stop ♪

♪ It's not ♪

♪ Going to stop ♪

♪ It's not ♪

♪ Going to stop ♪

♪ Till you wise up ♪

[INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE]

F, F-minus.

What?

What? Did you say S?

So... that was one of the worst things I have ever seen.

Which I guess makes being a part of it a pretty selfless act.

So I'm impressed.

How do you know I didn't do it just to get another shot at you?

A smart guy like you would know that no woman in that class will be able to look at you as a sexually viable candidate ever again.

[MATT & KIM'S "DAYLIGHT" PLAYING]

No, I know. I thought of that.

She looked back.

Aah!

You did an all right job up there, my friend.

Thanks, Pierce.

PIERCE: You got this thing you do with your face when you're trying to be funny, forces people to think about how cool you think you are.

[PIERCE CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]

[BEATBOXING]

[RAPPING IN SPANISH]

Yeah, boy, boy.

Yeah. What? It's 2009.

Word.