Villanueva

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The Professor Villanueva is one of the most important characters of the book. His influence while participating the Dunk Tank was an important piece to understand Mauvaise´s transformation. However, the professor's role is more than just that sad spectacle of the tank (not sad because of his Speedos, sad because of the students attitude towards him). Villanueva helps Mauvise to change since the first beginning of the book, when they are debating in class and he is considerate with her, being reasonable when she goes to his office and at the end when he gets implicated on Mauvaise health problems.

However, what concerns this essay is about the chapter 29 at Professor Villanueva office and why the letters "png" on the number. The key to understand what those three letters mean, is to see all the references in the book about the foreign origin of the professor and how he assumes that he is always going to be despised and insulted about it. This is vital to reach the purpose of this essay. Also, it is important to have some knowledge of Latin to guess the meaning of "png".

There are a lot of examples and evidences of the foreign condition of Professor Villanueva. At the beginning of the book, Mauvaise describes how hard it was for her going to class and she uses the argument of the South accent of Villanueva. His Spanish last name supports it too. Moving forward, the crowd yells at him words like illegal immigrant during the Dunk Tank. Finally, after all this another piece of evidence is the acronym LB, Villanueva's son, that corresponds to a very popular name in South America, Lionel.

Considering the nature of the professor, chapter 28 exemplifies how patience and good person professor Villanueva was. He is so nice that it seems a little silly to me. Maybe, he wants to be a martyr. This relates to the abnormality when he lets people get him wet again and again during the Dunk Tank, outside on a cold day, while they are yelling at him. This is not something that a normal person would likely want to experience and much less handle it. The experience of the Tank shows the nature of the professor. It becomes more obvious in chapter 30, when Mauvaise is apologizing about the racist attitude of the other students and the professor says that he is used to it. It seems like he wants to get all the insults and racist actions to him.

Until this point, this is everything on the book that is helpful to guess the meaning of the letters on Professor Villanueva's office. I have to say that I am lucky to have the experience I had when I was little and to remember it. Without this knowledge it would be impossible for me to imagine what "png" refers to. It is one of those things that will are in your mind forever. I believe I will always remember it because of how smart it made me feel.

It was when I was young, during my second course of elementary school.

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