As it turns out, I totally love writing about visual art. Who knew? I certainly didn't, at least not before I took Ye Olde Art Hum with Andrea Renner. All of the expected Art Hum stuff happens: endless slides of Biblical imagery (what's the Annunciation again?), the recitation of fancy art terms like "modeling" and "priming," but all with a fun and enthusiastic instructor who can take her job (teaching you how to talk about art) seriously while not being afraid to make jokes about the "master" artists' tumultuous love lives. Most importantly, Renner holds your writing to an high standard while allowing you an ocean of leeway in developing your own unique arguments. My Art Hum essays were some of the best I wrote this semester, because I felt no pressure to either gauge or regurgitate the instructor's ideas; instead, I was able to use the skills picked up in lecture to describe *my* reaction to and interpretation of various works. Honestly, we spend so much time at Columbia absorbing and analyzing the ideas of others - it's nice to have a truly open opportunity to play around creatively with ideas of one's own during the writing process (and you might just develop a new appreciation for Michelangelo while you're at it).