I am a life-long language learner and teacher, having learned my first "foreign" language when I was five years old. In my kindergarten we had a wonderful German lady who taught French! I thought it was neat how "s'il vous plaît" sounded like "See blue plate." And honestly, that's the same approach I've used ever since!
In seventh grade I was fortunate enough to be at a junior high where four foreign languages were offered, so I took German and Spanish. In high school I took French. At Auburn I majored in Mass Communications, but minored in French and Spanish.
Then after burning out working at a television station, I returned to graduate school at Auburn and got a masters in Hispanic Studies. But was that enough? NOOOOOO!!! I had to go to Tulane and get a doctorate in Spanish, minor in French.
Along the way I've also sampled Latin, Russian, Hebrew and Portuguese. I even watched Shogun six times so I could learn some Japanese!
I've taught full-time at Auburn, Alabama State University, Tulane and the University of South Alabama. Currently I'm teaching an innovative course in Spanish at Spring Hill College in the Lifelong Learning Department. In between all this I was a reporter for the Mobile Register, covering the international trade beat, then religion editor. I still write a column for the quarterly Business Register, as well as free-lancing as a translator and interpreter.