I began learning Spanish in high school in the midwest in the 1990s. My community was experiencing a quiet influx of Spanish speaking people, and I began meeting them, which reinforced my interest in the subject and also gave me an outlet to practice in a more meaningful context. About that time internet instant messaging was growing in popularity and I began finding people to chat with online in Spanish from different countries and I became even more interested. Those experiences led me to major in Spanish at university, and then study abroad, and then move to Spain after graduation to work and deepen my understanding. There I became very interested in teaching as a profession, so I returned to the U.S., got my Master’s in Education and have been teaching, traveling, and learning with Spanish and linguistics as my focus ever since.