I didn’t take French again, didn’t even want to hear it, until a chance meeting with my BFF who was in the same Linguistics 101 class I had signed up for on a lark. I was considering going into teaching Spanish and this was a requirement for the Secondary Education Language Certificate. I just wanted to see if I liked it.
I LOVED Linguistics and etymology. If there had been a career in researching the origin of words, I would have furthered that line of work.
Students were going off to the Peace Corps to teach English and it was a requirement for them. Later, both my BFF and I ended up teaching English as a Second Language too as the schools on both coasts became heavily impacted with refugees and immigrants in the 1980’s. She was taking Linguistics for her Certificate to teach Italian, having studied in Italy and adoring it.
First day of class, my BFF and I hit it off. I know now it was fate and the attraction for me came from her cheery, rosy-cheeked demeanor and her lavish fashion and design sense of how to adorn herself with color, flair and aplomb. Her disposition, I soon observed, was equally enthusiastic, uplifting and notoriously positive. A fun loving, bubbly woman, laced deep as an ocean and warm hearted as a fire in a hearth, I learned over time. She invited me to take French 101 with her which she encouraged was still available and delightful, and I told her I was a bit gun shy and why. My BFF is uber persuasive and a determined person, especially if she feels strongly. She had me meet her at the next appointed session.