My name is Rebekah Schmidt. I'm down with both Bekah and Rebekah but have never been too fond of Becky. You choose. My interest in linguistics is closely tied to my love for cultural studies. Growing up with my mouth full of spaghetti, I had my heart set on learning Italian. When I got to high school and discovered that Italian wasn't offered, I settled for Spanish not knowing how much I'd come to enjoy it. Eight years later, I'm still getting used to my accent in Spanish and have had the chance to learn Italian while I attended my first two years of college in Italian-speaking, Southern Switzerland. I came back to the U.S. three years ago and began tutoring ESL immediately. Since then, I've become very fascinated with the ways we learn language and how we speak our various first, second, third languages and so on. I'm not certain where exactly I'll go with this college education, but as long as I'm with people, I'll be happy.