Mark Aquilano:  

To be brief, after leaving UHS in 1988 I purused a degree in piano performance here at the U of A, graduating in 1993. I had to take a reality check and decided against going into developing a piano studio and knew that I wasn't at the level where it made sense to pursue a higher degree, deciding to take a summer off to think through my options. I got a job working in a gift shop at Mt. Rainier, which ended up being 5 months in one of the most beautiful places in North America, with lots of time for getting deep into nature on my own. I visited Seattle a few times while I was up there and really felt drawn to see what I could do living in a new area. I loved Seattle but ended up hating my job at an insurance company. It was very expensive to live there, I had few friends there and was far from family. On top of that my job moved 60 miles south to a drearier corner of Washington. I decided it was time to return. While working part time as a freelance transcriber, I starting taking classes for personal interest and re-connected with my old love of languages. At 26 years old I didn't speak a word of Spanish but thought it would be useful, easy to learn ...Expand for more