Needing two years of a foreign language in high school, I decided to take Italian my freshman year. After all, I am Italian. Showing up for that class proved to be difficult. I figured Spanish was relatively close, so I took that my sophomore year. Different year, same result.
My guidance counselor informed me that although I had already failed Spanish and Italian, that if I was going to graduate high school on time, I had two options - German or Sign Language. As I considered my options and threw my middle digit in the air at the idea of a foreign language, it dawned on me. I could do this sign language thing.
Needless to say, I graduated on time and am fluent in ASL.
The rest, as they say, is history...