She who perseveres in translation, succeeds

Although I have always considered St. Valentine’s day as a mere business date, all of us have felt something special for a person or hobby in a certain moment. Personally, I’m talking about a love at first sight with translation and about the efforts and time focused on obtaining that requited love.

When I studied Secondary Education, I and my classmates took some tests in order to know our personality and above all, to guide ourselves to our professional vocation or the profile that best fitted us. I still remember the day we were delivered the results together with brochures explaining professional disciplines and opportunities. When I reach the Humanistic field, Cupid shot an arrow to me when reading ‘Translation and Interpretation Degree’. At that moment I fell in love with that so interesting guy and I got informed that, in order to approach him, I had to pass a test and have a good level of foreign languages.

The truth is that I was very pleased to meet him briefly, to know that I had to work hard to reach him and to wait impatiently for the moment to start my relationship with this degree. It was with fifteen years old that I knew what to study at University and I was very concerned about getting good marks at High School to access the career. At the time, the career was not offered in the Basque Country and I had the chance to study in an Andalusian city as I had family and house there. Plans often do not turn out as one would like because the university entrance exam got my average score down enough for not being able to go to the university I wanted.  What did I do at that point? I enrolled in English Language and Literature in my town as two years after translation was going to be introduced in the Basque Country and I could access the second cycle. Again, Rome wasn’t built in a day and the career was delayed by one year. By then, I had only one year left to finish my Degree in English Language and decided to complete it and then try to enter into the 3^rd course of Translation.

I was really excited the day I took the access tests, I had been preparing thoroughly with a one-year stay in England and German private tuition. I found the tests endless with a break at noon. I passed all of them, except for the German speaking test, it made me sad… However, I wasn’t discouraged and as I had some savings, I decided to take the tests at Granada University. It seemed to me a prestigious university with good references. I had never visited the city and I loved discovering Granada while I tried to achieve my impossible objective. Do you know what happened this time? To my delight, I passed everything but to my regret, I didn’t have enough points. There were some scales that also helped to move up the list of admissions (being registered as a resident in an Andalusian city, having studied at a University in Andalusia, and so on) and I did not meet some of them.

That summer I decided to stay in the city where I wanted to study years ago: Málaga. I registered with the local council there and I waited another year to try it again. I was sure that third time lucky and that I would be accepted. Oh, how naive. I was very, very close: the second in the reserve list and nobody backed out to leave me a place in that list of privileged students. This time I did thought my devotion for translation was an impossible love and it was there where I considered letting the time pass by. Having started the 1^st course was more reasonable, but spending three years in those tests has weakened my energy and illusion.

I have always heard that things come when you least expect them, right? Well, the same happened to me a year later. When my holidays were around the corner, I was taking a look at Translation Masters in Spain and saw one in which I was interested. I submitted my application by chance and in a wrong way due to lack of time. Imagine the surprise on my face when during my holidays and trying to check my inbox in a London internet cafe, suddenly I saw an email from the University of Salamanca. “I’ve been acceeeeeepteeeed!!.” All people there stared at me at that moment. Surely, they thought I was nutter, excluding I and Cupid. 😉

Indeed, dear friends. She who perseveres in translation, succeeds. Finally, I was able to study Translation for two years and they were some of the best years in my life. I could flirt with my impossible love before working professionally on it. And you, how long or how much effort was implied to achieve your aim?