User blog:CamperThirteen/She rises like the phoenix... or like a zombie

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Emmy really is updating. (You know it's me when I start referring to myself in the third person.)

First of all, my sincerest apologies for disappearing like this. I am aware that I completely disregarded not only my projects but others' that relied on my involvement as well, and I am sorry. I cannot apologize enough for that. All I can say is, I'll get back to it as soon as possible. A new TDA chapter will be published this weekend, I give you my word.

Secondly, I do have my reasons, which can be summed up in one word you should all be able to understand: COLLEGE. (Or University, depending on where you live.) A couple months ago I realized I had two entrance exams to pass if I wanted to become a translator, and I hadn't prepared them at all. I hadn't had any formal training in English since I took my Proficiency exams, and that was at least three years ago. To make things worse, the Spanish part of the test focused on grammar, and I didn't even know what a noun was. So I panicked.

Long story short, I started going to emergency lessons in Spanish grammar, even though most people study it for a year before they go take the exam, and my sole training in English consisted in a couple of lazy translations. I spent my summer studying, panicking, and stressed as I've never been in my entire life. Then the exam day came, and I was an insignificant girl among three hundred people that looked so much more capable than I.

A month passed before I got the results. I thought I'd done reasonably well in the Spanish exam, and well enough in the English one, but I still had nightmares about what could happen if I didn't pass. If anything, the wait was far worse than the preparation part.

Today I went to see the results.

As I approached the board, I could scarcely breathe. I thought I wouldn't be able to make sense out of the words written on the board, as if I'd suddenly gone blind. But my body knew where to look: the moment I turned them to the board, they found my name. I took a long, deep breath, and only then did I check what it said next to it. "English." And right next to that, in big, black, proud letters, "APPROVED."

I'm part of the 10% who passed one of the most difficult entrance exams in the country. And let me tell you, it's a wonderful feeling. Achievements are better than wearing a golden crown on your head: they make you feel powerful, reassured, able, almost majestic. It makes you feel you can do anything you want.

My grammar teacher -- the one who took me in even though it was too late -- had a profound impact on me. She told me that when life closes a door, it means it's opening a different one for you. I understood what she meant then, but I realize now that I understood it as an abstract concept, the way we understand what heartbreak is but we don't know what it's like until we've experienced it.

Now I feel as if someone had handed me the key to my future, and I kept fumbling with it, and putting it on the wrong keylocks. I tried the wrong doors so many times I was beginning to think it was just my way, and this was just the way life was. Today the key fitted perfectly, and the door opened.

I don't know whether I've been able to convey just how important this is to me or whether I only appear like a melodramatic moron, but I needed to write this, both as a young adult (because I can finally apply that term to myself without feeling odd) and as a writer. I can only hope it made some sense.