I had to learn how to read. I had to learn how to write. I had to learn how to study. It took me five years to do all that while I earned a Masters in Linguistics, something most people do in two to two and a half years. After that I spent another eighteen months earning another Masters degree, this time in literary translation. The translation coursework finally helped me realize that I wanted to study and translate folktales.
My path has not been a straight one. It required buckets of perseverance and oodles of persistence. I failed more often than I succeeded. If there was a short, quick way to do something, I never found it. I was 57 by the time I had a GPA that was not less than a 3.0. Along with eventually becoming a much better student, I had a few other accomplishments that helped me get a Fulbright-Nehru fellowship, including climbing mountains, building a playground and running a literacy camp.
In high school, I was a pretty good athlete, except in field hockey, where I did not like getting my ankles whacked. I excelled in every other sport girls were allowed to do, which included track and field, cross-country, swimming, gymnastics and basketball. After high school, I ran long-distance road races including marathons and half-marathons; did one mud-run; learned to ice-skate, snorkel, and scuba-dive; do alpine and Nordic skiing, as well as snow-shoeing; went back-packing, and did ten to- fifteen hour long day hikes. Yet, despite having exercised regularly most of my adult life, the first time I hiked the twenty-two mile Mt. Whitney trail, I wanted a bear to put me out of my misery. I was delirious both from exhaustion and altitude sickness.
