To this day, the very thought of red oak bark tea nauseates me; my mouth still retains that bitter flavor. As a child in a rural community in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, even the threat of home remedies like red oak bark tea was usually sufficient to scare the sickness out of me. Once, when my mother administered powdered alum to my sore throat, I concluded that my family must have had enough of me. They assured me, however, that alum was not supposed to make you gag quite that much.

I never considered becoming a doctor as a child. My family could rarely afford the luxury of proper medical treatment. Thus, unpleasant home remedies were my earliest experiences of healthcare, and I cannot say that they were exactly prepossessing. Nor was my opinion unusual in my environment: in my rural farming town, doctors were the people you went to when all your family remedies had failed, and you couldn’t get out of bed to go to work anymore. Medicine was seen less as a way to improve your quality of life than as an expensive method of postponing the inevitable.

I could not point to a specific date as the day I decided that I wanted to commit my life to medicine. Rather, it was a gradual realization that grew out of my love for biology and my sense that the path I was taking was not meant for me.

Merely attending junior college was an enormous achievement for me, as none of my family had ever graduated from high school. Initially, I intended to earn my associate's degree in biology. Unfortunately, my family’s difficult financial situation prevented me from following my interest in this field, for I soon had to find a full-time job to help out at home. I continued taking classes at night, but unfortunately, no lab courses were offered in the evening. Finally, after four years, I completed the requirements for an associate’s degree in economics. That was when I realized that I wanted to explore biology further. At moments, I even began to think of attending medical school, only to dismiss these daydreams as no more plausible than winning the lottery.

I soon married and entered a very difficult period in my life. Trying to keep my husband happy and my marriage together, after earning my associate's degree I quit the job I had enjoyed since high school graduation. I proceeded to change jobs every six months or so for the next two years before separating from my husband. When I knew there would be no reconciliation, I decided to follow the dream I had put on hold, and I applied to the institution I now attend to study biology. Being a doctor may not have been a lifelong dream for me, but it is my calling.

點評：

該文是寫一名女性為自己的遲來的醫學夢想奮斗的故事。早年對家庭式治療的厭惡，萌生起她對生物學以及醫學的興趣。但礙于家庭環境不得不中止對生物學的學習。經過四的工作與學習，完成了經濟學學位后，面對自己夢想與婚姻的壓力的她最終知道沒法協調二者的關系，最后選擇了去完成自己的夢想，將自己遲來的夢想變成現實。如果中期的折變起伏如果能夠再加得點筆墨，結構將會顯得更有層次。

譯文：

遲來的夢想

至今，這種紅橡木茶的特別想法依然使我感覺到惡心；我口里面依然保留著那種苦澀的口味。作為一個出生在落基山脈山腳下的鄉村的小孩，弱小的我就連像紅橡木茶之類的家庭藥物都足夠把我嚇得作嘔。曾經當我媽媽將粉末狀的明礬放入我疼痛的喉嚨時，我甚至斷定我們家不想要我了。他們向我保證，不無論如何，明礬不會使我作嘔成那樣的。

在小的時候我從來沒有想過去當一名醫生。我的家幾乎不可能承受正常藥物治療的昂貴費用。因而討厭的家庭治療就變成我的最早的家庭保健衛生的體驗。同時我不能說這些治療方式十分有效。這不是我在當地與眾不同的看法。而醫生是當你家里所有的治療方法都無效和你無法再去工作的時候可以去找的人。這樣看來，比起能提高你的生活質量，藥物治療更像是一種推遲醫治可能的昂貴方法。

我不能確定具體是哪天我決定奉獻我的一生到醫學領域。更確切地說，我逐步形成對生物學喜愛的認知和對我選擇的道路不是為自己的感悟。

對于沒有一個成員能從高中畢業的家庭來說，能夠進入高等學校學習是我的一個巨大成就。最初，我打算在生物學方面掙得我的相關學位。不幸地，我家困難的財務狀況阻止了我對這方面的興趣，因為我很快就要找一份全職的工作來幫家里渡過難關。雖然我有上夜校，但不幸的是，那里不提供實驗室課程。終于在四年之后，我完成了一個經濟學相關學位所要求的課程。這時我發覺正是我想更深入探討生物學的時候了。時常，我甚至想申請進入醫學學校，不料消除這些幻想竟和贏彩票一樣不真實。

我很快就結婚了和進入了我生命中的一個非常困難的時期。從我高中畢業取得相關學位后我辭退了我曾經很喜歡的工作，以求嘗試討好丈夫和維持婚姻。大約在離開丈夫前兩年我試著每六個月轉一次工。當我知道我沒有辦法去協調我的家庭和事業，我決定跟著我的已有把握的夢想走，同時我申請到我現在所就讀的生物學院。成為一名醫生不會再成為我終生的一個空想，而是我的職業頭銜。