综合教程3 翻译 文化

3. No one wanted the humiliation of finishing last in class, so the peer group pressure to work hard was strong. (Para 1)

Peer group pressure is the pressure to conform that people, especially children and young people, often feel from the immediate group of those around them who are of the same age or status.

4. Libraries ... were standing room only until the early hours of the morning, and guys wore the bags under their eyes and their pale, sleepy faces with pride, like medals proving their diligence. (Para 1)

The expression standing room only means there are no more seats available because the place is crowded. This expression is often used in public performances, for sports events and on public transport to mean that you have to stand because the place is packed with people.

Bags under their eyes refer to loose dark areas of skin that you get when you have not had enough sleep. The expression guys wore the bags under their eyes with pride means that the students were proud that their tired appearance showed how hard they had been studying, and the bags under their eyes were like medals.

5. It wasn't always the high flyers with the top grades who knew what they were going to do. (Para 2)

A high flyer refers to someone who has achieved a lot and has the ability and determination to continue to be successful in their studies or job. In university, a high flyer is a top student.

6. Quite often it was the quieter, less impressive students who had the next stages of their life mapped out. (Para 2)

To have something mapped out means to have something that will happen planned in detail.

7. One had landed a job in his brother's advertising firm in Madison Avenue, another had got a script under provisional acceptance in Hollywood. (Para 2)

To land a job means to get a job that you wanted.

Provisional acceptance refers to an acceptance which is arranged (in principle), but is not yet definite. It is temporary and could be changed.

8. The most ambitious student among us was going to work as a party activist at a local level. (Para 2)

A party activist is someone who takes part in activities that are intended to achieve political change, someone who is a member of a political organization.

9. We all saw him ending up in the Senate or in Congress one day. (Para 2) To end up somewhere means to be in a particular place or state after doing something or because of it. Here, a party activist might end up in Congress, as a result of making career progress.

10. But most people were either looking to continue their studies … and then settle down with a family, a mortgage and some hope of promotion. (Para 2)

To look to continue their studies here means to hope or expect to continue their studies—whether they can do so would probably depend on their exam results and grades. You can also look to someone for help, advice or support.

A mortgage is a legal agreement in which you borrow money from a bank or

financial organization in order to buy a house. You pay back your mortgage by making monthly payments, plus interest. Thus, getting a mortgage for many young people means getting a flat or house of their own.

11. I braced myself for some resistance to the idea. (Para 10)

A brace is a piece of wood or metal which supports an object so that it does not fall down. So to brace oneself means to hold oneself together in readiness for something difficult or unpleasant.

12. You don't need to go into a career which pays well just at the moment. (Para 16)

To go into a career means to start working in a particular job, business or career. 13. Several times the crab tried to defy his fellow captives, without luck. (Para 25)

The crab tried to defy the others as it resisted others or refused to obey them when it tried to escape.

The expression without luck means without success, being unable to do what you want.

文化： The Charles River flows past well-known universities (Brandeis, Harvard, Boston, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) into Boston Harbour and it has featured in a number of films, songs and novels. The river used to be known for high levels of pollution but it is cleaner now, and it is much used for rowing and sailing.

Congress, the US Congress, is the legislative branch of the US Federal

Government. Its main function is to make laws. The Senate is the \has 100 elected members, two representatives from each state, who serve for six years. The \House of Representatives, which has 435 elected congressmen. The number representing each state depends on the size of the population. Each state has at least one and California has 53.

We are all dying

1 I have some good news and some bad news for you (as the joke goes). The bad news—and I'm very sorry to be the bearer—is that we are all dying. It's true. I've

checked it out. In fact, I've double- and triple-checked it. I've had it substantiated and, well, there's no easy way to say it, we are dying. It's something that I always kind of knew, but never really chose to think about too much. But the fact is, within the next 70 or 80 years—depending on how old you are and how long you last—we are all going to be either coffin dwellers or trampled ash in the rose garden of some local cemetery. We may not even last that long. After all, we never quite know when the hooded, scythe-carrying, bringer-of-the-last-breath might come-a-calling. It could be sooner than we'd like. I have watched death from the sidelines, quite recently in fact, and nothing underlines the uncertainty and absolute frailty of humanity like the untimely exit of a friend. 2 Scary.

3 Now that I have depressed you, here's the good news. Knowing that we are all budding crypt-kickers takes away all the uncertainty of life. We already know how the

story ends. The prologue and epilogue are already typed in. All that's left is the middle bit and that's down to us. We get to choose the meat of the story.

4 So, all those plans that you have on the back burner, you know, the great things you're going to do with your life \right, I find. It needs to be brought forward and done now, this minute, pronto, in a hurry, as quick as your little legs will carry you. The novel that you want to write, the trip to the Grand Canyon you've always planned to take, your mind's-eye dream-job, the West End play you want to direct—you have to do them now. We're dying, see. It's official.

5 So putting your dreams on the back burner until the circumstances are right

means that they'll probably never be realized. Our only regrets in life are the things we don't do. We owe it to ourselves to go out and do them now before it's too late.

Tomorrow? It's all a lie; there isn't a tomorrow. There's only a promissory note that we are often not in a position to cash. It doesn't even exist. When you wake up in the morning it'll be today again and all the same rules will apply. Tomorrow is just another version of now, an empty field that will remain so unless we start planting some seeds. Your time, which is ticking away as we speak (at about 60 seconds a minute

chronologically; a bit faster if you don't invest your time wisely), will be gone and you'll have nothing to show for it but regret and a rear-view mirror full of \\

6 Have you ever noticed when you go to a buffet restaurant how they give you a bowl the size of a saucer and then say, \only go up once\their main course, we can cram as much into that tiny bowl as we can carry. I love watching people ingeniously stack the cucumber around the side of the bowl—like they're filling a skip—and then cramming it so high that they have to hire a forklift truck to get it back to the table. They're not greedy. They just know that they only have one shot at it.

7 Fill your bowl. We come this way but once so let's make the best of the short stay. Like the once-a-year holiday to Florida or Spain. Fit as much into the short time there as you can. Make sure that you go back home knackered because you got so much done.

8 If you don't want to be a postman then don't be a postman. Give it up and be a painter, a writer, a tobogganist, whatever. Just don't be something that you patently do not want to be.

9 And now is the time, not tomorrow. There is no time like the present. If you can't have what you want this very second the least you can do is start the journey now, this minute, while the inspiration is high. We all have the same amount of minutes, we all get the same 24 hours as Branson and Gates. It's just what we do with our time, how we invest it, that determines where our lives may lead.

10 So what I'm thinking is (and this is not molecular science) if we are dying and our allotted time is finite, why the hell aren't we doing all the things we want to do NOW? What's all this back-burner stuff? And why are we all waiting for the right time when we already know that the right time isn't going to show? The right time is the cheque

that's permanently in the post, it never arrives. It's the girl who keeps us standing at the corner of the Co-op looking like a spanner. No amount of clock watching will change the inevitable. She's stood us up. 11 We wait; the right time never arrives.

12 So I say stop waiting and meet providence halfway. Start filling your life with the riches on offer so that when the reaper arrives, you'll have achieved so much,

crammed your time so full that he'll fall asleep waiting for your life to flash before your eyes.

13 Act now or your time will elapse and you'll end up as a sepia-coloured relative that no one can put a name to in a dusty photo album.

14 Better to leave a biography as thick as a whale omelette than an epitaph. 15 \Joe Smith ... hmmm. He didn't do much, did he?\

我们都在走向死亡

我给你带来一条好消息，还有一条坏消息（正如笑话所说的）。 坏消息是：我们都在走向死亡——很抱歉是我带来了这条坏消息。 这可是真的，我已经核实过了，事实上我已经三番五次地核实过了。 我也找到了证据，可是要说出这个事实实在是不容易，不过我们的确都在走向死亡。 这件事我过去多少知道一点，但不愿过多地去想它。 但事实是，再过70年或80年——这要取决于你现在年龄有多大，寿命有多长——我们都会躺到棺材里，或者变成某个地方公墓玫瑰园里的灰尘，被人践踏。 我们甚至活不到这么老。 毕竟，我们从来就不清楚那位戴着头巾、手持长柄镰刀、命人吐出最后一口气的死神什么时候会来召唤我们，有可能会比我们希望的要早。 其实我最近就曾经从局外人的角度观察过死亡，没有什么比朋友的早逝更能表明人生的无常和生命的脆弱了。

真可怕。

我已经让你够沮丧的了，现在告诉你那条好消息吧：知道了我们都在走向坟墓，我们就不再有人生无常的感觉了。 我们已经知道故事的结局，开场白和尾声也都确定了，剩下的就是介于两者之间的那些事儿了，这些事是我们作得了主的。 我们必须挑选故事情节。

所以，那些被你搁置在一边的计划，即那些“当时机成熟时”你会用生命来完成的伟大事业怎么办呢？可我发现时机永远不会有成熟的时候。 时间必须提前，必须马上行动，就在这一刻，不能拖延，必须赶紧，而且越快越好。 不管是你想写的小说，还是你一直在筹划的去大峡谷的旅行，你心仪的工作，你想导演的伦敦西区话剧，你都必须现在就去做。 知道吗？我们都在走向死亡。 这是已经定了的。

因此，把自己的梦想搁置起来，等到时机成熟之后才开始实现它，这就意味着梦想可能永远都不会实现。 人生的遗憾莫过于还有事情没有做，我们有必要现在就去做这些事，不然就晚了。 明天行吗？明天只是个谎言；根本就没有什么明天，只有一张我们常常无法兑现的期票。 明天甚至压根儿就不存在。 你早上醒来时又是另一个今天了，同样的规则又可以全部套用。 明天只是现在的另一种说法，是一块空地，除非我们开始在那里播种，否则它永远都是空地。 你的时间会流逝（时间就在我们说话的当下嘀嗒嘀嗒地走着，每分钟顺时针走60秒，如果你不能很好地利用它，它会走得更快些），而你没有取得任何成就来证明它的存在，唯独留下遗憾，留下一面后视镜，上面写满了“本可以做”、“本应该做”、“本来会做”的事情。

你是否注意过，自助餐馆里服务员会给你一个茶杯碟大小的碗，并告诉你：“你想盛多少沙拉都可以，但只能盛一次”？生活就像那只盛沙拉的碗，我们可以和那些饥肠