新发展研究生英语 综合教程 2 教师用书

Part I Understanding and Learning

Text The Art of Friendship

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Stephanie Dolgoff: Stephanie is currently editor-at-large at Parenting. Before that, she was a contributing editor at Real Simple, health director and features director at SELF magazine, and prior to that, executive editor and senior contributing editor at Glamour. She‘s written for The Oprah Magazine, Fitness, Parents, Parenting, Redbook, Seventeen, CosmoGirl, Ladies Home Journal, Prevention, American Photo and many others. For five years she authored a monthly sex column for teens, Ask Anything, for the now defunct YM magazine. Her articles have also appeared in the New York Times and the New York Post. Stephanie has won several awards for her writing, and a section she helped to oversee, SELF magazine‘s 2005 Breast Cancer Handbook, won the ASME award in the category of personal service. Her work has also been published in several books, including The Elephant in the Playroom (Penguin), and The Enlightened Bracketologist (Bloomsbury).

II?????????????????????????????????1. True Friendship: We all have friends. A lot gets talked about friendships. Everyone wants a true friend, and many of us believe that we have a friend who can be called a true friend. After a romantic relationship, friendships are the most important relationships we

Friendship 友谊

Unit 2

can have. Though all of us have family and distant family, most of us rely on friends for advice, comfort and inspiration. How do we define a relation that can be called as true friendship?

A true friend is a little more than a very good friend. A true friend will support you even if it hurts his/her own interest. A true friend will understand your motives and needs and will be with you without any analysis or criticism. A true friend will come forward to help without any request and be with you in need without showing it or expecting anything in return. With a true friend, you can be sure that you will get help to the extent possible by him/her. Nothing will remain unturned. A mother is a true friend of her children. If we share such relations with an adult we can say that we are true friends.

A true friend makes no excuses of having work or appointments or anything but will be with you whenever you need him/her. In your hour of desperation, a true friend will support you even if the whole world opposes you. A true friend is not an opportunist. A true friend means to have someone who is like mother. Instead of having hundreds of good friends, if you have a true friend, treat yourself lucky. If you can also become a true friend of someone, you will be blessed, because it is much easier for all of us to expect but very difficult to give. Be a true friend yourself first.

2. Friendship Day: Human beings are social creatures and have always valued the importance of friends in their lives. To celebrate this noble feeling it was deemed fit to have a day dedicated to friends and friendship. Accordingly, first Sunday of August was declared as a holiday in US in honor of friends by a Proclamation made by U.S. Congress in 1935. Since then, World Friendship Day is being celebrated every year on the first Sunday in August.

This beautiful idea of celebrating Friendship Day was joyfully accepted by several other countries across the world. And today, many countries including India, celebrate the first Sunday of August as Friendship Day every year. Celebrating Friendship Day in a traditional manner, people meet their friends and exchange cards and flowers to honor their friends. Many social and cultural organizations too celebrate the occasion and mark Friendship Day by hosting programs and get together.

3. Midlife Crisis: Midlife crisis is a term coined in 1965 by Elliott Jaques and used in Western societies to describe a period of dramatic self-doubt that is felt by some individuals in the ―middle years‖ of life, as a result of sensing the passing of youth and the imminence of old

新发展研究生英语 综合教程 2 教师用书

age. Sometimes, transitions experienced in these years, such as aging in general, extramarital

affairs, menopause, the death of parents, or children leaving home, can trigger such a crisis. The result may be a desire to make significant changes in core aspects of day to day life or situation, such as in career, marriage, or romantic relationships. Academic research since the 1980s rejects the notion of midlife crisis as a phase that most adults go through. In one study, fewer than 10% of people in the United States had psychological crises due to their age or aging. Personality type and a history of psychological crisis are believed to predispose some people to this ―traditional‖ midlife crisis. People going through this suffer a variety of symptoms and exhibit a disparate range of behaviors. Many middle. aged adults experience major life events that can cause a period of psychological stress or depression, such as the death of a loved one, or a career setback. However, those events could have happened earlier or later in life, making them a ―crisis,‖ but not necessarily a midlife one. In the same study, 15% of middle-aged adults experienced this type of midlife turmoil. Some studies indicate that some cultures may be more sensitive to this phenomenon than others. One study found that there is little evidence that people undergo midlife crises in Japanese and Indian cultures, raising the question of whether a midlife crises is mainly a cultural construct. The authors hypothesized that the ―culture of youth‖ in Western societies accounts for the popularity of the midlife crisis concept there. Researchers have found that midlife is often a time for reflection and reassessment, but this is not always accompanied by the psychological upheaval popularly associated with ―midlife crisis.‖

4. Voice Mail: Voice mail (or voicemail mail, voice-mail, vmail or VMS, sometimes called messagebank) is a centralized system of managing telephone messages for a large group of people. The term is also used more broadly, to denote any system of conveying voice message, including the answering machine.

Voice mail‘s introduction enabled people to leave lengthy, secure and detailed messages in natural voice, working hand-in-hand with corporate phone systems. The adoption of voicemail in corporations improved the flow of communications and saved huge amounts of money.

Voicemail has two main modes of operation: telephone answering and voice messaging. Telephone answering mode answers outside calls and takes a message from any outside caller (either because the extension was busy or rang no-answer). Voice messaging enables any subscriber (someone with a mailbox number) to send messages directly to any or many

Friendship 友谊

Unit 2

subscribers‘ mailboxes without first calling them. 5. Shower: There are bridal shower and baby shower.

A bridal shower is a gift giving party given for a bride before her wedding. The custom originated in the United States. It remains a primarily U.S. and Canadian practice. Showers are usually coordinated by the bridesmaids, who invite guests to offer gifts for the home of the bride and groom (or perhaps more accurately of the bride, since the groom is very seldom invited to the shower).

The custom of the bridal shower is said to have grown out of earlier dowry practices when a poor woman‘s family might not have the money to provide a dowry for her, or when a father refused to give his daughter dowry because he did not approve of the marriage. In such situations, friends of the woman would gather together and bring gifts that would compensate for the dowry and allow her to marry the man of her choice.

Traditionally, a baby shower is held only for the mother-to-be, and only women attend. The original intent was for women to share wisdom and lessons on the art of becoming a mother. However, men are also starting to participate.

Many people choose to have baby showers for both parents, and some people have a men- only shower. In Jewish tradition and Ethiopian tradition, a celebration and gift reception is held only after the birth of a child.

Traditionally, baby showers were given only for the family‘s first child, but over time, it has become more common to hold them for subsequent or adopted children. Even when a shower is held for only the first child, it is not uncommon for a parent to have more than one baby shower, such as one with friends and another with co-workers.

6. Coffee Catch-up: The coffee catch-up corresponds with the Commonwealth terms ―elevenses‖, ―morning tea‖, ―tea break‖, or even just ―tea‖. However people outside the United States increasingly use the term ―coffee break‖. An afternoon coffee break, or afternoon tea, sometimes occurs as well. The coffee break allegedly originated in the late 19th century in Stoughton, Wisconsin with the wives of Norwegian immigrants. The city celebrates this every year with the Stoughton Coffee Break Festival. In 1951, Time noted that ―Since the war, the coffee break has been written into union contracts‖. The term subsequently became popular through a Pan-American Coffee Bureau advertisement campaign of 1952 which urged consumers, ―Give yourself a Coffee-Break — and Get What Coffee Gives to You.‖ Coffee

新发展研究生英语 综合教程 2 教师用书

breaks usually last from 10 to 20 minutes and frequently occur at the end of the first third of

the work shift. In some companies and some civil service, the coffee break may be observed formally at a set hour; in some places a ―cart‖ with hot and cold beverages and cakes, breads and pastries arrives at the same time morning and afternoon, or an employer may contract with an outside caterer for daily service. Gatherings for coffee breaks often take place away from the actual work-area in a designated cafeteria, tea room or outdoor area. As well as a chance for sustenance, the coffee break provides time for gossip and small talk, or a time to smoke a cigarette (thus the alternate term ―smoke break‖. Australians and New Zealanders may also refer to this break from work as smoko). Coffee breaks give workers a chance to wind down slightly and ―re-group‖ for the remaining work of the day.

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1. Nothing was really wrong — my family and I were healthy, my career was busy and

successful — I was just feeling vaguely down and in need of a friend who could raise

my spirits, someone who would meet me for coffee and let me rant until the clouds lifted. (Para. 1): I was in a low mood without any specific reasons: both my family life and my career are O.K. I just want to have a friend who can help me feel better, with whom I can enjoy a cup of coffee and talk freely as I wish so as to feel relieved.

rant (v.): talk or complain in a loud, excited, and rather confused way because you feel

strongly about sth.

e.g. (1) The old man ranted that nobody paid any attention to his opinion.

(2) I suppose Dad will rant and rave when he finds out about the broken window. 2. That?s when it started to dawn on me — lonesomeness was at the root of my dreari-

ness. (Para. 2): It was not until that moment that I began to realize that lonesomeness was

the primary reason for my low mood.

v.): begin to be perceived or understood

dawn (e.g. It dawned on me that I could not make her change her mind.

3. My social life had dwindled to almost nothing, but somehow until that moment

I?d been too busy to notice. (Para. 2): I had hardly had any social interaction with