Unit 1-1
Catching crabs
1 In the fall of our final year, our mood changed. The relaxed atmosphere of the preceding summer semester, the
impromptu ball games, the boating on the Charles River, the late-night parties had disappeared, and we all started to get our heads down, studying late, and attendance at classes rose steeply again. We all sensed we were coming to the end of our stay here, that we would never get a chance like this again, and we became determined not to waste it. Most important of course were the final exams in April and May in the following year. No one wanted the
humiliation of finishing last in class, so the peer group pressure to work hard was strong. Libraries which were once empty after five o'clock in the afternoon 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. 2 But there was something else. At the back of everyone's mind was what we
would do next, when we left university in a few months' time. It wasn't always the high flyers with the top grades who knew what they were going to do. Quite often it was the quieter, less impressive students who had the next stages of their life mapped out. One had landed a job in his brother's advertising firm in Madison Avenue,
another had got a script under provisional acceptance in Hollywood. The most
ambitious student among us was going to work as a party activist at a local level. We all saw him ending up in the Senate or in Congress one day. But most people were either looking to continue their studies, or to make a living with a white-collar job in a bank, local government, or anything which
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抓螃蟹
大学最后一年的秋天，我们的心情变了。 刚刚过去的夏季学期的轻松氛围、即兴球赛、查尔斯河上的泛舟以及深夜晚会都不见了踪影，我们开始埋头学习，苦读到深夜，课堂出勤率再次急剧上升。 我们都觉得在校时间不多了，以后再也不会有这样的学习机会了，所以都下定决心不再虚度光阴。 当然，下一年四五月份的期末考试最为重要。 我们谁都不想考全班倒数第一，那也太丢人了，因此同学们之间的竞争压力特别大。 以前每天下午五点以后，图书馆就空无一人了，现在却要等到天快亮时才会有空座，小伙子们熬夜熬出了眼袋，他们脸色苍白，睡眼惺忪，却很自豪，好像这些都是表彰他们勤奋好学的奖章。
还有别的事情让大家心情焦虑。 每个人都在心里盘算着过几个月毕业离校之后该找份什么样的工作。 并不总是那些心怀抱负、成绩拔尖的高材生才清楚自己将来要做什么，常常是那些平日里默默无闻的同学早早为自己下几个阶段的人生做好了规划。 有位同学在位于麦迪逊大道他哥哥的广告公司得到了一份工作，另一位同学写的电影脚本已经与好莱坞草签了合约。 我们当中野心最大的一位同学准备到地方上当一个政党活动家，我们都预料他最终会当上参议员或国会议员。 但大多数同学不是准备继续深造，就是想在银行、地方政府或其他单位当个白领，希望在20出头的时候能挣到足够多的薪水，过上舒适的生活，
新标准大学英语综合教程3课文与翻译
would pay them enough to have a
comfortable time in their early twenties, and then settle down with a family, a
mortgage and some hope of promotion. 3 I went home at Thanksgiving, and inevitably, my brothers and sisters kept asking me what I was planning to do. I didn't know what to say. Actually, I did know what to say, but I thought they'd probably criticize me, so I told them what everyone else was thinking of doing.
4 My father was watching me but saying nothing. Late in the evening, he invited me to his study. We sat down and he poured us a drink.
5 \ 6 \
7 \asked.
8 My father was a lawyer, and I had
always assumed he wanted me to go to law school, and follow his path through life. So I hesitated.
9 Then I replied, \want to be a writer.\
10 This was not the answer I thought he would expect. Travel? Where? A writer? About what? I braced myself for some resistance to the idea.
11 There was a long silence.
12 \ 13 There was another long silence.
14 \your age.\ 15 I waited.
16 \need to go into a career which pays well just at the moment. You need to find out what you really enjoy now, because if you don't, you won't be successful later.\ 17 \
18 He thought for a moment. Then he said, \
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然后就娶妻生子，贷款买房，期望升职，过安稳日子。
感恩节的时候我回了一趟家，兄弟姐妹们免不了不停地问我毕业后有什么打算，我不知道该说什么。 实际上，我知道该说什么，但我怕他们批评我，所以只对他们说了别人都准备干什么。
父亲看着我，什么也没说。 夜深时，他叫我去他的书房。 我们坐了下来，他给我们俩各倒了杯饮料。
“怎么样？”他问。 “啊，什么怎么样？”
“你毕业后到底想做什么？”他问道。
父亲是一名律师，我一直都认为他想让我去法学院深造，追随他的人生足迹，所以我有点儿犹豫。
过了会儿我回答说：“我想旅行，我想当个作家。”
我想这不是他所期待的答案。 旅行？去哪儿旅行？当作家？写什么呀？我做好了遭到他反对的心理准备。
接着是一段长长的沉默。 “这想法有点意思，”他最后说。 接着又是一段长长的沉默。 “我真有点希望自己在你这个年纪时能做这些事儿。” 我在等他把话说完。
“你还有很多时间，不必急于进入一个暂时报酬高的行业。 你现在要搞清楚自己真正喜欢什么，如果你弄不清楚，以后就不可能成功。”
“那我该怎么办？” 他想了一会儿。 然后他说道：“瞧，现在太晚了。 我们明天早
tomorrow morning, just you and me.
Maybe we can catch some crabs for dinner, and we can talk more.\
19 It was a small motor boat, moored ten minutes away, and my father had owned it for years. Early next morning we set off
along the estuary. We didn't talk much, but enjoyed the sound of the seagulls and the sight of the estuary coastline and the sea beyond.
20 There was no surf on the coastal waters at that time of day, so it was a smooth half-hour ride until my father
switched off the motor. \lucky,\rusty, mesh basket with a rope attached and threw it into the sea.
21 We waited a while, then my father stood up and said, \this,\the deck.
22 Crabs fascinated me. They were so easy to catch. It wasn't just that they
crawled into such an obvious trap, through a small hole in the lid of the basket, but it seemed as if they couldn't be bothered to crawl out again even when you took the lid off. They just sat there, waving their claws at you.
23 The cage was brimming with dozens of soft shell crabs, piled high on top of each other. \wondered aloud to my father.
24 \at that one, there! He's trying to climb out, but every time the other crabs pull him back in,\
25 And we watched. The crab climbed up the mesh towards the lid, and sure enough, just as it reached the top, one of its fellow crabs reached out, clamped its claw onto any available leg, and pulled it back. Several times the crab tried to defy his fellow
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晨乘船出海去，就我们两个。 也许我们能抓点螃蟹当晚餐，我们还可以再谈谈。”
那是一艘小小的机动船，停泊在离我们家约十分钟路程的地方，是好些年前父亲买的。 次日清晨，我们沿着港湾出发，一路上没说多少话，只是默默地欣赏着海鸥的叫声，还有港湾沿岸和远处大海的景色。
在这个时候沿海水域没什么风浪，船平稳地航行了半个小时之后父亲把船停了下来。 他说：“咱们在这儿试试运气吧，”然后抓起一个系上绳子的生了锈的网状篓子抛到海里。
我们等了一会儿，父亲站起来对我说，“来帮我一把。” 于是我们一起将蟹篓子拽上了甲板。
螃蟹让我着迷，它们太容易抓了。 不仅仅是因为它们顺着篓盖上的小孔爬进一个再明显不过的陷阱，更因为即便盖子打开了，它们似乎也懒得从里面爬出来，只会趴在那儿冲你挥动着蟹钳。
篓子里挤满了几十只软壳螃蟹，一只压着一只，堆得老高。 “它们为什么不逃走啊？”我满腹狐疑地问父亲。 “你先观察一下，看那只螃蟹，那儿！它想爬出去，但每次都被同伴拽了回去，”父亲说。
我们接着观察。 那只螃蟹顺着网眼向顶盖攀援，每当它爬到顶盖时，果然就会有另一只螃蟹举起蟹钳夹住它的腿把它拽下来。 这只螃蟹尝试了好几次想挣脱它的狱中同伴，但都没能成功。
新标准大学英语综合教程3课文与翻译
captives, without luck.
26 \starting to get bored with this game.\ 27 Not only did the crab give up its lengthy struggle to escape, but it actually began to help stop other crabs trying to escape. He'd finally chosen an easy way of life.
28 Suddenly I understood why my father had suggested catching crabs that morning. He looked at me. \the others,\figuring out who you are and what you want in life. Look back at the classes you're taking, and think about which ones were most productive for you personally. Then think about what's really important to you, what really interests you, what skills you have. Try to figure out where you want to live, where you want to go, what you want to earn, how you want to work. And if you can't answer these questions now, then take some time to find out. Because if you don't, you'll never be happy.\ 29 He paused.
30 \ 31 \
32 \want to be a writer?\ 33 \
34 \writer in the family,\
35 My father started the motor and we set off back home.
“快看！”父亲说。 “它开始对这种游戏感到不耐烦了。” 那只螃蟹不仅放弃了漫长的逃亡之战，而且还帮着把其他想逃跑的螃蟹拽下来。 它最终选择了一种轻松的活法。
我忽然明白了父亲为什么提议早上来抓螃蟹。 他看着我说：“你可别被别人拽下来哦。 花点时间想想你是哪一类人，你这一生希望得到什么，回顾一下你在大学修的课程，想想有哪些课对你个人来说最有益。 然后再想想什么对你最重要，什么最使你感兴趣，你有什么技能。 琢磨一下你想在哪里生活，你想去哪里，想挣多少钱，想做什么样的工作。 如果你现在不能回答这些问题，你就得花点时间去找出答案。 你不这样做的话，永远都不会幸福的。”
他停顿了一下。 “你想去旅行？”他接着问我。 “对，”我回答说。
“那就去申请护照吧。你想当作家？”
“对。”
“有趣的选择，我们家还没出过作家呢，”他说。 我父亲发动了马达，我们返航回家。
Unit1-2
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-
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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
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 \never quite 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.
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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。