EnglishBook 6 Lesson Eight - Eleven.docVIP

Lesson Ten The teacher as Dragon A few semesters ago, in fulfillment of a descriptive paper assignment, I received a student essay describing a high school English teacher. To this day, I vividly recall the image it created. It was of a stout, ham-like body perched atop two trunkish legs that ended in toes having not toenails but yellow, calcified claws (which were always, the student noted, causing damage to hosiery). On top of this lumbering figure was planted a savage, baleful countenance fringed with sparse, kinky, red hair. Behind the inevitable thick-lensed spectacles glared beady porcine eyes whose sole purpose, it seems, was to seek out ne’er- do-wells and inflict on them stinging lashes of shame and guilt. 几个学期以前，在一个完成描述性文章的任务中，我收到了一个学生描写中学英语老师的文章，直到今天，我依然能生动的回忆起学生所创造出的那个老师形象。那是一个矮壮的，像火腿样的身体被安放在两条树干一样的腿上，那双腿是以脚指头结尾，脚指头没有指甲而是黄色的钙化了的爪子（脚爪子总是被学生注意到，因为它总是刺破了袜子）在笨重的身材上被安装了一个凶猛的、大包样的脸，脸的边缘有着稀稀拉拉的红色卷曲刘海。在不可避免的度数很深的透镜后面，瞪着一双小珠子一样黑而亮的猪眼，它的唯一的目的似乎就是找出那些一无是处的人，把令人的痛苦的鞭打施加于他们，让他们感到羞愧和罪恶. The indelible impression I have of the essay (and the woman) is the intricately painted relationship between appearance and character. True , I had emphasized to my students that they describe their subjects along thematic lines, but there was something supernaturally real and uncannily familiar to me about this fire-breathing dragon of an English teacher. I caught, in the reflections of her horn-rims, an image of myself. 我对那文章（和那个女老师）忘不掉的印象是被描述得很复杂的外表和性格间的关系。确实如此，我跟我的学生强调过他们描述对象时要沿着主题线，但是这个喷着火的恐龙一样的英语老师给我（不可思议）超自然的真实，真实、熟悉得让人可怕。在她的角做成的镜框架上我看到了自己的映像。 In appearance I am nothing like her. Where she is shout and stout, I am tall and leaning to the skinny side. Where she wears gaudy and sackish dresses, I wear informal pants and shirts, not unlike those of my students. The closet my hair comes to red are the few rusty strands left over from the chlorine bleach of last summer’s daily swimming. I am blind as a bat, and my prescription is strong—but I dont wear horn-rimmed glasses. And my