博士英语+浙大汉译英练习生活职业.doc

To Serve the Nation: Life is More than a Career 很高兴以多年前职业学校学生的身份站在你们面前，懊恼的是当年我是个非常糟糕的学生。倘若我的中学工艺劳作课老师今天在场，他一定会感到无比自豪，因为在我的所有的中学老师里，只有他相当正确地认为我不会有多大出息──至少在职业教育方面。他曾是我哥哥的老师。我哥哥是工艺劳作上的天才。我至今仍记得当时多么羡慕他的每一件作品。他做过一只精致漂亮的枪盒，给我母亲做过一个希望盒。他给家里做过百叶窗，还有前门台阶上的铁栏杆，做过壁架、工作凳、绘图台，还做过书档、工具柜以及里面的工具，他无所不能，是工艺老师梦寐以求的好学生。 1 I am pleased to stand before you as a vocational student of some years past though a very poor one I am chagrined to admit. My high school industrial arts teacher would be so proud today because he, of all my high school teachers, quite rightfully thought I would not amount to much of anything --- at least not in vocational education. He had been my brother’s teacher and my brother was a genius in industrial arts. I remember envying all of his school projects. He made a magnificent gun cabinet. He made a hope chest for my mother. He made shutters for our windows and iron railings for our front steps. He made wall shelves and work benches and drawing tables. He made book ends and tool cabinets and tools to go in them. There was nothing he could not produce. He was a shop teachers dream. 然后就是我。我想，在两年的工艺课中，我唯一做完的的作品是一只铅皮夸脱量杯(杯子的边还被我不小心开裂了个口子，因此从未盛过一滴液体)，一只漏斗，漏斗的嘴又宽又大，任何东西倒进去都会像春天的雪崩一样一泻而下。还有一只形状骇人的切面包板，在这块板上谁也无法摆好面包切出一片像样的面包片，要做一块谁都猜不出是一块切面包板的面包板可不容易，然而我竟做出来了，尽管我的过去记录不佳，今天我被大会邀请来讲话，这实在令我鼓舞，也会令我的那位老师鼓舞。显然，二十年前我的第一次尝试未曾获得成功，谢谢你们给我第二次机会来赢得你们的尊敬。 2 Then I came along. I think in two years of industrial arts the only things I concluded successfully were a tin quart cup (which I accidentally split down the side and which never held a drop of anything liquid), a funnel which had a spout on it so broad that all materials rushed through with the abandonment of a spring avalanche, and a frightfully shaped breadboard on which no respectable loaf of bread would have been caught dead--- or sliced. It is hard to produce an unrecognizable breadboard on which no respectable loaf of bread would have been caught dead-or sliced. It is hard to produce an unrecognizable breadboard but I di