大學(xué)英語綜合教程第二冊 6

[00:00.00] How do some women manage to combine a full-time job with family responsibilities and still find time for doing other things? [00:08.72]Adrienne Popper longs to be like them, but wonders whether it is an impossible dream. [00:15.49]I'M GOING TO BUY THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE Adrienne Popper [00:20.61]Not long ago I received an alumni bulletin from my college. It included a brief item about a former classmate: [00:30.04]"Kate L. teaches part-time at the University of Oklahoma and is assistant principal at County High School. [00:38.71]In her spare time she is finishing her doctoral dissertation and the final drafts of two books, [00:47.12]and she still has time for tennis and horse riding with her daughters. [00:52.40]" Four words in that description undid me: in her spare time. A friend said that [01:02.07]if I believed everything in the report, she had a bridge in Brooklyn she'd like to sell me. [01:08.21]My friend's joke hit home. What an idiot I'd been! [01:13.22]I resolved to stop thinking about Kate's incredible accomplishments [01:18.18]and to be suitably skeptical of such stories in the future. [01:22.91]But like a dieter who devours a whole box of cookies in a moment of weakness, [01:28.89]I found my resolve slipping occasionally. In weak moments I'd comb the pages of newspapers and magazines [01:37.75]And consume success stories by the pound: [01:41.88]My favorite superwomen included a politician's daughter who cared for her two-year-old and a newborn [01:49.82]while finishing law school and managing a company; a practicing pediatrician with ten children of her own; [01:58.99]and a television anchorwoman, mother of two preschoolers, who was studying for a master's degree. [02:07.14]One day, however, I actually met a superwoman face to face. Just before Christmas last year, [02:15.08]my work took me to the office of a woman executive of a national corporation. [02:21.19]Like her supersisters, she has a hus- band, two small children and, according to reports, [02:28.40]a spotless apartment. Her life runs as precisely as a Swiss watch. Since my own schedule rarely succeeds, [02:38.41]her accomplishments fill me with equal amounts of wonder and guilt [02:43.66]On a shelf behind her desk that day were at least a hundred jars of strawberry jam, [02:49.93]gaily fled with red-checked ribbons. The executive and her children had made the jam and decorated the jars, [02:59.51]which she planned to distribute to her staffand visiting clients. [03:04.69]When, I wondered aloud, had she found the time to complete such an impressive holiday project? [03:12.05]I should have known better than to ask. The answer had a familiar ring: in her spare time. [03:20.20]On the train ride home I sat with ajar of strawberry jam in my lap. It reproached me the entire trip. [03:29.68]Other women, it seemed to say, are movers and shakers-- not only during office hours, [03:37.18]but in their spare time as well. What, it asked, do you accomplish inyour spare time? [03:45.57]I would like to report that I am using my extra moments to complete postdoctoral studies in physics, [03:53.20]to develop new theories of tonal harmony for piano and horn, [03:58.42]and to bake cakes and play baseball with my sons. The truth of the matter is, [04:06.31]however, that I am by nature completely unable to get my act together. [04:11.66]No matter how carefully I plan my time, the plan always goes wrong. [04:17.80]If I create schedules of military precision in which several afternoon hours [04:23.71]are given over to the writing of the Great American Novel, the school nurse is sure to phone at exactly the moment [04:32.22]I put pencil to paper. One of my children will have developed a strange illness [04:39.67]that requires him to spend the remainder of the day in bed, [04:43.74]calling me at frequent intervals to bring soup, juice, and tea. [04:49.04]Other days, every item on my schedule will take three times the num- ber of minutes set aside. [04:56.28]The cleaner will misplace my clothes. My order won't be ready at the butcher shop as promised. [05:04.54]The woman ahead of me in the supermarket line will pay for her groceries with a check drawn [05:11.07]on a Martian bank, and only the manager (who has just left for lunch) can OK the matter. [05:19.29]"They also serve who only stand and wait," wrote the poet John Milton, [05:25.36]but he forgot to add that they don't get to be superwomen that way. [05:30.92]Racing the clock every day is such an exhausting effort that when I actually have a few free moments, [05:38.26]I tend to collapse. Mostly I sink into a chair and stare into space while I imagine how lovely life would be [05:46.75]if only I possessed the organizational skills and the energy of my superheroines. In fact, [05:55.11]I waste a good deal of my spare time just worrying about what other women are accomplishing in theirs. [06:02.58]Sometimes I think that these modern fairy tales create as many problems for women [06:08.77]as the old stories that had us biding our time for the day our prince would come2. [06:15.51]Yet superwomen tales continue to charm me. Despite my friend's warning against being taken in, [06:24.10]despite everything I've learned, I find that I'm not only willing, [06:30.97]but positively eager to buy that bridge she mentioned. Why? [06:36.72]I suppose it has something to do with the appeal of an optimistic approach to life [06:42.86]and the fact that extraordinary deeds have been accom- plished by determined individuals [06:49.97]who refused to believe that "you can't" was the final word on their dreams. [06:56.52]Men have generally been assured that achieving their heart's desires would be a piece of cake. [07:02.48]Women, of course, have always believed that we can't have our cake and eat it too -- the old low-dream diett . [07:12.61]Perhaps becoming a superwoman is an impossible dream for me, [07:17.68]but life without that kind of fantasy is as unappealing as a diet with no treats. [07:24.50]I know the idea of admiring a heroine is considered silly today; [07:29.72]we working women are too sophisticated for that. Yet the superwomen I read about are my heroines. [07:38.08]When my faith in myself falters,it is they who urge me on, whispering, "Go for it, lady !" [07:46.39]One of these days I plan to phone my former classmate Kate [07:51.25]and shout "Well done !" into the receiver. I hope she won't be modest about her achievements. [07:58.41]Perhaps she will have completed her dissertation and her two books [08:04.02]and moved on to some new work that's exciting or dangerous or both. I'd like to hear all about it. [08:13.69]After that I'm going to phone the friend who laughed at me for believing all the stories I hear. [08:20.85]Then I'll tell her a story: the tale of a woman [08:24.92]who bought her own version of that bridge in Brooklyn and found that it was a wise investment after all. [08:32.55]Language Sense Enhancement [08:34.98]2 Read aloud the following poem [08:38.79]I Look At Myself In The Mirror Jacki [08:44.09]I look at myself in the mirror,and what do I really see?A woman of forty-seven,or the true essence of me? [08:55.09]I can see me in my twenties,the mother of children galore,and there is me in my thirties,scarred by the loss that I bore [09:06.51]And there is me in my forties,older now,tolerant and wise marked by love and affection,and bags under my eyes [09:18.11]So yes that's me in the mirror,me,as the person I am,and if I'm no more than an image,none of it matters a dam! [09:30.04]3 Read the following quotations.Learn them by heart if you can.You might need to look up new words in a dictionary. [09:40.02]One is not born a woman,one becomes one. Simon de Beauvoir [09:49.22]There is no female mind.The brain is not an organ of sex.As well speak of a female liver. Chalotte Peerkins Gilman [10:02.85]What is a woman I assure you, I do not know I do not believe that anybody can know [10:12.05]until she expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to humar skill. Virqinia Woolf [10:21.85]Men always want to be a woman's first love. [10:27.77]Women have a more subtle instinct: what they like is to be a man's last romance. Oscar Wilde [10:39.56]4 Read the following humorous story for fun. You might need to look up new words in a dictionary [10:49.56]My wife and her friend Raren were talking about their labor-saving devices as they pulled into our driveway. [10:59.25]Karen said, "1 love my new garage-door opener."!I love mine too," my wife reprled;

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