新视角研究生英语3第二章-好学若饥-谦卑若愚-课文与翻译.docx

好学若饥，谦卑若愚Im honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest Ive ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. Thats it. No big deal. Just three stories.今天，很荣幸来到各位从世界上最好的学校之一毕业的毕业典礼上。我从来没从大学毕业过，说实话，这是我离大学毕业最近的一刻。今天，我想给大家将三个我人生中的故事，就这样，不谈大道理，三个故事就好。The first story is about connecting the dots.第一个故事，是关于人生中的点点滴滴如何串连在一起。I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?我在里德学院只读了六个月就办退学了。而此后在学校里旁听了大约一年半时间，之后才真正离开。那么，我为什么退学？It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife -- except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, Weve got an unexpected baby boy; do you want him? They said, Of course. My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.这得从我出生前讲起。我的亲生母亲当时是个研究生，年轻未婚妈妈，她决定让别人收养我。她强烈觉得应该让有大学毕业的人收养我，所以我出生时，她就准备让我被一对律师夫妇收养。但是这对夫妻到了最后一刻反悔了，他们想收养女孩。所以在等待收养名单上的一对夫妻，我的养父母，在一天半夜里接到一通电话，问他们「有一名意外出生的男孩，你们要认养他吗？」而他们的回答是「当然要」。后来，我的生母发现，我现在的妈妈从来没有大学毕业，我现在的爸爸则连高中毕业也没有。她拒绝在认养文件上做最后签字。直到几个月后，我的养父母保证将来一定会让我上大学，她才让步了。And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six mont