Unit 1
The Story of Steve Jobs
This is the text of the Commencement Address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, at Stanford University, delivered on June 12, 2005. 1 I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 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? 2 It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college 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, "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother later found out 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 someday go to college. This was the start in my life. 3 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 months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trusted that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. 4 Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sanserif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. 5 None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. 6 Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. | 本文是苹果计算机公司和皮克斯动画工作室的首席执行官史蒂夫?乔布斯于2005年6月12日在斯坦福大学毕业典礼上的演讲稿。 1 今天,我很荣幸能来到这所世界顶尖大学参加你们的毕业典礼。我大学没有毕业。说实话,现在是我最接近大学毕业的时刻。我在里德学院读了6个月就退学了,但是作为旁听生又在那里待了18个月左右,然后才真正离开学校。那么我为什么要退学呢? 2 这要从我还没有出生的时候说起。我的生母是个年轻未婚的研究生,因此她决定把我送给别人收养。她觉得我必须由有大学学历的人收养。于是,她安排好了一切,只要我一出生,就把我交给一位律师和他的妻子收养。但是我出生之后,他们在最后一刻决定他们还是想要一个女孩。当时我父母还在候补名单上,一天半夜他们接到一个电话,问他们:“有个新生儿,是意外怀上的,是个男孩,你们要吗?”他们回答:“当然要。”但是,我的生母随后发现我母亲大学没有毕业,我父亲甚至连高中也没毕业,因此拒绝在最后几份领养文件上签字。直到几个月后,我父母承诺将来一定让我上大学,她才同意了。这就是我生命的开始。 3 17年后,我确实上了大学。但是出于无知,我选了一所几乎与斯坦福一样昂贵的学校,因此,工薪阶层的父母把所有积蓄都花在了我的学费上。6个月过去了,我看不到其中的价值所在。我不知道我的人生定位,也不知道大学将如何帮我到答案,而我正在这里耗尽父母一生的积蓄。所以我决定退学,并相信一切都会顺利。这在当时看来非常可怕,但现在回头看看,那是我做过的最棒的决定之一。从退学的那一刻起,我就不用再上那些不感兴趣的必修课,而开始去学那些看上去更有意思的课程。但一切也不全是这么美妙。我没有自己的宿舍,只有在朋友的房间里打地铺;我拣可乐瓶子,把退来的5美分押金攒起来去买吃的;而到了每个周日晚上,我都会步行7英里,穿过城镇去克利须那觉悟会的庙宇饱餐一顿。我喜欢这样。我依照好奇心和直觉做事,大多事后证明是非常值得的。让我给你们举个例子:当当时里德学院开设可能在全国是最好的书法课程。园里的每一张海报、每一个抽屉的每张标签上都有漂亮的书法。 4 因为我已经辍学,不用参加正规的课程,所以我决定去上这门课,学习书法。我了解了衬线和无衬线字体,学会了如何在不同的字母组合间改变间距,知道了如何让大字体显得很漂亮。这种科学所无法捕捉的、美妙的、充满历史感的微妙艺术,让我心醉神迷。 5 这一切在我的生活中是否实用,我不抱希望。直到10年后,当我们在设计第一台麦金托什电脑时,我想起了这些东西。于是,我们把所有这些都设计进了Mac机。这是第一类拥有漂亮字体排版的电脑。如果我没有在大学旁听那门课程,Mac就不会有多种字体以及间距分配合理的字型,很可能现在的微软PC也不会有这些字型——你们要知道,Windows也只是抄袭Mac,并非独创。如果我从未退学,我就绝不会旁听那门书法课,而个人电脑可能也不会有现在这样美妙的字体排版。在大学的时候,我当然不可能把这些点点滴滴都串起来展望未来。但在十年后再回首,一切都变得非常、非常清晰。 6 同样,你们现在也无法预见这类琐碎的经历之间能有什么联系,只有在回首往事时才能发现。你们要相信,这些片断会在未来以某种方式连接起来。你们必须相信一些东西——勇气、命运、人生、因缘等等。这个方法从未让我失望,也正是它改变了我的整个人生。 |
New Words
commencement
[C, usu. sing.] a ceremony at which students receive their academic degrees or diplomas 学位授予典礼,毕业典礼
He made a speech at the commencement.
他在毕业典礼上作了演讲。
We will get our diplomas at the commencement in May or June.
我们将会在五、六月份举行的毕业典礼上拿到毕业证书。
[C, U] beginning 开始,开端
The commencement of this year will be better.
今年将会有一个更好的开始。
Animation
n. [U] 动画制作
n. [C] a film or movie in which drawings of people and animals seem to move 动画片
quit
vi/vt. to leave your job, school, etc. 离开;离校
He got his present job when he quitted/quit the army.
他退伍后到了现在这份工作。
If I don't get a pay raise, I'll quit.
如果不给我加薪,我就不干了。
vi/vt. (informal) to stop doing sth. 停止,戒掉
Quit fooling around!
别胡闹了!
You must quit smoking. Most important of all, you should start taking exercise.
你必须戒烟;最重要的是,你该开始运动了。
biological
a. connected with the processes that take place within living things 生物的;与生命过程有关的
a child's biological parents
孩子的亲生父母
a. connected with the science of biology 生物学
The school has a large biological laboratory.
这所学校有一个很大的生物实验室。
unwed
not married 没有结婚的,未婚的
In 1993 alone, 26,270 babies were born to unwed teens.
仅仅在1993年便有26270名婴儿为未婚少女所生。
adoption
n. [C, U] the act of adopting a child 收养,领养
He was pleased with the adoption of a little girl.
他很高兴收养了一个小女孩.
n. [U] the decision to start using sth. such as an idea, a plan or a name 采纳,采用
The adoption of this policy would relieve the unions of a tremendous burden.
采用这一政策将会减轻工会沉重的负担。
adoptidea是什么意思英语翻译
vt. to take sb. else's child into your family and become its legal parent(s) 收养,领养
vt. to formally accept a suggestion or policy by voting 正式通过,表决采纳(建议、政策等)vt. to start to use a particular method or to show a particular attitude towards sb./sth. 采用(某方法);采取(某态度)
relent
vi. to finally agree to sth. after refusing 终于答应,不再拒绝
Afterwards she relented and let the children stay up late to watch TV.
后来她让步了,让孩子们看会儿电视,晚点再睡。
The police will not relent in their fight against crime.
警方在跟犯罪分子的斗争中决不手软.
vi. to become less determined, strong, etc. 减弱,变缓和
The pressure on us to finish this task will not relent.
为完成此项任务,我们受到的压力不会减轻。
naively
ad. in a naive manner 无知地;天真地
They naively assume things can only get better.
他们天真地以为情况肯定会好转。
scary
a. causing fear or alarm 引起恐慌的
That movie was too scary.
那部电影太吓人了。
stumble
vi. 1) to move or walk in an unsteady way 跌跌撞撞地走,蹒跚而行
A drunk stumbled past us.
有个喝醉的人跌跌撞撞地从我们身边走过。
The tired old man stumbled along.
那位疲惫的老人蹒跚而行。
vi. 2) to hit one's foot against sth. while one is walking or running and almost fall 绊脚
I stumbled over a tree root.
树根绊了我一下。
He stumbled on the staircase and hurt his leg.
他在楼梯上绊了一跤,伤了腿.
intuition
n. 1) [U] the ability to know sth. by using your feelings rather than considering the facts 直觉力
Nobody told me where to find you. It was sheer intuition.
没有人告诉我到哪儿去你。我纯粹是凭直觉到你的。
Intuition told me you were an honest man.
直觉告诉我你是个诚实的人。
n. 2) [C] (一种)直觉
I had a sudden intuition about the missing jewels.
我凭直觉突然知道失踪的珠宝的去向。I had an intuition that we would win at last.
我有一种直觉,那就是我们最终会成功。
calligraphy
n. [U] (the art of producing) beautiful handwriting 书法;书法艺术
I'm considering studying calligraphy or Chinese painting.
我正在考虑要学书法还是国画。
The graphic arts include calligraphy and lithography.
平面造型艺术包括书法和平版印刷术。
calligraph
vt. to produce by means of calligraphy 用美术体书写
serif
n. [U] a short line at the top or bottom of some styles of printed letters 衬线,截线
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