论文部分内容阅读
我拒绝，以博取同情的方式来赢得奖学金。我拒绝，人们带着异样的目光来看待我所珍视的这一切。
A high school 1)guidance counselor urged me to apply for a college scholarship for people who had “overcome 2)tremendous disadvantages” while pursuing an education. He told me that if I wrote an essay about how difficult it was to grow up with hearing-impaired parents (deaf father, hard-of-hearing mother), I’d be a “3)shoo-in” to win.
“It wasn’t that difficult,” I told him. “I don’t think it’s fair for me to write this.”
“Of course it was difficult,” he said. “You’re just being modest.”
The money was tempting. All I had to do was write a few hundred words about how I always had to interpret for my parents and make phone calls for them. 4)Throw in a couple of 5)weepy 6)one-liners about “lack of a childhood” and “having too much responsibility too soon” and the contest judges would choose me as the winner. The truth is, though, when I look back on my childhood, the things I remember are road trips to 7)the Grand Canyon, the swing set in our backyard, and gathering every night for dinner at six o’clock. I remember my father giving me books to read so that we could have long talks about them when I was finished.
I hate using the word “8)disability” to talk about my parents. Sometimes they were 9)at an advantage: in a noisy restaurant, we were all able to have a pleasant conversation. Often, I considered myself lucky. I was 10)bilingual. I could play my music as loud as I wanted. More importantly, I had two parents who loved and supported me. The way that I want to write about hearing loss is as a small11)component of a larger story. It’s unfair to say that their hearing had no bearing on my childhood, but it wasn’t everything. My parents didn’t take me to the movies. But they did take me to the park, to 12)Girl Scout meetings, and to friends’ houses after school. For everything they were unable to do, there were a thousand things they were able to do.
I never wrote that essay. I wrote about everything except my parents—guys I liked, adventures with friends, 13)Joni Mitchell, college life. That all changed in the summer of 2003. One day I got a phone call from my sister. “Something happened,” she said. “Dad’s been in a car accident. You need to come home.”
I drove 14)90 miles an hour down the highway, daring a cop to give me a ticket. When I got to the hospital I got the story. My father had been turning left and was hit by a man who had run a red light. The car door on the driver’s side was smashed in, leaving my father with three broken ribs, a 15)punctured lung, and a cut on his 16)spleen; but alive, very much alive.
There he was, my dad, my 17)invincible dad, in a hospital bed hooked up to wires and tubes. He was awake, signing, asking for water. Each day he improved, first getting his neck 18)brace off, then having his breathing tubes taken out. The human body is an amazing thing. 19)Reinflate a lung and then it fixes the puncture itself. Drain some blood from around the spleen, and it heals itself.
A 20)Catholic woman in the hospital lobby was counting the beads on her 21)rosary. “Do you pray?” she asked me.
“I’ve been trying to pray all day,” I said. “But I can’t.”
“People pray in many different ways,” she told me. “For me, waking up in the morning is a prayer.”
“People in school used to tell me they would pray for my parents to be able to hear.”
“Is that what you pray for?”
“You shall not insult the deaf,” I thought, recalling a line from the22)Book of Leviticus. “No,” I said. “I pray that they’ll both wake up in the morning.”
I never wrote that essay about how hard my childhood was. Instead, I wrote an essay about how my father didn’t die. The words I hadn’t been able to speak suddenly 23)gushed onto paper. I was grateful and sad and alone all at the same time. My own lungs were reinflated. The cut on my own spleen began to heal. I prayed on paper and watched my father sleep.
一位高中升学辅导顾问曾力劝我申请大学奖学金，那奖学金是为在求学过程中“克服了重大困难”的人而设的。他告诉我说，要是我写一篇关于成长过程中与有听觉障碍的父母（耳聋的父亲，弱听的母亲）一起生活之艰难的文章，我就十拿九稳能赢得奖学金。
“其实我的生活也没那么难，”我告诉他说，“我觉得我写这文章不公平。”
“当然难了，”他说道，“你只是太谦虚罢了。”
那份奖金很吸引人。我所要做的就是写几百字关于我是如何频繁地为双亲当翻译，为他们打电话；还有插入几句催人泪下的俏皮话，说说“缺少正常童年”以及“过早就承担太多责任”等。这样，奖学金的评委就会选择我作为获奖者。不过，事实是，当我回顾我的童年，我记得的是驾车前往大峡谷之旅、架在我们后院的秋千以及每晚六点聚在一起吃晚饭的时光。我记得父亲给书我看，这样在我看完时，我们可以就书的内容进行长谈。
我讨厌用“残疾”这个词来谈论我的父母。有时候，他们还占优势呢：在嘈杂的饭馆里，我们一家人也能够分享一场愉快的对话。很多时候，我觉得自己是幸运的。我会两种语言。我还可以将音乐爱放到多大声都行。更重要的是，我有爱我、支持我的双亲。在我笔下，我希望把听觉损失看作是生活这件大事中的一个细小的组成部分。说他们的听力并没有对我的童年造成影响是有失偏颇的，但那并非童年的全部内容。我的父母不曾带我去看电影，但是他们却在我放学后带我去过公园，去过女童军的聚会以及朋友的家里。相对于他们不能做到的一切，他们有一千件事情是可以做到的。
我一直没有写那篇文章。除了我的父母，我什么都写——我喜欢的男孩、和朋友们的历险、琼尼·米切尔，还有大学的生活。但在2003年夏天，这种情况完全改变了。一天，我收到妹妹的一个电话。“出事了，”她说道，“爸爸出车祸了。你得回家来。”
我冒着警察给我开罚单的危险，以时速90英里在高速公路上飞驰了。当我到达医院的时候，我得知事情的经过。我爸爸当时正向左拐弯，被一个闯红灯的男人撞上了。司机位置的车门被撞瘪了，结果我的父亲断了三条肋骨，肺被刺穿了孔，脾脏被割伤。但是，他还活着，而且还很生猛。
我爸爸，我那无敌的爸爸躺在医院病床上，身上连接着一堆医疗线管。他醒着，示意要喝水。每一天，他都有所好转，先是除去了颈箍，然后是拔去了输气管。人体真是个不可思议的东西。肺部重新膨胀充气，自我修复了穿孔处。排去部分脾脏附近的瘀血，它就自己愈合了。
一名天主教女子在医院的走廊里数着念珠。“你祈祷吗？”她问我。
“我整天都想试着祈祷，”我说，“但我做不到。”
“人们以不同的方式祈祷，”她告诉我说。“对于我来说，祈求能够在早上醒来就是一种。”
“学校里的人常跟我说，他们会为我的父母祈祷，希望他们能够听得见。”
“那是你要祈求的么？”
“不要侮辱失聪人士，”我暗忖，回忆起《利未记》中的一句话来。“不，”我说。“我祈求他们俩都能在早上醒来。”
我一直没有写那篇关于我的童年生活如何艰难的文章。相反，我写了一篇关于我父亲如何活过来的文章。那些我本难以启齿的话突然间跃然纸上。我同时感到既感激又悲伤又孤单。我自己的肺重新膨胀了。我自己脾脏上的伤口开始愈合。我就着纸张祈祷，看着父亲熟睡。
翻译：未几
A high school 1)guidance counselor urged me to apply for a college scholarship for people who had “overcome 2)tremendous disadvantages” while pursuing an education. He told me that if I wrote an essay about how difficult it was to grow up with hearing-impaired parents (deaf father, hard-of-hearing mother), I’d be a “3)shoo-in” to win.
“It wasn’t that difficult,” I told him. “I don’t think it’s fair for me to write this.”
“Of course it was difficult,” he said. “You’re just being modest.”
The money was tempting. All I had to do was write a few hundred words about how I always had to interpret for my parents and make phone calls for them. 4)Throw in a couple of 5)weepy 6)one-liners about “lack of a childhood” and “having too much responsibility too soon” and the contest judges would choose me as the winner. The truth is, though, when I look back on my childhood, the things I remember are road trips to 7)the Grand Canyon, the swing set in our backyard, and gathering every night for dinner at six o’clock. I remember my father giving me books to read so that we could have long talks about them when I was finished.
I hate using the word “8)disability” to talk about my parents. Sometimes they were 9)at an advantage: in a noisy restaurant, we were all able to have a pleasant conversation. Often, I considered myself lucky. I was 10)bilingual. I could play my music as loud as I wanted. More importantly, I had two parents who loved and supported me. The way that I want to write about hearing loss is as a small11)component of a larger story. It’s unfair to say that their hearing had no bearing on my childhood, but it wasn’t everything. My parents didn’t take me to the movies. But they did take me to the park, to 12)Girl Scout meetings, and to friends’ houses after school. For everything they were unable to do, there were a thousand things they were able to do.
I never wrote that essay. I wrote about everything except my parents—guys I liked, adventures with friends, 13)Joni Mitchell, college life. That all changed in the summer of 2003. One day I got a phone call from my sister. “Something happened,” she said. “Dad’s been in a car accident. You need to come home.”
I drove 14)90 miles an hour down the highway, daring a cop to give me a ticket. When I got to the hospital I got the story. My father had been turning left and was hit by a man who had run a red light. The car door on the driver’s side was smashed in, leaving my father with three broken ribs, a 15)punctured lung, and a cut on his 16)spleen; but alive, very much alive.
There he was, my dad, my 17)invincible dad, in a hospital bed hooked up to wires and tubes. He was awake, signing, asking for water. Each day he improved, first getting his neck 18)brace off, then having his breathing tubes taken out. The human body is an amazing thing. 19)Reinflate a lung and then it fixes the puncture itself. Drain some blood from around the spleen, and it heals itself.
A 20)Catholic woman in the hospital lobby was counting the beads on her 21)rosary. “Do you pray?” she asked me.
“I’ve been trying to pray all day,” I said. “But I can’t.”
“People pray in many different ways,” she told me. “For me, waking up in the morning is a prayer.”
“People in school used to tell me they would pray for my parents to be able to hear.”
“Is that what you pray for?”
“You shall not insult the deaf,” I thought, recalling a line from the22)Book of Leviticus. “No,” I said. “I pray that they’ll both wake up in the morning.”
I never wrote that essay about how hard my childhood was. Instead, I wrote an essay about how my father didn’t die. The words I hadn’t been able to speak suddenly 23)gushed onto paper. I was grateful and sad and alone all at the same time. My own lungs were reinflated. The cut on my own spleen began to heal. I prayed on paper and watched my father sleep.
一位高中升学辅导顾问曾力劝我申请大学奖学金，那奖学金是为在求学过程中“克服了重大困难”的人而设的。他告诉我说，要是我写一篇关于成长过程中与有听觉障碍的父母（耳聋的父亲，弱听的母亲）一起生活之艰难的文章，我就十拿九稳能赢得奖学金。
“其实我的生活也没那么难，”我告诉他说，“我觉得我写这文章不公平。”
“当然难了，”他说道，“你只是太谦虚罢了。”
那份奖金很吸引人。我所要做的就是写几百字关于我是如何频繁地为双亲当翻译，为他们打电话；还有插入几句催人泪下的俏皮话，说说“缺少正常童年”以及“过早就承担太多责任”等。这样，奖学金的评委就会选择我作为获奖者。不过，事实是，当我回顾我的童年，我记得的是驾车前往大峡谷之旅、架在我们后院的秋千以及每晚六点聚在一起吃晚饭的时光。我记得父亲给书我看，这样在我看完时，我们可以就书的内容进行长谈。
我讨厌用“残疾”这个词来谈论我的父母。有时候，他们还占优势呢：在嘈杂的饭馆里，我们一家人也能够分享一场愉快的对话。很多时候，我觉得自己是幸运的。我会两种语言。我还可以将音乐爱放到多大声都行。更重要的是，我有爱我、支持我的双亲。在我笔下，我希望把听觉损失看作是生活这件大事中的一个细小的组成部分。说他们的听力并没有对我的童年造成影响是有失偏颇的，但那并非童年的全部内容。我的父母不曾带我去看电影，但是他们却在我放学后带我去过公园，去过女童军的聚会以及朋友的家里。相对于他们不能做到的一切，他们有一千件事情是可以做到的。
我一直没有写那篇文章。除了我的父母，我什么都写——我喜欢的男孩、和朋友们的历险、琼尼·米切尔，还有大学的生活。但在2003年夏天，这种情况完全改变了。一天，我收到妹妹的一个电话。“出事了，”她说道，“爸爸出车祸了。你得回家来。”
我冒着警察给我开罚单的危险，以时速90英里在高速公路上飞驰了。当我到达医院的时候，我得知事情的经过。我爸爸当时正向左拐弯，被一个闯红灯的男人撞上了。司机位置的车门被撞瘪了，结果我的父亲断了三条肋骨，肺被刺穿了孔，脾脏被割伤。但是，他还活着，而且还很生猛。
我爸爸，我那无敌的爸爸躺在医院病床上，身上连接着一堆医疗线管。他醒着，示意要喝水。每一天，他都有所好转，先是除去了颈箍，然后是拔去了输气管。人体真是个不可思议的东西。肺部重新膨胀充气，自我修复了穿孔处。排去部分脾脏附近的瘀血，它就自己愈合了。
一名天主教女子在医院的走廊里数着念珠。“你祈祷吗？”她问我。
“我整天都想试着祈祷，”我说，“但我做不到。”
“人们以不同的方式祈祷，”她告诉我说。“对于我来说，祈求能够在早上醒来就是一种。”
“学校里的人常跟我说，他们会为我的父母祈祷，希望他们能够听得见。”
“那是你要祈求的么？”
“不要侮辱失聪人士，”我暗忖，回忆起《利未记》中的一句话来。“不，”我说。“我祈求他们俩都能在早上醒来。”
我一直没有写那篇关于我的童年生活如何艰难的文章。相反，我写了一篇关于我父亲如何活过来的文章。那些我本难以启齿的话突然间跃然纸上。我同时感到既感激又悲伤又孤单。我自己的肺重新膨胀了。我自己脾脏上的伤口开始愈合。我就着纸张祈祷，看着父亲熟睡。
翻译：未几