全新版大学进阶英语综合教程二课文+翻译.docx

1、全新版大学进阶英语综合教程二课文+翻译Unit 1After living in the24-hour city of Las Vegas, Nevada for nearly ten years, my family and I decided toslow things down.My daughter wanted a horse.My husband wantedproperty.My son wanted adirt bike.I wanted our family to be moreself-sufficient.None of us felt that this could b

2、eacplishedwhere we were living and we all agreed that a move to the country would be great for everyone.Before long weset aboutlooking for a home in Yucca, Arizona, a very small town of less than 1,000 people.It was while I was scanning listings from our real estateagentthat I firstlearned ofit.Ther

3、e was a home for sale there on 40 acres.When I called toinquireabout the property, I was informed that there was no electricityavailablein the area.What? No electricity? I almost dismissed the idea immediately.The property was off the grid.It was not connectedwhatsoeverto anyutilities power, water o

4、r sewer.Power was supplied by a wind turbine and solar panels.Water had to behauledin and stored in two tankslocatedon the property.Forty acres would give us plenty of room for all of our animals and give my husband and son space to ride theirATVs.Besides, what better way is there to bee more self-s

5、ustainable?After giving it some thought, we decided toput inan offerand moved in onThanksgiving Day.When we first moved to the property, we did some remodeling and stayed in our motor home.We were confronted with real challenges at the time.The power keptgoing out, the main water line to the house b

6、roke,the plumbing backed up into the front yardand the generator died.But thesetbacksjust made us work harder.We slowly got things fixed and moved into the house after 38 days in theRV.The next challenge was tobee familiar withyour powersystem, andto learn theins and outsof hauling your own water an

7、dgeneratingyour own power.Our off-the-grid systemconsists ofeight solar panels (1,000 watts) that are mounted on a sun tracker rack.We also have a wind turbine that generates 3,000 watts in 24 mph winds.The energy generated by the wind and sun is stored in 16 6v golf cart batteries.We also have two

8、2,500-gallon above-ground water tanks and a 250-gallon propane tank.Every weekend, we haul two 275-gallon water tanks to the nearby town of Yucca and fill them with water, which we then pump into our big water tanks.While living here for the past four months has been a bigadjustment, there are many

9、benefits to living off the grid.I think one of the greatest is teaching my kids the importance of conservation.They used totake water, power and gas for granted.The first week we were here, we used almost 1,000 gallons of water.With only a 5,000-gallon water tank, it didnt take them long to understa

10、nd that we had to use less water.We started taking quicker showers, doing only full loads oflaundry, turning off the water while brushing our teeth or shaving.Over-consumption is even more clearly demonstrated by our electricity usage.We have a digital readout of how many volts of DC power we have s

11、tored in our batteries at any given time.If you turn on a light or the TV, the number goes down.In order to protect the batteries, the system is set up to shut the inverter off if the volts get too low.Then the power goes out.When we first moved in, we lost power almost daily.After this happens a fe

12、w times, it bees clear very quickly just how often you waste electricity.Everything from lights and ceiling fans to puters and radios were left on when they were notin use.The cell phone chargers wereplugged in even when they werent charging anything.All of this uses unnecessary power.We are steadil

13、y learning to be morediligentwith our power usage.In addition, we are also trying to make other changes.They include reducing the amount oftrashwe generate byrecyclingand posting, growing our ownorganicvegetables, and reusing and repurposing things that we would normallytoss.We also want to produce

14、our own eggs and goats milk in the near future.Overall, going off the grid has been great for our family.We have learned how to conserve power and water and to reallyappreciatewhat the earth gives to us every day.I hope that once my kids move out of the house, they will keep the habits that they hav

15、e learned by living off the grid.Unit 3I received an email from a reader who asked, “Why do some friendships end,no matter howmuch you want them to last?Shereferred tohaving seen the question in one of my articles,Mysteryof Friendship.As I wrote in it, I dont think easy answers exist as to how frien

16、dships start, why some turn into lifetime ones, and why some end.Although Ive tried answering the first two questions in other articles (To Have A FriendandBe A Friend), I still get surprised by friendships that endure and disillusioned by ones thatslip away.Even so, Ill try to offer someinsightsher

17、e as to why friendships end.My simple answer is that friendships end because the situations friends are in or even the friends themselves change.Others have similar answers.First, the situations friends face may change.The decision to relocate for a new school or jobcannot help butaffecta friendship

18、.Likewise, if a friend is in an accident, develops an illness, or loses someone close, these situations cannot help but affect a friendship.Does a friendship need to end because of these changes?No, but itll require adjustments that one or both friends might not be willing to make.Second, the friend

19、s themselves may change.A significant reason that friendships often end when friends areapartfor anextendedperiod of time (for summer camp, college, etc.) is that one or both of the friends change.I think it hurts less when both friends change,because then the breakup is more oftenmutualand so both

20、friends get closure by both deciding to let go and move forward in their lives without each other.Whattendsto hurt most is when just one friend changes.One friend might change social circles, beeinvolvedin new social organizations, start todate, get a pet, ortake onsome otherventurethatconsumesmore

21、time andpassion.Again, a friendship can endure these changes, unless one or both of the friends for some reason decide not toinvestthe time and energy involved in the adjustment period.(For example, one friend might forget the importance of the friendshipdue tothe high of having a new pet or might f

22、eel that the change is impossible tooverewhen one gets married but the other is still single.)In this situation, breakups may not be mutual and so one or both friends feelbetrayedandend up withbitter memories about what was a precious friendship to them.There are other reasons why friendships end.Fo

23、r example,as much astwo people might want a friendship tosurvive, one or both of them might unintentionallyneglectit.Friendship is often pared to a flower garden.Well, if flowers dont getexposedregularly enough to sunlight and dont get watered enough, flowers will wither and even die.The sameapplies

24、 tofriendship.If week after week passes where plans are made to spend time together but are never honored, perhaps due to taking a friendship for granted,eventually even the closest of friendships mayceasetohave a reason to exist.Conflicts can also cause the end of friendships.If the flower is a fle

25、dgling plant, one blow might destroy it just as sometimes relatively young friendships arent strong enough to endure much conflict.Even those amazing close friendships,where friends love us no matter what our faults are,need carewhen it es toconflicts.Sure, if aflourishingflower gets stepped on, it

26、mightreviveon its own.Moreover, if it gets a little extra special care, itll probablybounce backas if it hadnt ever beeninjured.At the same time, if a flower gets repeatedly trampled on, itll probably eventually break.Especially the friendships thathave been aroundfor a long time can endure storms,

27、and even bee stronger for them, but most friendships have breaking points.Nevertheless, while we can rarely predict at the outset which ones will last, most friendships do enrich us for however short or long theyre a part of our lives.Unit 4In the sleepiness at the end of a library nap, I wasnt sure

28、 where I was.Istretched outmy arm to reach for a human being, but what Igrabbedwas a used copy ofThe Odyssey, the book about going home.My heart ached.It was 2 a.m.The library,flooded withwhite fluorescent light and smelling of musty books and sweaty sneakers, was eerily quiet.My readings seemed end

29、less.I had been admitted into a three-course, yearlong freshmanprogramcalled Directed Studies,dubbedDirectedSuicideby Yalies.It was supposed to introduce us to “the splendors of Western civilization, in the words of thecatalog, by force-feeding the canons of philosophy, literature and history.I want

30、ed very much to study the Western canon, because I knew nothing about it.Yes, McDonalds ads and Madonna posters were plastered on Shanghai streets, but few Western ideasfilteredthrough.We had been informed of Karl Marxs habit of sitting at the samespotin the British Library,for instance, but had rea

31、d none of hisoriginalwords.Western civilization was different,mysteriousand thusalluring.Besides, because I longed to be accepted here, Iyearnedto understand American society.What better way toprehendit than to study the very ideas on which it is based?But at 2 a.m., Iwas tired ofthem all: Homer, Vi

32、rgil, Herodotus and Plato.Their words were dull and the presentations difficult to follow.The professors here do not teach in the same way that teachers in China do.Studying humanities in China meansmemorizingall the “correct, standardinterpretationsgiven during lectures.Here, professors askprovocativequestions and let the students argue, research and write papers on their o